this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2026
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The Fediverse is huge and overwhelming to a newcomer, with many different types and each with servers to pick from. Which ones would you suggest checking out or avoiding?

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Even for things we're excited about, truncating the y-axis is never okay πŸ˜•

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 hours ago

Just browse Join-Lemmy and pick an instance that sticks out and you like the vibe of, with good local communities and decent federation. The only one I truly recommend avoiding is Lemmy.world, due to its size and moderation on some larger communities.

[–] Corporal_Punishment@feddit.uk 3 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

For someone entirely new to this, please ELI5 why it matters?

Entirely at random I signed up at feddit.uk

Does it mean I'm walled off from specific content? Am I in a dead part of the fediverse? And how do I change if I am.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 5 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Okay, so it matters for a few reasons.

  1. Instances have different rules. So you can banned by your own instances local admins for things you might not get banned for on other instances.

  2. If you wanted to make your own community, you'd automatically be hosting it on feddit.uk, so that matters to a degree when it comes to the local culture there.

  3. Instances have their own blocklists. So your instance might be blocking (defederating) another instance that has a lot of users. Or it might just as likely be blocked by another instance. This isn't the case for feddit.uk, which maintains wide federation.

Feddit.uk specifically is a UK based lemmy. If you look up the local communities, you can see that is the geographical/cultural focus.

[–] idyllic@leminal.space 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

^In this same boat, thank you for asking this^

[–] timestatic@feddit.org 2 points 4 hours ago

Why are there so many people coming here allegedly from this chart starting with this year

[–] mathemachristian@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Hexbear, pretty chill community that is overtly pro-LGBTQ and inclusive of all kinds of leftists.

[–] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Well, it depends on what they want. There are different platforms in the fediverse that work very differently. Mastodon and Lemmy/PieFed can interact with each other, but it's always painful. For Lemmy/PieFed I'd recommend they look for an instance that has a local feed that fits their interests. Ideally an instance that is federated with most large instances, otherwise it gets a little too boring.

[–] nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

I joined this one because the main one was defederating a whole bunch of pirate ones and that makes no goddamn sense. thanks πŸ‘

mods will be like hey let's make it so our users can't access stuff. that makes sense. I bet that's what they want. they want to not have access to things. they think it's good

smart and federal

[–] cash@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 hours ago

Liked the name.

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

Blahaj.zone we're chill AF here

[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 9 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

I don't like that you can't downvote, though.

Ah, well that would explain why Voyager kept giving errors every time I tried

[–] Inkstainthebat@pawb.social 1 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Wait what that's not a thing on blahaj??

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 hours ago

Nor on Hexbear, or a few other large instances. In the case of Hexbear and Blahaj, it's to protect queer users from being unfairly downvoted, as well as to encourage discussion over silent downvoting.

[–] Flames5123@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 hours ago

Exactly. I look at downvotes on articles as a kind of fact curator. If an article has 50/50, you know it’s gotta be wrong.

[–] hector@lemmy.today 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Are you though? Not as enlightened as you may think.

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)
[–] hector@lemmy.today 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Moderation should be honest, and without a clear set of rules with an honest way to check it, the fediverse won't displace the big social medias that themselves lose users because of dishonest moderation.

[–] gwl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

What the fuck are you on about?

This feels like you're vagueposting about something entirely unrelated.

Nobody knows wtf you're talking about mate. You just sound unhinged.

[–] hector@lemmy.today 0 points 25 minutes ago

Nobody gives a shit what you, or any of your other bodies, thinks, mate.

[–] Carrot@lemmy.today 7 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

I live in the PNW. I picked an instance in the PNW. Sometimes I see local news, and often I read comments from people within a few hour drive. It's nice to have a small, local community here, while still having access to the rest of the world together. So I guess recommend picking the largest instance in your region if you don't have any other preferences.

[–] hector@lemmy.today 2 points 7 hours ago

The one I am on is from that area, even though I'm in the upper midwest. I just picked it because they don't block anything, didn't defederate any communities or anything. Hands off, fast enough, here to stay they say.

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