The Fediverse is huge and overwhelming to a newcomer, with many different types and each with servers to pick from. Which ones would you suggest checking out or avoiding?

  • nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    15·
    7 days ago

    I joined this one because the main one was defederating a whole bunch of pirate ones and that makes no goddamn sense. thanks 👍

    mods will be like hey let’s make it so our users can’t access stuff. that makes sense. I bet that’s what they want. they want to not have access to things. they think it’s good

    smart and federal

  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
    143·
    7 days ago

    Just browse Join-Lemmy and pick an instance that sticks out and you like the vibe of, with good local communities and decent federation. The only one I truly recommend avoiding is Lemmy.world, due to its size and moderation on some larger communities.

  • Corporal_Punishment@feddit.ukEnglish
    112·
    7 days ago

    For someone entirely new to this, please ELI5 why it matters?

    Entirely at random I signed up at feddit.uk

    Does it mean I’m walled off from specific content? Am I in a dead part of the fediverse? And how do I change if I am.

    • Skavau@piefed.socialEnglish
      13·
      7 days ago

      Okay, so it matters for a few reasons.

      1. Instances have different rules. So you can banned by your own instances local admins for things you might not get banned for on other instances.

      2. If you wanted to make your own community, you’d automatically be hosting it on feddit.uk, so that matters to a degree when it comes to the local culture there.

      3. Instances have their own blocklists. So your instance might be blocking (defederating) another instance that has a lot of users. Or it might just as likely be blocked by another instance. This isn’t the case for feddit.uk, which maintains wide federation.

      Feddit.uk specifically is a UK based lemmy. If you look up the local communities, you can see that is the geographical/cultural focus.

    • mathemachristian [he/him]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      7·
      6 days ago

      It doesn’t. Pick whatever instance and if another catches your eye make an account there as well. You don’t have to limit yourself to one account on one instance. I started on feddit.de, then lemm.ee now hexbear and use this account to see some posts I wouldn’t from hexbear since they have more of a safe space mentality than this instance

    • how_we_burned@lemmy.zip
      1·
      6 days ago

      Because reddit moderation has become utterly unbearable, insufferable.

      I’ve been using BBSs, newsgroups, MIRC, ICQ, a million ass forums and social media for almost 40 years now.

      I’ve never been banned from anywhere on the net (and before).

      And yet in the last three months I’ve been temp banned 3 times on reddit. All for their AI moderation systems misunderstanding Australian colloquialisms as threatening violence.

      It’s utter bullshit.

      People are leaving reddit as a result.

  • goat@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    4 days ago

    Whatever ones you like. Newcomers don’t know how each instance behaves until they’ve experienced it.

  • goldenlocks@lemmy.world
    2318·
    6 days ago

    +1 for Hexbear, check it out if .world is too liberal for you. This place really feels like reddit, but somehow even more Dem apologist

    • The_Almighty_Walrus@lemmy.world
      6·
      6 days ago

      For me at least, reddits ban bot has gotten way too sensitive and the reviewers don’t actually read the appeal. I got a permaban for “threatening violence” just saying the word “kill” in context of a cat hunting birds, tried to appeal and immediately got a notification that the ban won’t be reversed, because they obviously didn’t read the comment that triggered the ban.

      So now I’m here

  • zaphod@sopuli.xyz
    3·
    7 days ago

    Well, it depends on what they want. There are different platforms in the fediverse that work very differently. Mastodon and Lemmy/PieFed can interact with each other, but it’s always painful. For Lemmy/PieFed I’d recommend they look for an instance that has a local feed that fits their interests. Ideally an instance that is federated with most large instances, otherwise it gets a little too boring.

    • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
      2·
      6 days ago

      Why did you block . world if they’ve been treating you all right?

      I’m sincerely curious for a few reasons

      first of all .world is the only instance that would let me in after I tried multiple times joining numerous other instances that would just buffer forever when I was trying to register and they never sent me confirmation emails, .world was the only one that would let me in.

      But now when I make posts and comments in .world communities, moderators have been removing my posts & comments, they say because I belong to.world 🤯

      Please make this make sense.

      And look, here we are in a .world community. Let’s see how long the moderators let this comment of mine remain 🙄

  • KoboldCoterie@pawb.socialEnglish
    832·
    8 days ago

    Assuming we’re talking about instances we’d recommend to new Fediverse users, I’d recommend against lemmy.world. Not because there’s anything wrong with the instance, but simply because it’s the largest, by a fairly large margin. A central principal of the fediverse is decentralization, and to that end, it’s healthier to spread the users across many instances than to have folks concentrated too heavily on any one.

    • everett@lemmy.ml
      201·
      8 days ago

      A central principal of the fediverse is decentralization, and to that end, it’s healthier to spread the users across many instances than to have folks concentrated too heavily on any one.

      It’s certainly healthier for the whole to have users spread across instances, but that’s a matter of emergence. What’s your pitch to convince an individual to choose a smaller instance, when it’s far more likely that their instance will cease to exist, taking their identity, history and hosted communities with it?

      • Cantaloupe877@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        7·
        8 days ago

        It’s trust and uptime data so it seems. Pick the server you think is most trustworthy and will stand the longest.

    • Cantaloupe877@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      91·
      8 days ago

      I figured joining the biggest one would be the most exciting and active. I believe federation happens when a user on one instance follows another, so joining a smaller one might mean you miss some content. I could be wrong though.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
        51·
        7 days ago

        Lemmy.world is actually defederated from some larger instances, and many smaller ones defederate it for being too dominating.

      • testaccount372920@piefed.zipEnglish
        201·
        8 days ago

        You’re only missing content if your instance defederates from another and vice versa or if you block instances yourself.

        It might be a bit easier to find new communities at first by scrolling through the local feed on a bigger community, but you can also do this without making an account there.

        I think stability and speed of an instance are better selection criteria since they effect your experience much more. Piefed instances tend to offer a smooth and fast experience. E.g. piefed.social, piefed.zip, and the others mentioned in one of the other comments.

        • everett@lemmy.ml
          12·
          8 days ago

          You’re only missing content if your instance defederates from another and vice versa or if you block instances yourself.

          You’re missing content from communities that no one on your instance follows yet.

          • Ada@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
            8·
            8 days ago

            Yep, but piefed and lemmy both have tools to propogate communities to small instances so that they can be discovered and followed. So you won’t see content that no one on the instance is interested in, but if someone is, they’ll be able to find the community for it, even if they’re on a small instance.

        • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
          67·
          8 days ago

          tankies need to be on thier own instances so they can circlejerk each other. politics is problematic in .world, they try to hid subtley calling people antisemtitic

      • PosiePoser@feddit.org
        8·
        7 days ago

        Problem with lemmy.world is that because it’s got so open registration, some instances block it entirely. Though it’s a good place to start and know what to expect. Because Lemmy is pretty slow, I personally prefer to browse All - New and just block all Communities (and instances) that I don’t want to see. I subscribe too of course for those times I just want to see the content I’m actually interested in but for casual browsing, browse by all.

      • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
        7·
        8 days ago

        There are tools nowadays that share communities around to smaller instances through bot accounts that auto subscribe.

        https://lemmy-federate.com/

        It also makes it easier when you create a community, now it will automatically show up on most instances.

      • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
        5·
        7 days ago

        It basically works like that on Mastodon, but on Lemmy, etc. you will see most of the content of all federated instances.

        It’s common for new users to overthink the choice of instance - it doesn’t make a huge difference for most users and you can always switch if you find a better fit in the future.

        You can pick one that is local to your country/region, or if you have a special interest like art or environmental activism, you may be able to find one that specializes in that. Otherwise choose any instance that is stable.