One of the challenges for newcomers to Mastodon is that you're faced with a major decision you face when signing up: what server (aka "instance") to choose? Different instances have different focuses: are geographically focused (sfba.social), identity-based (tech.lgbt), interest-based (mastodon.art), professional (infosec.exchange), a group of friends (friend.camp), or even lipogrammatic (oulipo.social, which doesn't allow the letter 'e' in posts). Others are "general purpose", without a specific focus – like mastodon.social, mastodon.ai, and hachyderm.io. The choice isn't irrevocable – you can migrate your account to another instance and keep the list of who you're following and who's following you – but it's still daunting.

Newcomers are often told that it doesn't matter what instance you're on, or encouraged to join mastodon.social (the "flagship" instance, which is the default for mobile apps and spreadmastodon.com). This is really horrible advice, because what instance you're on has a big effect on your experience – and for most people, mastodon.social is not a good place to start.

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[This is an an updated version of the post I originally did last November. I've tried to double-check that the links all still work, please let me know if I missed any!]

@fediverse@lemmy.ml @fediverse@kbin.social #TwitterMigration #Mastodon

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[–] thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

@daveley Great question. A rew reasons:

- mastodon.social's so big that the Local and Federated timelines aren't very useful.

- smaller instances (even if they're not special-interest focused) are more likely to have a good community.

- many other instances have "silenced" mastodon.social (because of its long history of moderation issues -- or just because of the volume), so people on other instances are less likely to connect with you.

All that being said, I wasn't trying to say that mastodon.social was terrible - it's the advice that's horrible. It's just that for most people it's not the best place to start.

@fediverse@lemmy.ml @fediverse@kbin.social

[–] wilbr@glitch.social 1 points 1 year ago

@thenexusofprivacy @daveley @fediverse@lemmy.ml @fediverse@kbin.social also you don't need to have an overriding interest to join a place, like mastodon.art isn't just all art all the time. I don't post about computer stuff super often I'm just at home with computery people. There's a few good Canadian instances for example that may just put you a bit closer to "your community" than a giant global dogpile