Just a side note
The instance you’re on doesn’t really matter very much if you never read the local feed. If you do, you’ll definitely notice the local vibe sooner or later.
If you’re on an instance that is widely defederated, you may also notice that it’s difficult to find communities. Also, people may comment on your instance if it happens to be particularly notorious. The server hardware and bandwidth may also matter in some extreme cases.
Other than that, instances don’t really matter that much.
I’ve tried reading my local and federated feeds but found little value in them. Most posts are either too niche, too uninteresting or just fly straight over my head. Consequently, I prefer to stick with the subscribed feed almost exclusively. That’s where I can reliably find stuff worth my time.
There are some exceptions to this. Blahaj blocks downvotes, for example. You can downvote a post on Blahaj, but people (like me) with accounts on Blahaj cannot downvote nor can they see downvotes. I’m sure there are other instances doing similar things, as it sounds like Lemmy has a robust set of instance settings/options.
That is a good point. Some instances have special rules and settings like that. Sounds a bit rare though. I haven’t heard of many instances that put the extra effort into customizing the experience on that level
The instance matters if you post about anything political. If your instance admins don’t like your posts, they will delete your account. Mods and admins of other instances can only ban you.
To clarify, the instance only matters if that instance is, itself, inherently political (many ARE). There are many other instances which are apolitical and don’t censor posts based on political bias, unless it is especially extreme, but those are exceptions that are explained when it occurs, which is rarely.
It’s my philosophy that going around, uninformed and uninitiated, and even getting burned a few times is a great way, and possibly the best way, to discover where you really belong on Lemmy. I believe it to be a formative and even a necessary experience.
That’s really my advice for how to find the “correct instance for you”. Everyone here got there by trial and error, and I believe it is a formative enough experience that everyone should go through it. Once it became extremely easy to join Reddit, that’s when it started to go to shit.
It is (nearly) impossible to join and participate in Lemmy if you are a tech-illiterate moron. By the very fact that anyone is here means that everyone at least has a middling level of tech literacy and is somewhat intelligent, or else they would not only never have heard of Lemmy, and would not have been able to figure out how to join. Reddit used to be like that, once upon a time.
I took a look at those stats a while back, and the defederation procedure totally goes both ways.
As far as I can tell, bigger instances have bumped into issues that were resolved through defederation. Smaller instances haven’t faced those kinds of problems, so they haven’t defederated with any instances yet.
If all the big instances have defederated your instance, that’s clear sign that there might be something wrong with that place. If your instance has defederated from a bunch of other instances, take a look at the size of that instance before drawing conclusions. For example lemmy.world is a special case and a clear outlier.
Haven’t asked the admins, but here’s my guess.
Being the most well known instance means that you get a lot of traffic. Let’s say that 1% of the people using your instance are annoying morons. In a smaller instance that 1% translates to maybe one ban a month or whatever. In a bigger place, it becomes a constant onslaught stupid idiot bullshit nobody has the time or energy to deal with. Either you get a bunch of admins and mods to deal with that nonsense or you start banning users more aggressively. If that doesn’t help, you may need to look at the instance where those troublemakers come from. If you notice that a particular instance pops up disproportionately often, you might want to consider defederating from it.
However, some part of that drama is public on fediseer. Have a look. Just scroll down to censures given and read the reasons why lemmy.world has defederated from so many instances.
Just a side note
The instance you’re on doesn’t really matter very much if you never read the local feed. If you do, you’ll definitely notice the local vibe sooner or later.
If you’re on an instance that is widely defederated, you may also notice that it’s difficult to find communities. Also, people may comment on your instance if it happens to be particularly notorious. The server hardware and bandwidth may also matter in some extreme cases.
Other than that, instances don’t really matter that much.
Yeah, Ive been on .ml for like 5 years as of writing this and I just browse my subscribed feed. My experience has been great!
I’ve tried reading my local and federated feeds but found little value in them. Most posts are either too niche, too uninteresting or just fly straight over my head. Consequently, I prefer to stick with the subscribed feed almost exclusively. That’s where I can reliably find stuff worth my time.
There are some exceptions to this. Blahaj blocks downvotes, for example. You can downvote a post on Blahaj, but people (like me) with accounts on Blahaj cannot downvote nor can they see downvotes. I’m sure there are other instances doing similar things, as it sounds like Lemmy has a robust set of instance settings/options.
That is a good point. Some instances have special rules and settings like that. Sounds a bit rare though. I haven’t heard of many instances that put the extra effort into customizing the experience on that level
The instance matters if you post about anything political. If your instance admins don’t like your posts, they will delete your account. Mods and admins of other instances can only ban you.
To clarify, the instance only matters if that instance is, itself, inherently political (many ARE). There are many other instances which are apolitical and don’t censor posts based on political bias, unless it is especially extreme, but those are exceptions that are explained when it occurs, which is rarely.
Mostly this is an issue with .ml and .world.
The others will often tell you their bias before you join, often in the name itself.
To be fair, Lemmy.ml does as well, it forces you to copy a section of The Principles of Communism before joining.
It’s my philosophy that going around, uninformed and uninitiated, and even getting burned a few times is a great way, and possibly the best way, to discover where you really belong on Lemmy. I believe it to be a formative and even a necessary experience.
That’s really my advice for how to find the “correct instance for you”. Everyone here got there by trial and error, and I believe it is a formative enough experience that everyone should go through it. Once it became extremely easy to join Reddit, that’s when it started to go to shit.
It is (nearly) impossible to join and participate in Lemmy if you are a tech-illiterate moron. By the very fact that anyone is here means that everyone at least has a middling level of tech literacy and is somewhat intelligent, or else they would not only never have heard of Lemmy, and would not have been able to figure out how to join. Reddit used to be like that, once upon a time.
Or one that widely defederates.
I believe mander is the only instance that has a policy of only defederating illegal content.
In contrast .world has a huge de-federation list.
I took a look at those stats a while back, and the defederation procedure totally goes both ways.
As far as I can tell, bigger instances have bumped into issues that were resolved through defederation. Smaller instances haven’t faced those kinds of problems, so they haven’t defederated with any instances yet.
If all the big instances have defederated your instance, that’s clear sign that there might be something wrong with that place. If your instance has defederated from a bunch of other instances, take a look at the size of that instance before drawing conclusions. For example lemmy.world is a special case and a clear outlier.
Why does Lemmy.world defederate so much?
To maintain an overton window firmly within liberalism. Pre-emptively defederating hexbear “as a last resort” gave the game away.
If this was actually the case, they would’ve been long defederated from ml. That is yet to happen as of now
Haven’t asked the admins, but here’s my guess.
Being the most well known instance means that you get a lot of traffic. Let’s say that 1% of the people using your instance are annoying morons. In a smaller instance that 1% translates to maybe one ban a month or whatever. In a bigger place, it becomes a constant onslaught stupid idiot bullshit nobody has the time or energy to deal with. Either you get a bunch of admins and mods to deal with that nonsense or you start banning users more aggressively. If that doesn’t help, you may need to look at the instance where those troublemakers come from. If you notice that a particular instance pops up disproportionately often, you might want to consider defederating from it.
However, some part of that drama is public on fediseer. Have a look. Just scroll down to censures given and read the reasons why lemmy.world has defederated from so many instances.