I think your tech suggestion is neat. I think your hope of a thriving Cleveland community on Lemmy is a bit too ambitious at the moment. I’m slightly active in the Minnesota and Twin Cities communities on here, but… they’re pretty quiet communities. The problem you run into is that most users on social media sites like this don’t post. Or they only comment. You need enough people to post so it’s not just one or two people feeling like they’re yelling into a void. The Twin Cities may be slightly smaller than Cleveland, but we’re actually interesting, lol.
I thought blocks were one way - you can’t see anything from the person you blocked, but they can still see your stuff?