There is perennial discussion about what fediverse servers (Lemmy or otherwise) to recommend to new users. I have a proposal, perhaps not very original but I haven’t seen it made often.
Let’s just recommend that newbies pick an instance that is located close to them geographically. That’s to say: their country, their region, or (ideally) their town.
Some context. Personally, I am not totally sold on social media, federated or otherwise. The evidence is now pretty clear that it causes major social harms. One way it does this is by fuelling polarization around hot-button national and international debates, at the expense of local issues. Reviving democracy is going to mean boosting communities at a local level. This could be a small way to do that.
If the user likes none of the regional instances he/she knows of, should the user recommend things he/she doesn’t like?
Similarly, some instances have more clear-cut niches. If the user finds such an instance to be a good recommendation to someone interested in the fediverse, should he/she avoid it if it’s too far physically from the interested user?
A niche instance can also be a good home, especially if the person identifies strongly with the theme. Regional is a good starting point for users with mainstream interests.
When I think a regional community could be good:
If the user doesn’t speak English, or if neither the one recommending nor the one interested know at all what the latter wants.
And in the second case, a generalist instance like Lemmy.World or Mastodon.Social would be better, I think.
Everyone can do what they like. I just believe we have a small opportunity to strengthen our offline communities, and we should take that opportunity.