A lot of people get hung up on which server to join throughout the fediverse.
On one hand, it matters because you want to choose one that’s fast and reliable, one that has administrators who will tolerate your specific style of discussion (you don’t want to get banned, after all). Maybe you want an instance that’ll block other instances based on certain criteria or won’t block other instances. Maybe you’re concerned about being on an instance that is widely blocked. There’s also other factors, such as themes and which software is running and whether the software is kept reasonably up to date.
On the other hand, some people think that your instance must fully define you. “Oh, but I like gaming so maybe I should join a gaming instance, but I like sports so maybe I should join a sports instance, but I’m gay so maybe I should join an LGBT instance, but I’m a shit poster so maybe I should join a shit poster instance” – in the end, you can follow (mostly, subject to instance blocks) the exact same communities from one instance as the others and participate in the same discussions in the same way.
Imo your best bet is to find something that isn’t the biggest so you’re swarming one guys instance, but isn’t so small it’ll disappear in a week, and thankfully most of the new instances are pretty chill about defederation so there’s only a few instances that are widely blocked.
Myself, I want to run my own services, so that’s what’s important to me. The experience of running a tiny instance (and so almost exclusively getting my posts and communities from elsewhere) has shown me the power of the fediverse, that it doesn’t really matter where you are as long as it works, because it’s all accessible from everywhere.
A lot of people get hung up on which server to join throughout the fediverse.
On one hand, it matters because you want to choose one that’s fast and reliable, one that has administrators who will tolerate your specific style of discussion (you don’t want to get banned, after all). Maybe you want an instance that’ll block other instances based on certain criteria or won’t block other instances. Maybe you’re concerned about being on an instance that is widely blocked. There’s also other factors, such as themes and which software is running and whether the software is kept reasonably up to date.
On the other hand, some people think that your instance must fully define you. “Oh, but I like gaming so maybe I should join a gaming instance, but I like sports so maybe I should join a sports instance, but I’m gay so maybe I should join an LGBT instance, but I’m a shit poster so maybe I should join a shit poster instance” – in the end, you can follow (mostly, subject to instance blocks) the exact same communities from one instance as the others and participate in the same discussions in the same way.
Imo your best bet is to find something that isn’t the biggest so you’re swarming one guys instance, but isn’t so small it’ll disappear in a week, and thankfully most of the new instances are pretty chill about defederation so there’s only a few instances that are widely blocked.
Myself, I want to run my own services, so that’s what’s important to me. The experience of running a tiny instance (and so almost exclusively getting my posts and communities from elsewhere) has shown me the power of the fediverse, that it doesn’t really matter where you are as long as it works, because it’s all accessible from everywhere.