The main concern is size and culture of the Instance itself. You can't defederate yourself from your own Instance if it changes, so if you want to be on a small one, make sure the admins plan on staying small.
this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2023
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I wish the instances were more "country" or content oriented. In a sense, the Lemmy NSFW does a really great job...
It'll come. This is just the first blat of stuff people have shit out.
The most important thing is that it should have a moderation approach and community rules that you feel comfortable with.
Next most important thing is there there's existing defederations that you do or don't want. (Example: Do you care if your instance has been defederated by beehaw, meaning you won't see communities from there? Do you care if your instance federates with exploding heads (fascists) or lemmygrad (tankies)?) It's hard to predict what will happen in the future, of course.
Third most important would be the technical stability of the instance itself.
Geolocation might be worth considering. Just browse lemmy from that instance before creating an account and see if it's smooth, in terms of latency.
Language and subject would be of no concern for me. You can subscribe to your communities of interest on any other instance (barring defederation). Some instances even have no communities on their own. There is a slight advantage, you could use the 'Local' tab. I just use 'Subscribed'.
Server administration and federation are probably the most impactful factors.
For administration, read the instance sidebar and check the local community (often called 'meta'). If the admin posts info and updates there, and you like their style, that's great. What you probably want to avoid is an unreliable instance which suddenly goes out of business.
For federation, check the /instances tab of the instance in question. You can also check https://fba.ryona.agency/?domain=lemmy.world for a reverse search ("what other instances block my instance?"). Note, when 'Last seen' is an old date, that probably means the block was lifted.
You can put lots of time and effort into this, but you don't need to. Just go with whatever feels right for you (in terms of instance choice, but also in terms of time and effort invested). You'll most probably be fine with a lucky pick.
It's also possible to have and use several accounts on several instances.
Honest question: does it really matter what instance I pick? Isn't the point of the fediverse that you can see content from all instances?
Each instance is run by different administrators that broadly influence the content on their instance - if the instance you picked to join up with goes bad, it could be defederated from and, on the smaller scale, may have people judging your account for being made there.
I guess it matters in some specific scenarios unless it is easy to migrate your profile from one instance to another.
The scenarios I think about are:
- Geolocation. I guess the closer the instance is to you, the faster the content will load. So the closer the instance, the better.
- Geolocation "blocking". I guess if a instance is in one country and that country's legal system mandates the instance to be blocked, you will lose access to the "fediverse". So, I guess, the more likely the instance is to blocked, the worse.
- Defederation. If for some reason your instance gets "disconnected" from the others, you lose access to the other instances' content. So I guess "reputation" is key here.
- Uptime. Not all instances stay up the same, I guess...
- Instance backend versions. Some clients only connect to specific versions.
But, honestly, even considering the above, I can't comfortably "choose" a instance. That's why I came here for help...