2y ago

PSA: Do not direct people to specific instances on the Fediverse.

You should always direct people to a landing page where they can choose from or be directed to multiple different instances.

https://kbin.pub/en or https://kbin.fediverse.observer/list
https://join-lemmy.org/ or https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/list

You can direct people away from specific instances if, for example, they have been de-federated.

9 comments

I strongly disagree with you. By encouraging a single site, rather than some nebulous part of a community, you take a lot of the decision and strife away, and help to bring new people to your "local" community. Trying to navigate the fediverse as a whole doesn't interest me or a lot of people. Most people online do want monolithic platforms - see the move from IRC servers to ICQ/AIM/MSN/Y!Msgr, then the consolidation on AIM, and now Discord. The same goes with social media. Independent blogs and webrings led to myspace and facebook (and then just Facebook), independent food reviews led to Yelp, independent stores led to ebay & amazon. Forums led to Digg, Digg v4 was the rise of Reddit. People want to centralize into a community.
In spite of how it's sold, the Fediverse doesn't feel like a single community. It feels like a bunch of small towns meeting at the county fair. That's the only way I can describe it. I don't want to read stuff that's happening over there, I want to have stuff happening here. And that's before we get into defederated communities.
- Sounds like a centralized system like reddit is more your thing then. There's plenty of replacements out there like Squabbles that are centralized.
  
  I absolutely would prefer Reddit - as it was under Aaron, before the takeover by Conde Nast/Advance & Spez. I've been on Hacker News, I looked briefly at Tildes. My goal is to be where the single largest user base is, to most effectively consume and communicate from a single group.
I get what you're saying, but I just can't agree. Putting a decision early in the onboarding process when they don't have the context to make an informed decision, it adds a lot of friction. If you are referring friends or members of a community, refer an instance you believe in. If they find out later it doesn't work for them, they can always move. Personally I found choosing an instance upfront put me off from joining lemmy for weeks. And ultimately it wasn't a very important decision in the long run as nothing is guaranteed and you can always move.
- The problem is that you end up with instances that are overloaded or lack the moderating muscle, IE lemmy.world.
  
  Yes, the network effect is known to exist. The community is large, therefore it will continue to grow. On platforms/sites where the community is small, people will stay away, because there must be a reason not to join. Human nature is there opposite of load balancing.
- You are right that there are downsides. But my main concern is load balancing. Part of the reason lemmy.world has been cut off from Beehaw is BECAUSE too many people joined that one instance and now it is out of control.
  
  The question is, are they generating enough content without that external source that it wasn't felt much? If that's the case, then it shouldn't matter. If it isn't, then people will leave and go to where the content is. Frankly speaking, my thought is that the federation should only be on as a backfill or last resort- if you're unable to generate content and discussion organically, import someone else's discussion.

9 comments