Which instances should be recommended on join-lemmy.org?
The instance list has a couple of recommended sites at the top. They are defined in this file and seperated by language. For most languages there is only one recommendation or none at all, so you can simply add yours by making a pull request.
In case of English, the situation is a bit different. The current recommended instances (beehaw.org and sopuli.xyz) are already quite large and would be shown near the top of the list anyway. So it makes sense to recommend smaller instances instead.
To be recommended, an instance should meet these requirements:
It should be a general purpose instance
At least one member of the admin team needs to be in the Instance admin chat to coordinate with other admins
The admin team needs to be prepared for a large influx of users, both in terms of hardware and moderation
We can use this thread to discuss which instances should be recommended. There is no maximum number of recommendations, but it should be an even number to work with the desktop layout.
On a side note, the instance list itself could use many improvements such as showing more details about instances or using different sorting methods. If you are a programmer or web designer, you can contribute to improve the website.
Edit: If you are a Lemmy admin and want your instance to be recommended, go ahead and open a pull request for this file. Developers can also contribute in the same repo to improve join-lemmy.org.
Controversial idea: I think we should remove the "users per month" number on the instance list. It's confusing to newbies and encourages people to join a "large" instance when the number doesn't really correlate with actual server capacity.
Edit: And don't display the ones with 1 or fewer users. They are obviously private single user ones. If someone wants to start a public one, they'll be able to come get 2 or 3 others to join up and they'll pop onto the list.
I think we should add the following criteria to instances at the VERY TOP that are recommended to new users:
The instances does not define an allowed list of instances
Downvotes are enabled
NSFW content is allowed
Users can create new communities
...otherwise new users (eg from reddit) are not going to use lemmy because it won't match their expectations.
Personally, I was pretty disenchanted by my experience on lemmy when I first joined. I had to create accounts on like 5 different instances before I found one that worked (that's why I created the comparison table of lemmy instances).
Most new users won't have that perseverance. If, for example, they see there's no downvotes on the "recommended" instance, they'll probably give up and leave lemmy.
I'm not sure I can add much value to the recommendations themselves, but I do believe the page needs to explain in relatively simply terms that that joining a particular instance isn't necessarily hindering access to any content, otherwise people will generally choose the most populous.
Those are solid requirements to be listed on joinlemmy.org and I would also add another one about moderation policies prohibiting racism, sexism, anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry, Islamophobia, etc. Otherwise, if a user joins an instance that the "official" page recommends and discovers it's racists / sexist / etc, they'll see it as a problem with #lemmy as a whole, as opposed to just one bad instance.
And as we've seen on Mastodon, if a Black user goes to a site where racism is tolerated and quickly encounters racist sh*t, they leave and tell their friends; ditto for trans, queer, Muslim, etc. users having bad initial experiences. Once that happens a bunch of times the reputation becomes hard to shake. Much better to steer people to sites where they're less likely to have a bad experience!
I think something to focus on would be a clean and easy-to-understand explanation of Lemmy and how the instances federate together.
This is still something Mastodon is struggling with when it comes to onboarding.
Even for the technologically minded, it can be a steep curve and there are potentially a lot of other people who will balk at the walls of text and technical jargon.
Obviously, it all can't be fixed overnight, but I feel a lot can be done to improve the onboarding for users without overloading them with information.
Maybe a small step-by-step wizard-style system to help someone find and instance and explain Lemmy in bite-sized chunks of info would be a good first step.
Professionally I'm a UX Designer and Business Design consultant and I'd love to be able to lend expertise to the project!
I'll be submitting my instance to be considered to the recommended list. I've thrown a nice amount of resources at my lemmy instance and i'm pretty excited to see how it will handle the extra load that is expected!
Our server on slrpnk.net can very likely take some more users, but I am pretty new to hosting Lemmy and it's currently only me that has some time to managing the server and approve applications.
So maybe better not to add it directly to the recommended instances list.
I'm happy for people to join my instance vlemmy.net, its got plenty of resources on dedicated hardware so I'm sure it could help out in case of an influx.
The admin team needs to be prepared for a large influx of users, both in terms of hardware and moderation
Reddit has almost half a billion users, so until there is horizontal scaling I would argue no instance is ready.
One criterion i would add is economic viability, Lets look at beehaw, it has about 1000 monthly active users and according to opencollective got about 1000$ this month (for some reason the opencollective page of lemmy can't show this stat), that puts him at the ARPU (active revenue per user) of about 1$ a user which is similar to reddit that has ARPU of about $1.02 (and was much lower in 2021, about 0.5$).
If your goal were wider adoption, having a big "sign up" button (with the server name on/next to it) that links to a random "recommended" general instance could be best. Put a "sign up on a different instance" button next to it, and a list of instances below that.
Of course - that's IF it's your goal.
I think Mastodon does this, but just a static link to mastodon.social instead of randomly rotating it.
Ideally the recommended instances section wouldn't be static. It would put a different instance in prime position for each user that visits... a poor mans load balancing I guess.
I was trying to edit my comment and accidentally deleted it! D'oh!
If your goal were wider adoption, having a big "sign up" button that links to a random "recommended" general instance could be best (with the url/name clearly on the button). Put a "sign up on a different instance" button next to it, and a list of instances below that.
Of course - that's IF it's your goal.
I think Mastodon does this, but just a static link to mastodon.social instead of randomly rotating it.
I've stood up aussie.zone primarily for Australians, but open to anyone. Same as poVoq, its just me at this stage.. but I've disabled community creation.
Everyone has a happy place. To me it is 3D printing and lutherie.
I think it would be cool to have instances that are the equivalent of a subreddit. Okay, perhaps not THAT granular.
I think it is useful to categorize around broad themes. Technology, Nature, Music, Art, Philosophy, etc. Somewhere in the middle is probably the most attractive.
Lemmy is still early enough that nothing has been made de facto. Yes, it is replicating the format of Reddit, but since it is federated, subjects will be naturally duplicated and fractured. That can be good, the best will rise and the rest will fade out. Lemmy can be an improvement instead of an echo of a dying phenomenon riddled with flaws.