Lemmy

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 think we should add the following criteria to instances at the VERY TOP that are recommended to new users:

1. The instances does not define an allowed list of instances
2. Downvotes are enabled
3. NSFW content is allowed
4. 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.

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'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.

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.

smaller general purpose instances such as sh.itjust.works

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.

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.

Edit: that's what they do on the app - but not joinmastodon.org

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.

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.