General Discussion

Just as a note, since it looks like you're using an account on lemmy.blahaj.zone and maybe chose that Lemmy instance as an arbitrary alternative to Lemmy.world -- that's something of a special-interest instance oriented towards creating a safe space for transexuals and the like. Not that the people there are bad folk or anything, but it might not be the instance I'd choose if I were going for just another lemmy.world, but one that wasn't having technical problems and was usable.

Some other lemmy instances with comparatively-large pre-Reddit-blackout communities, like beehaw.org, are similar, and I think that that may be why people just looking for a reasonable instance migrate there -- they see the user count on lemmy.fediverse.observer and pick them without thinking much, because the Fediverse Observer provides little useful information about the instances. I kind of wish that lemmy.fediverse.observer and kbin.fediverse.observer would let lemmy and kbin instances publish a one-line description or something to help people get a quick idea of what the instance is about.

I also saw someone from kbin.social comment on a community on pawb.social the other day upset that there was a furry on there, probably not aware that they were on pawb.social and that that instance was dedicated to providing a friendly environment for furries. The community name was just "tech". Someone in that thread, clearly thinking through the deeper implications, pointed out that it's not always obvious what the instance culture is about. If a lemmy or kbin instance could put a one-line description in their metadata, then the lemmy or kbin web UIs -- as well as the third-party clients -- could display that line of text while users are visiting communities on that instance, to give them a quick idea of what the instance and community both are about, avoid situations like the above.