I am looking to just dip my toes on a couple of other platforms. What I am finding while trying to choose an instance for Funkwhale (or Friendica, Pixelfed, etc) is that there is very little in the way of descriptions for finding something to match me and I would just be choosing at random.

I am using the official sites’ server recommendations/lists to look through and am really getting no info that is helpful to me. Does anyone know of other resources?

My best option at this point is to use a throw away account to get on any server then spend just enough time interacting to find a good one and try to join it. Does that seem reasonable?

    • Slatlun@lemmy.mlOP
      1·
      2 years ago

      It absolutely would. The descriptions even say what they focus on instead of just template language.

  • Cysioland@lemmygrad.ml
    1·
    2 years ago

    I self host my Mastodon instance but from what I’ve heard you need to check whether the instance owner’s values and rules are somewhat compatible with yours

    • Slatlun@lemmy.mlOP
      1·
      2 years ago

      That does look like it is true for Mastodon. Maybe the others could use the idea going forward.

  • altair222@beehaw.org
    1·
    2 years ago

    For pixelfed you can’t go wrong with pixelfed.social. Run by the lead developer himself and is the biggest server.

    • Slatlun@lemmy.mlOP
      1·
      2 years ago

      Thanks for the suggestion. I definitely might go that route. It seems like the ease of just picking the biggest/first server might be bumping agaist the idea of federation and why it is valuable. I am so used to going to centralized platforms that I am trying to fight the urge a little when choosing where to set up.

      How did you get to beehaw.org over lemmy.ml?

      • altair222@beehaw.org
        2·
        2 years ago

        Well I wanted a more generalized reddit alternative and wanted to have an opportunity to discuss things with people who have potentially different ideas than me, with me coming from a leftist perspective. So to avoid a possible circlejerk or an echo chamber I thought beehaw might be a good idea. And with federation you don’t have to worry about choosing the biggest server if it fits your needs as you’ll be able to connect with other servers anyway. And due to federation if the main server fucks something up for you, you can always switch. So you’re using federation to its full potential anyway even while using the biggest server.