[…] it doesn’t remove admins from the equation and users still have to choose an instance to be associated with […]

I think that's a fair point! At any rate, I do agree with you in that I think that users should be completely portable for a truly sustainable federated service.

[…] reaching for it as evidence that I might be confused is such a stretch […]

I suspect this statement is the source of all of this. When I sent this comment, I wasn't trying to do some "gotcha". I thought we were, in a sense, investigating together through documentation to try an find the right answer to the question. From my perspective, you provided an idea of what it could be, and I was trying to work with you to narrow down if that was for sure what we were looking for by providing some documentation that I came across. I wasn't trying to insult your intelligence, or belittle you or your help. I simply thought we were brainstorming together.

[…] you replied to it 9 times. […]

I personally try to keep my responses atomic to the topic.

[…] It’s too late to complain about it now.

I'm not complaining, I just didn't understand what the point was that you were trying to make.

[…] a authoritative-looking post […]

What do you mean by this exactly? Is it synonymous with your usage of "objective resource"?

It reads like you intend for your post to be an objective resource for others to use, but then fall back to it being good enough for your subjective purpose when questioned about it.

First, what do you exactly mean by "objective resource"? Second, what makes you think that it's intended to be an "objective resource"? Are you saying that my use of citations gives you that impression?

If […] I didn’t think your second follow-up question was disingenuous […]

For clarity, it wasn't intended to be disingenuous. I apologize if I gave you that impression. I'm always trying to improve how I interact with others.

That was never my argument. I think you know this. […] Being reluctant to answer any more questions about a topic doesn’t mean I was wrong to provide an initial answer. It just means my bandwidth has been exceeded. […]

Perhaps I misunderstood you. When I read this:

I don’t even use Lemmy, so - in my opinion - you’re asking the wrong question to the wrong person.

I interpreted it to litterally mean that I shouldn't ask you questions about Lemmy because you don't use it. I interpret your statement that you don't use Lemmy to mean that you are less likely to have knowledge about Lemmy because you don't use it.

At any rate, this is moot, as I mentioned above that I cannot know, prior to you telling me, what your experience is. And furthermore, I didn't ask you anything. You volunteered an answer.

[…] Even a voluntary survey is defeating the purpose of avoiding corporate forums. Why are they gathering the data? What are they going to do with it? How can we be assured they’re destroying the data even if we are okay with their goal? Nah. It’s a step in the wrong direction for lemmy as a whole.

I could certainly be misinterpreting, but your statement seems to imply that the census is intended to be non-anonymous and that it won't be publicly released. For clarity, I am proposing a census whose data is anonymously collected, and will be publicly released by the admins once completed. Although, from this statement:

How can we be assured they’re destroying the data even if we are okay with their goal? Nah. It’s a step in the wrong direction for lemmy as a whole.

Perhaps you don't trust that they'll release the data? If so, perhaps there would be a way to publicly host the data live as it comes in?

[…] Why? Because they don’t need to know shit about you, me, or the cookie monster as long as we follow the rules. […]

You specify that they "don't need to know". I was specifically proposing a hypothetical where they only had some level of desire for the data and not a need.

[…] They might want it, but they don’t need it

For clarity, if admins do want (not necessarily need) the survey data, you would still oppose it? If so, why?

[…] Never thought to use a clasp, thats neat.

Ha, yeah, I got annoyed with having to tie a knot on another friendship bracelet I made every time that I wanted to wear it (plus the knot was uncomfortable for me to feel when wearing it), so I decided to just buy a pack of generic clasps and tied them on. Though, I've found through use that they're honestly not the best designed clasps — the opening for the clasp is annoyingly small to fit the ring into, the opening is at an inconvenient angle to easily use for a bracelet (though maybe they're designed for necklaces, I'm not sure), and the spring is a bit too strong to easily pull back with one hand (when attaching a bracelet onto another wrist, one really only has one free hand to work the clasp). But they're better than nothing 😜