• substill@vlemmy.net
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    1 year ago

    Unless I’m overlooking it, join-lemmy provides no essential info to choosing an instance. It doesn’t display uptime, location, number of users, age, or number of connected instances.

    I used It and ended up on an instance that seemed to be missing many male** communities and was on the other side of the planet from me (though fortunately did not have too many other users). Then I followed a different instance browser and found a much better one for me.

    EDIT: ** was supposed to say major communities, not male communities. But I’m leaving it because

    • ExecutorAxon@vlemmy.netOP
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      1 year ago

      I don’t think most people are going to take that second step though. Most people will look up the main website and choose something from there

      • substill@vlemmy.net
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        1 year ago

        Which is a problem. The onboarding for the fediverse - especially choosing a lemmy instance if that is the direction you want - is way too obtuse right now. Instances are definitely not all equal, and the icon and description are the least useful data points to rely upon.

        • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
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          1 year ago

          All communities exist across the fediverse, it doesn’t matter on which instance you personally are. Or am I missing something?

          • substill@vlemmy.net
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            1 year ago

            Admins / instance owners can control what other instances and communities the local users have access to. And entire instances can be dropped automatically because of long response times.

              • substill@vlemmy.net
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                1 year ago

                This was one of the top instances recommended on join-lemmy, and it couldn’t find top communities from lemmyverse. Out of curiosity, I poked my head back to the instance a second ago, and I see users asking the server owner about it.

                Maybe my experience is rare, but if the instance you choose is going to have a material effect on what instances and communities you can interact with, that’s essential info to choosing a home.

    • BlushedPotatoPlayers@terefere.eu
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      1 year ago

      What’s your take on an optimal instance? I went first for lemmy.world, because I checked a federation map and seemed like a good choice. but it’s getting laggy with the influx, so I found a probably nearby server with cool local content, and only a handful of users. But from here subscription to other instances seems weird, often lemmy.world communities don’t show up in search even with their direct URL

      • BlushedPotatoPlayers@terefere.eu
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        1 year ago

        A funny feature is that I can’t post from the new instance because it would ask for the comment language which can’t be selected from wefwef

      • substill@vlemmy.net
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        1 year ago
        1. Low user numbers
        2. High uptime percentage
        3. Little to no blocked servers and communities
        4. Allows user created communities

        Beyond that, I personally don’t care.