Mastodon - What should I know? Is there a reason I should pick one mastodon instance over another?
Reddit refuge here, just getting comfortable in Kbin/Lemmy and plan to eventually join in the rest of the Fediverse, and thinking Mastodon would be my next step.
I say there are three main things you might want to consider when choosing a mastodon instance, and these also apply to Lemmy.
The first is the native content of the server. You can follow anyone on any server (I’m not aware of any defederation drama over there like we recently had on Lemmy), but you do get a feed of local posts, which can be a good place to start when you are brand new.
The second is any local server rules. Instances can have rules around what types of content you can post (nsfw for example), and around content warnings (a lot of OG Mastodon users are really big on that). You should make sure you are happy with the rules before joining a server.
The last is the ongoing reliability of a server. I’d avoid joining anything really new or super small.
You can tryinstances.social. It asks you a few questions, and offers suggestions.