Depends on what you’re looking for. Each instance has a general vibe of user, so while .world may be good for someone, .ml may be good for another, and beehaw.org may be good for another, and so forth! .world is generally a generalist instance, but ironically because people with more specific interests are already on more specified instances, .world is more likely to house people that don’t fit well into other servers, paradoxically creating a type and it’s own unique vibe.
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BothsidesistFraud@lemmy.world 3 months agoThanks. Is lemmy.world the best instance for general discussion?
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
TechLich@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Best is very subjective.
.world is a good general purpose instance for just about anything. I think it has the biggest population at the moment, so communities there are likely to get at least some engagement.
For “general discussion” it doesn’t really matter. The instances are federated so you’ll likely get general discussion in comments from lots of people from lots of instances anyway, wherever your community is based.
Some people get almost nationalistic about their chosen instances or have grudges against people from certain other instances. There’s sometimes inter-instance politics with some servers defederating with others or threatening to for various reasons. It’s kinda fun to watch in a popcorn drama kind of way. For the most part, the instance doesn’t matter.
Nemo@midwest.social 3 months ago
No, probably mander.xyz. .world is plagued by bots and trolls and a lot of uses block it outright.
gedaliyah@lemmy.world 3 months ago
In my opinion, the major difference between instances is moderation practices. There may also be technical aspects such as down time or frequency of updates that may affect your experience.
I find that lemmy.world has well balanced moderation. They don’t allow spam or abuse, and they’re not pushing an agenda.
It’s a good place to start.
Rooki@lemmy.world 3 months ago
We try to do our best in that. We try to keep us out of community matter. We know its YOUR community. Of course sometimes, it requires admin intervention but only if we see urgent matter, otherwise we want to talk to the mods first for their point of view.
We have a discord server for better communication too. discord.gg/TnqAFsdgy4 and a matrix space too: matrix.to/#/#space:lemmy.world
BothsidesistFraud@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Good to know! Are there other Fediverse sites with different moderation practices? Like what’s an example of one with a VERY strict policy, and what’s an example of one with a very loose policy?
gedaliyah@lemmy.world 3 months ago
For example, beehaw.org is known for more strict moderation. It’s a very positive place in my opinion, but there’s a trade off that not as many different voices are tolerated. There are also some like lemmyNSFW.com that let users post/say whatever they want as long as it’s legal.
BothsidesistFraud@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Cool. Can I ask you one more question? Can I comment on Beehaw (or lemmyNSFW, but I’m at work so not going there right now) using this account I have at lemmy.world? The reason I ask is, I see that I can comment on other lemmies (e.g. lemmy.ml) using this account, but only if I find them through lemmy.world’s communities|All tab. But I don’t see Beehaw there.
Or more basically, in general for another instance running Lemmy, how do I access it using this account at lemmy.world?
Thanks so much…
loobkoob@kbin.social 3 months ago
Is also worth noting that it's not just the moderation practices of your instance that affects your experience, it's also how other instances perceive your instance. Hexbear, for example, is an instance filled with "tankies" and a lot of other fediverse instances don't agree with them or their values and choose to defederate from them. So a Hexbear user, while they might personally like their own instance's moderation and values, will not see any content from instances that have defederated with Hexbear, which could impact their experience enough that they'd rather move instance.
(Personally, I don't think I've ever seen a comment from a Hexbear user that I've loved. And I've definitely personally blocked several of their communities from showing in my feed.)
In the past, I know some instances defederated from lemmy.world because it was seen as kind of spammy. Some of them re-federated after lemmy.world tightened up its moderation, but I don't know of all of them did. (I'm not a lemmy user so it doesn't affect me personally and therefore I don't keep too much track of it.)
Inter-instance politics aren't necessarily a thing you need to be hyper-aware of, but they can definitely shape your experience.