>Thanks to those lists I am blocked by 165 people. I don't insult anyone, I don't even swear. I suspect I get on these lists simply by being a white male (which is I guess obvious from my posts).

The reason is obviously not being a "white male" - because there are plenty of white males on Bluesky. If these are the kind of comments you make there it's no wonder people block you.

I don't know what a "soft block" would be, either someone is blocking you or they aren't. Anything that makes curation difficult is doomed to fail because bots and assholes scale exponentially while my time is precious, linear and all too limited. Harsh general mechanisms are sometimes necessary, and no one owes you their time or space.

Apparently I'm blocked by two people. I have absolutely no idea why - maybe it's because I follow Hank Green and he's being cancelled? I barely even use Bluesky. But they have every right to do it and they don't owe me an explanation.