Different people prefer different things but I’d also like to make the case in this thread for scientists joining open instances, where you can find an audience beyond your colleagues.

Before joining in 2022 I personally delayed coming to the fediverse for a year or so because it seemed like all the scientists on here were on private instances open only to scientists.

@team @hweimer @sonjaschuh01 @neuSoM @DPGPhysik

The individual experience *is* different depending on your home instance, though (I have tried and am trying a few). Server rules matter, moderation matters, server federation decisions matter, technical decisions matter. I am only slowly learning to put words to what so far was mostly a diffuse feeling (learning by currently reading moveslowlybuildbridges.com/ by @rwg). And I would argue that a lot of the time, instances that have some sort of screening or soft limitations in their sign-up process are often better moderated and nicer places to be.

I do however approve of the compromise of suggesting instances with open registration for new arrivals - where the suggestion is *not* mastodon.social - in order to not have that additional hurdle of seeking an invite, waiting for approval, or finding out about your own eligibility (or not).

That said, for the large number of people eligible for ac.social, the onboarding is blazingly fast and simple.

Indeed, moving instances to my current one (hosted by @rolle) was like night and day. The local feed is interesting to me, the federation and moderation decisions make sense without coming loaded with drama.

It really does matter where you start out because if you have a bad first experience you’re unlikely to go to the effort of migrating your account to a place better suited to you.

@team @hweimer @neuSoM @rwg