7d ago

Question about instances

I have been on Lemmy for a while now but never posted anything as a new post so please forgive me if I am doing anything wrong.

I see that I am part of lemmy.world and that this instance is frowned upon.

Is there a better instance I can join? I am not very clued up on Lemmy and as far as I can see it is made up of lots of different sites which are linked together.

I just want to be part of a healthy group and I am just getting into astronomy so are there any good groups for that please?

If it helps I am based in the UK.

Have a great weekend all.

Edit: sorry for the late response another 6 day week at work. Thank you all so much for the very useful advice!

45 comments

Lemmy.world, by political ideology, is most similar to old Reddit. Namely, you're most likely going to find generally-left-of-center people. Several other instances (namely lemmy.ml) are known for being significantly more left-leaning, basically hard communist.
As is tradition for left-leaning people, there's a lot of infighting. .world people think that .ml people are tankies. .ml people think that .world people are corporate bootlickers. Both sides accuse the other of heavy-handed censorship.
Basically, I wouldn't worry about it. It's just your standard leftism infighting.
- I've rarely seen people of the left on lemmy.world. Not never, just rarely
  Not sure if you're talking about vibes like US Democrats voters or something

Lemmy.world is not frowned upon. There are some people who are very vocal about not liking it but if you don't have any problems you don't need to change. There is also nothing stopping you from having accounts on diferent instances so try some of them out and stay where you like it.

People frown upon lemmy.world because it's a politically American center-right instance on a leftist social media platform that bans leftist discourse via defederation.
If your politics align w them and you don't mind them deciding what you can and can't see on your behalf, you'll do fine there.
I switched from lemmy.world because of that and switched to an instance that doesn't make a habit of defederating from the most active instances (ie hexbear) and there's also another center-right instance named lemm.ee that also doesn't defederate.
- Yeah I don't agree with Lemmy world censorship as well and that's why I spinned my own instance. The beauty of a federated environment
  
  Good to know
- Thanks for the insight
  
  Np and I can see that you've gotten an introduction to the political culture war that's being waged on lemmy (assuming you weren't already aware). Lol
  One more piece of info that I wished someone had given me when I first started is that a huge majority of lemmings are cool; but there are significantly more center-right users than leftist users so you'll see more of the vitriol you witnessed in this post coming from the center-right instances like lemmy.world and lem.ee, but the leftists are a scrappy bunch so they'll respond in kind and mostly from hexbear; hence the defederations.
- Stop moving the political compass leftward
  
  "Why don't you communists try to be more conservative?"
  That's a wild suggestion that I've never seen before lol
- This person unwittingly provides an excellent example of why many dislike .ml users.
  
  Because they calmly explain their reasons?
  
  Lol yeah right

Lemm.ee: It's the Switzerland of the fediverse. ;)
The Operations Team are a stand-up group. Their focus is on delivering stability.
You'll basically get access to all content (and all "features", like up-vote and down-vote - I'm looking at you beehaw).
What I've heard from other people is that they want automagic curated content... so you won't find that a lemm.ee, but for me - I'm happy to find the content that's meaningful to me.
- +1 for lemm.ee. The admin team is awesome, the instance is very stable, and the users are pretty chill. It’s like the meme where there’s a guy with a bong while the other people (aka the 2-3 biggest instances) are fighting.
- I will check them out

A small list of cool instances:
lemmy.blahaj.zone : chill place and people, LGBT (and especially trans) friendly
hexbear.net : very active and friendly instance that used to be separate from Lemmy. Most people are very various lefties
lemmy.ml : generalist instance, moderated by the devs of Lemmy. It is not marketed as a left instance but some socialists join there because of the .ml (Marxism Leninism)

My recommended are:
lemmy.dbzer0.com
sh.itjust.works
lemmy.ca
sopuli.xyz
If it helps I am based in the UK.
feddit.uk seems like a great fit, your fellow compatriots are on there 😅
- Cheers mate will have a look
  
  Obviously you will make up your own mind, but I have had to block shitjustworks entirely, due to the amount of fashposting I've seen from there. For comparison, Lemmy.world often annoys the shit out of me, but I haven't had to block the whole thing. The main thing is how the instance moderates. You can always block users and communities, but those "light-touch moderation" instances will always end up full of the worst people.

For astronomy there is !astronomy@mander.xyz. The communities on mander.xyz are STEM focussed and usually well moderated.
You could also try
!astrophotography@lemmy.world
!space@mander.xyz
!space@lemmy.world
As for the instance, stay wherever you feel most comfortable. I have a few alts on other instances, including lemmy.world. You're also free to move later if you decide to.
If it helps I am based in the UK.
You can also check out the instance / communities at
https://feddit.uk/

Try different ones out. I personally avoid Lemmy.world as there more pro capatilism and Oligarchy then other instances. And tend to block instances that are against capatilism and Oligarchy.
- It’s very much the reddit of Lemmy in that regard.

Interested in astronomy you say? Well mander.xyz describe themselves as a "An instance dedicated to nature and science.". They have a astronomy community with, some activity - !astronomy@mander.xyz. I'm not on mander so I don't know how things are there, but I pretty much don't ever see anyone complaining about it.
feddit.uk is a UK instance. So there might be some interesting things there for you.
lemmy.ee is known for not defederating unless absolutely necessary.
On the topic of defederating, lemmy.world is somewhat disliked due to their defederation happy tendencies. For the most part, though, this whole instance wars thing is mostly due to disagreements on what kind of political discourse should be allowed. Instances like lemmygrad.ml, hexbear.net and lemmy.ml are a bit too left-wing for many people from the center-right to handle: the world views are just too different.
I could rant about the dam instance wars, but it is not what you came were for.
- lemmy.ee is known for not defederating unless absolutely necessary.
  It's "lemm.ee" btw. I'm guessing autocorrect? Gboard ironically made the exact same mistake for me when I tried to correct you.
- Thanks for the explanation much appreciated

Feddit.uk is good if you’re in the UK. Then you can switch to Local and see lots of UK stuff.
- Yeah, and you can just subscribe to the astronomy communities that are on other instances.
- That's a great idea

You cab join any instance.
In the UK there is feddit.UK which you should definitely checkout!
Or you can spin your own instance too.

If you want to stay on lemmy.world, you can. As you can see in the comments, everyones username is @username@instance.name, you can follow communities from any lemmy instance and people from any instance can comment.
As for picking an instance, i'd avoid beehaw.org, hexbear.net, lemmygrad.ml and lemmy.ml.
Lemmy.world is frowned upon because its too big, so it has some performance issues and moderation issues.
- Queer people suggesting not to join instances fighting for their rights, with 0 given reason is kind of wild not gonna lie
  Many of us here are queer as well and I don't think I'll ever understand right-wing LGBT
  
  I'm not right wing, Im just not a fan of tankies.

Don't worry about it. If you don't post anything they disagree with (and most people don't), you will not be annoyed by them.
If you have only mainstream opinions, you will be fine. You don't question mainstream science, you think everyone needs to vaccinate for the public good, and so on. Nothing strange for the majority.

Discuss.online has near 100% uptime and is very fast
The administrators are p. Cool, they're a good community

45 comments