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.
Instances have different topics and moderation, so it should be left to each person which one they prefer to join.
And it would be - no choice is being removed. It’s more of a “I’m not sure what all this is… I just want to join lemmy” button. But I know that perhaps that’s not completely in line with the core/original culture of the Fediverse. But a lot of people have incorrect assumptions on what federation is, if indeed they know anything about it at all. This leads to decision paralysis and confusion. People overthink which instance to join, at least among the open “general” instances.
And it would need to be explicitly opt-in for each server… I don’t think BeeHaw would be open to this for example.
I agree with your way of thinking. I believe a lot of people would be open to recreating an account on an instance that vibes with them more once they understand how it all works too.
I did that about 3 or 4 times already and only a couple of them were by accident!