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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.

87 comments
  • 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!

  • 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.

  • 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

  • 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.

    • The order of recommended instances is randomized, there is a different one at the top each time you reload.

  • Would you consider adding Kbin instances? Or is that not 'lemmy' enough?

    • Its a different project, wouldnt make sense to send people there from the official Lemmy website. Besides the list is built by calling the Lemmy API so it wont work with kbin on a technical level.

    • Kbin instances should probably be listed on kbin's onboarding site.

87 comments