Beehaw is a quieter experience than most because it has narrower federation, but you do tend to get a better signal to noise ratio since you miss the spammier instances - I like it.
Beehaw also doesn't federate downvotes which I think is an improvement.
lemmy.sdf.org when it works; federation there is kinda fucked right now, so I'm on lemmy.today for now. I accidentally posted it from SDF. Comment if you can see this.
SDF has an extensive track record (* much longer than I have been alive*) of providing systems for the public good. If federation gets fixed (and it probably will eventually), I'll be back on SDF.
Additionally, I generally don't want the set of people I can connect with to be technically limited, like at all. Yes that includes "all the bad people" according to your (and my) individual worldview. If they're going to exist, I would prefer to have advanced notice of the danger they pose. If you suck, I will block you.
I'm not against moderated or curated instances, and for most people that is probably the way to go, but it's not what I personally need. Yes, this means that I occasionally get wild shit when I choose to scroll through All. Yes, that means I get various shades of genocide apologists and weird bigots, again when I choose not to browse by Local or Subscribed. That's why I'm subscribed to a bunch of cool, moderated communities. I choose the content I see.
That is the approach I prefer for myself. Again, I understand that it's not for everyone.
As far as instances where I'm not (yet) a member, lemmy.dbzer0.com is my favorite by far. Also while I don't have any communities on their instance, the startrek.website people seem to always have something interesting to say.
hexbear and lemmygrad are fantastic. makes me feel very welcome and safe as a queer person (i am bisexual) that the admins will always crack down on queerphobia in any form. very cool for our trans comrades as well! lemmy.ml is a close third place, many cool ppl on there especially comrade dessalines.
My favourite instance is lemy.lol because it uses 0.19 rc version, has short domain name, and nice UI theme, and that's why I choosed it for my account
lemmy.sdf.org when it works; federation there is kinda fucked right now, so I'm on lemmy.today for now.
SDF has an extensive track record (* much longer than I have been alive*) of providing systems for the public good. If federation gets fixed (and it probably will eventually), I'll be back on SDF.
Additionally, I generally don't want the set of people I can connect with to be technically limited, like at all. Yes that includes "all the bad people" according to your (and my) individual worldview. If they're going to exist, I would prefer to have advanced notice of the danger they pose. If you suck, I will block you.
I'm not against moderated or curated instances, and for most people that is probably the way to go, but it's not what I personally need. Yes, this means that I occasionally get wild shit when I choose to scroll through All. Yes, that means I get various shades of genocide apologists and weird bigots, again when I choose not to browse by Local or Subscribed. That's why I'm subscribed to a bunch of cool, moderated communities. I choose the content I see.
That is the approach I prefer for myself. Again, I understand that it's not for everyone.
As far as instances where I'm not (yet) a member, lemmy.dbzer0.com is my favorite by far. Also while I don't have any communities on their instance, the startrek.website people seem to always have something interesting to say.
Every instance is good because every instance can interact with many other instances with comments, posts etc. So you arent really locked into one instance. its the magic of federation.
unpopular hexbear because seeing both sides of the propaganda broadens my critical thinking more than echo chambers, yes-men, and logical fallacies being thrown my way instead of supporting data
Also, nobody will ever defederate from Lemmy.ml, being the dev instance.
Also, the best instance may not be the one that does least defederation. Those Nazi and pedo (they actually exist) instances need to be kept 10000 kilometres away from society. But the defederation must not be done any more than that. Law of diminishing returns starts from that point.