Lemmy @lemmy.ml Rick @lemmy.world 1y ago

Does it not matter what server I make an account on? Can I just find a server where my name isn't taken so I can use it?

I'm just still figuring this all out sorry if it's a dumb question

EDIT: Thank you all for the answers! I'm honestly loving the entire idea of the fediverse, im a new fan!

19 comments

Not a dumb question.. but some other things to consider:

moderation/rules

political leaning/community feel

geographic location... less important but can influence user experience
- The problem is that these aren't always trivial pieces of info to figure out
- I was unable to determine any of these before I joined. It certainly isn't easy. Is there a simple way to learn about these qualities of instances?
  
  Front page side bar usually shows rules. The others there is no simple way to find out in advance.
  My point was that it DOES matter where you create your account, beyond just getting a name you like. So I expect many people will hop around from instance to instance until they find "home".
  
  I've found this repo comparing some different instances. No idea how accurate it is though.
- Hey mate, any recos for Aussie instances?
  
  Just the obvious... https://aussie.zone/ :)
Pretty much! There isn't currently a way to migrate accounts though, so keep that in mind.

Might not be a feature you need now, but it is a nice-to-have from Mastodon that I'd like to see available everywhere.
- My fear is that an instance I join could fold and lose my history and name. I believe we'll probably see a feature that allows migration in the future, but it seems the best solution now is to roll your own.
  
  Same. I think this might also be one of the reasons people join larger instances (besides not knowing where to go). At least it was like that for me. I really hope we see that feature sooner than later. Maybe I'll try setting up my own instance when I have enough time to figure out how that works.
If you can, I'd go with having your own instance at your own domain.
Yes. But think of it as an email. @[email protected] and @[email protected] is the same as @[email protected] and @[email protected].

I have @[email protected] heh
Yep. Find any instance/server you can join. Then search for communities to subscribe to, from any other instances.

I'm all of 2 days old!
I just chose Lemmy.world at random, pretty much. You can still view and participate in other servers.
There's one thing you might want to take into account and that's whether the instance accepts nsfw content or not. From the large ones, only lemmy.ml will refuse to show you nsfw.

Also, don't choose an instance that's so problematic that it is blocked by all other instances.

Other than that it should not matter really much.
Was one of the reasons I picked the server I’m on.

The downside is if you are the first person on that server to subscribe to a community then the syncing of the posts and comments starts when you subscribe. So you might not get to see older content.

This is not really a big deal and you can always go to the originating server that hosts a community to read old stuff.

19 comments