I like science and Mander has a lot of neat science communities. I also keep a back up account for Lemmy.world.

Found some power tripping mods in some instances, lemmy.ml seems fairly neutral.

I started out on Lemmy.world because it seemed like it was going to be home to the most communities, and people seemed to like & respect the admin.

But I also work on software, and I’m here for all the computer nerd shit Lemmy has to offer. Plus World has had uptime issues. So programming.dev seemed like a good home instance to try out, even if I’m interacting with a bunch of communities on World too.

Trans rights! Also, shonk 🏳️‍⚧️🦈

I just made my own... I buy domains like steam games, never to be used/played, so finding a use for one is fun

I was initially on lemmy.world, but the frequent DDOS attacks and the fact that Hexbear and Beehaw had defederated from it really put me off. Also, communities like !linux and !privacy were much bigger on lemmy.ml compared to lemmy.world.

Soo I jumped ship to lemmy.ml

I first joined Lemmy.ml and beehaw because when I joined those were pretty much the only active English language instances. I moved to lemmy.ca because Lemmy.ml started going down more when redditors showed up, and I didn't like beehaw's "defederate now and sort it out later" attitude. Plus I figured going with a mid sized instance is best. They aren't going to get overloaded because they are too big, and aren't going to shut down due to lack of interest either.

I was told, by someone I know in a local Discord, that it was a reddit replacement for Midwest leftists. At the time I didn't know what Lemmy was. Now that I'm using it in place of reddit, it's performing very well. I like our local instance a lot. I am tempted to move to Startrek.website though, just because I'm a huge nerd

the chapochatters pulled me back in

I like planes

The reddit piracy thread moved to lemmy.ml.

I didn't pick one.

I spread that shit out over a bunch of instances.

Decentralized myself lol. There's no need to think of lemmy in terms of a single home. You can do that, but I prefer to think of it as a bunch of crash pads. Bounce between them as needed, maintain the accounts, and even if one homie can't put you up for the night, another one can.

I chose Lemmy World simply because it was there. It was literally the first one that popped up and I had no clue how Lemmy worked so I chose that one.

I made this account a long time ago, the landscape was different. The three biggest (federated) instances were this, lemmygrad.ml and Wolfballs (alt-right, run by a right-libertarian but dominated by shameless racists and neo-nazis, most instances defederated from them).

Since Lemmygrad was often preemptively defederated from other instances, I wanted a stable well-connected instance that wouldn't die after a few months (learned that lesson the hard way on PeerTube) and am a socialist tech-expert. So the choice was simple. No regrets, and I wouldn't change it now.

I did have an alt on the former GTIO instance (civil debate only, no political-oriented bans) because I did want to see the garbage being posted by Wolfballs losers on there and practice deconstructing the flaws and refuting. I also had an alt on an instance that wasn't federated at the time. They were all appropriate choices given the landscape then and now, and I've had the foresight and fortune to almost never have an instance I use block one I wish to interact with. But unfortunately many so-called general instances have made dubious defederation choices which do make me worry that I may need to start making alts just to continue interacting with some communities in the future.

I joined sh.itjustworks because of the fact that it's powered by renewable energy and it's bilingual with French and English. As someone who wants to stop climate change and someone who is learning French, it made the most sense for me to join this instance. I have no alts, but if I were to make one it would probably be on lemmy.world, blajah.zone, or dbzer0.

Was looking for a Furry server and yiffit was too funny for me not to join

Kept having stability issues with the instances I joined. One of them even dissapeared completely (rip vlemmy). I ended up on a anarchy/piracy one and it's been the best experience so far.

Was on r/cth, was on the lifeboat discord which wasn't functional for me, migrated to chapo chat which was instantly the largest lemmy instance by a couple of orders of magnitude in terms of posts per day and active users. Not been too outgoing in this space, sometimes I go to lemmygrad or lemmy.ml if I run out of content.

It was suggested by the sign up process at the top of which domain I should join. I don't remember how, it's already a blur, but afterwards I saw people saying the registration process needed to add a way of directing users to smaller instances as a thing to lighten the load and stop everyone going to lemmy.world and it confused me because that's literally what happened to me.

Anyway I also noticed it had a steam deck community and that was good enough for me.

Midwest.social because I live in wisconsin

It was a battle between my queer identity and my biologist identity. For regular browsing and posting, science won out. But I have an account with blajah.zone too to discuss the queer agenda.

I'm running my own instance, which made it easy to choose which instance to use 😁

lemmy.ca because it's Canadian.

It's also a smaller instance, and I wanted to avoid joining a monolithic instance like world or beehaw, in favour of a smaller community I can feel a part of.

... But primarily because it's Canadian honestly.

It's funny, I created kind of a the same thread in !fediverse@lemmy.ml a few minutes ago

I chose lemmy.world for my main account, mostly for the name. Just sounds like a central place to be. I've bailed on one instance on account of them dragging their feet on defederating from exploding heads.

I sometimes like programming

Im french (and i like smaller instances that just work) We're a small community grouped around a few local sublemmies and i really like it that way

Thought the domain was funny and the owner is a pretty cool person that be let me start a community

well i tried to join programming.dev because i'm a developer and i figured devs would run a fast server, but I didn't get the email they said I'd get when my account was approved. By the time I worked out the account was active anyway, I'd created an account on a geographical server and it's fast as with zero downtime so I'm sticking with it. Set up a monthly donation to keep it running and I'm super happy with it, the admin seems cool.

There was simply no acceptable alternative the moment I saw someone else from this instance and found out it was an option

"my day won't be ruined if I see a tit."

This is glorious :-)

For me the choice was easy: I was already into the fediverse thanks to Mastodon and then (before all the reddit api drama) some lovely people I had already heard about decided to spin up a general purpose Italian Lemmy instance, and so far I couldn't be happier for my experience here.

Maybe I was just lucky but what I would suggest is try to see if there is a small/medium sized instance of your university/city/country as I think they are the ones that works our best (not just for Lemmy but for the fediverse in general)

I started on Lemmy World, because I could. I didn’t truly get the decentralized nature of the Fediverse, so I went with a larger instance thinking that was best for longevity.

Now that I understand how things work, I’ve picked up a few more accounts/instances (including one on Kbin) as backups and currently use Lemm.ee as my main account.

Ultimately, I would like to start my own instance for me and my family.

They don't want to defederate from any other instance so I can decide if I don't want to view anything.