I suppose this may make sense in the case of something like Mastodon. But something as versatile and customizable as lemmy, which allows for the existence of separate topic-based communities, makes topic-based instances of lemmy not necessary.
Instead of making a new instance for a certain topic, it is usually a much better approach to just create a new community on my current lemmy instance. At least from my perspective as a user.
I find the only exception to this is censorship and moderation. If I, for any reason am unhappy with an instance’s moderation and censorship, then that is the only potential reason I can see to change and make my own.
What does everyone else think of this?
I do think it’s important for a site to be willing and able to kick moderators who are abusive, especially in a major community. But as for a formal system for reclaiming a community, it would be up to in individual instance’s staff.
There are struggles with a voting system in a pseudonymous environment like this site: how do you enforce identity? How can you detect if 5 accounts are actually just me and my sockpuppets? And how can you do that without making life horrible for people who want to stay private with tools like proxies and anti-trackers? It’s possible to mitigate some of these problems but it’s not an easy task once a community grows, and can involve compromise.
In a smaller site like this, raising complaints to the instance staff or on a /c/meta like community is a good first step and can be very effective if the case is strong.