hushpiper

You: looking for a new, post-Tumblr home, interested in the decentralized communities and open source platforms of the fediverse, overwhelmed by all the choices and looking for a place to call home.
Me: here to help.

Anything marked with TODO here is, well, stuff I still need to do. If you know of any instances that fit the bill or can help in whatever way, sound off in the comments! [TODO: Japanese or French language instances; pawoo; political; foss and tech; furry; queer]

- I'm not sure what I want... can't I just get a general, vanilla experience to get my feet wet?
Try out mastodon.social. It's run by the creator of Mastodon, and is basically the default experience. You'll see occasional kerfluffles about it, usually complaints about how it's moderated or beef with the creator himself. But if you find you don't like the crowd, don't worry! You can always move later. [TODO: since mastodon.social occasionally closes registrations and is currently getting blocked by a lot of instances, find some other generalized instances to rec. mastodon.cloud maybe?]

- I want to talk about the fall of the bourgeousie and the rise of the proletariat. Eat the rich!
You can go pretty much anywhere on mastodon for this, tbh, there’s a shitton of communists (not just socialists: communists) hanging around. It’s almost like the emphasis on grassroots communities and the institutionalized mistrust of authority attracts a certain kinda crowd… 🤔

- Hey, this whole community-run social network thing is interesting. Are there any instances run cooperatively, with a democratic or maybe even anarchist bent?
There's a couple co-ops around. social.coop is worth mentioning for notability's sake, though it ran into a snowbank in its decision making process in 2018 and registrations are currently closed. Other than that the most prominent one is sunbeam.city, which describes itself as libertarian socialist solarpunk. Both instances make their decisions via loomio.

- I'm a writer, and I want to talk and hang out with other writers.

writing.exchange has your back. They're small and cozy and focused on writing.

- I may or may not write, but I wanna hang out with sci-fi and fantasy fans.

wandering.shop may be a good fit for you. They recently closed registrations due to spam, but will add anyone who asks: just make an alt account on another instance and @phildini@wandering.shop and I'm sure they'll give you an invite.

- I want an instance where I can talk to OG, LJ-era fandom in a small and accepting space.

Try fandom.ink! [TODO: more info]

- I am a literal witch or witch-aligned, I have an attitude, and I miss tumblr.

Witches.live is here for you. [TODO: more info] (If you want a softer and less witchy tumblresque experience, see berries.space below.)

- I am an artist.

[TODO: cleanup] artalley.porn for nsfw, mastodon.art for general (signups closed), baraag.net for the wild west (see below), pawoo.net if you're the type of artist who's comfortable on pixiv. Whatever instance you decide on, tag your art with #mastoart and #creativetoot so that people can find it!

- I'm an academic, and would like a strongly moderated, academia-focused instance.

Try scholar.social. They are meant as both "a mastodon profile you can be proud to put on the last slide of a presentation at a conference", and as a safe space for queer and marginalized academics. They're occasionally criticized for limiting academic debate due to their safe space policies (see here, also a good example of how federation creates filter bubbles--the OP didn't see any of this discussion happening), but their stated policy is that there is no shortage of spaces in academia for open debate, but few academic spaces which are safe for marginalized people. (TODO: find citation for that last; I can't remember where I saw it.) This creates a few interesting cases, like an academic specializing in internet censorship, talking about internet censorship, on an instance which proudly censors: here.

- I'm interested in STEM and academia, and would like a learning-focused instance that doesn't restrict discussion or debate.

Try QOTO. It stands for "Question Others, Teach Others". It has some nice extra bits: LaTeX support (if you're interested in that), a very high character limit (65,535 for toots and bios), and a PeerTube (federated video hosting) instance for active users. Unfortunately, since it is labeled as a "free speech zone", many instances have it blocked or silenced.

- Ack... isn't there an academic instance somewhere in between the two?

This is specifically science rather than academia per se, but you could try scicomm.xyz. It's much smaller than the other two, and quieter, but still has a complete code of conduct. If you're more interested in the humanities, you can look at humanities.one, a quiet instance that recently re-opened registrations.

- I like to play it fast and loose I'm here to shitpost and chew bubblegum AAAHHHHHH

KNZK and radical.town are rules-lite and easygoing with a lot of userbase overlap, they're your jam, you're welcome.

Note that KNZK is located in Japan and the owner/moderator is Japanese, with somewhat limited understanding of English. Due to this, KNZK tends to be somewhat more lightly moderated than radical.town. Uncertain as to whether KNZK allows loli--if anyone knows, hmu.

- I want to be able to see and post art of every possible kink–loli, shota, furries, bondage, robot sex, you name it!

Check out baraag.net, the local hive of scum and villainy. They’re up for anything as long as it’s drawn; their servers are in France, where that’s legal (or at least, legal enough that koi is willing to risk it). Unfortunately though, most other instances block baraag.net because they allow loli/shota, which many jurisdictions rule as child porn. So your experience will mostly be confined to the local timeline. That’s not half bad though, since the timeline is hoppin’ and the company is chill.

- I'm a sex worker, and want to advertise or talk to other sex workers.

Switter.at opened up as a place for sex workers, and it's gotten even more popular after the FOSTA-SESTA business. One of their admins talked about their experience on Medium; it's an interesting read.

- I want porn. Just. Lots of porn. Where'd the people who got kicked off tumblr go?

Very NSFW links: sinblr.com and humblr.social are both porn instances oriented toward the performers who left tumblr; check them out.

- I want... niche porn.

Very NSFW links: There's a couple of these, depending on the niche. kinky.business is for general kink; abdl.link is for abdl (crinklefur.club is the furry equivalent); biglittle.space is for ddlg and cgl.

- I want to shout into the void and hear the entire fediverse roaring back into my ears! Maybe with some bonus technical features other instances don’t have.

You want mastodon.host: they federate with everybody (yes, even the nasty kinksters) as a rule, and allow basically everything that’s legal in the US/EU (so no loli) so long as it’s under a CW. Their federated timeline is wild, perfect for discovering new things, and they've got a bunch of technical goodies (like their own PeerTube instance) that they outline on their site.

- I want the 4chan experience, but federated.

This definitely exists, but I'm not sure where. pl.smuglo.li comes to mind. Beyond that, check out the instances on Dzuk’s blocklist and see what you can find. Keep in mind, of course, many instances will have them blocked due to, yanno, being on the blocklist. Also worth noting that most of these instances use pleroma (fediverse software similar to mastodon, interoperable with it), rather than mastodon; this is pretty much due to a quirk of fediverse history, not anything to do with the software itself.

- I am concerned about Russian interference with American social media, and I might want to talk to others about the leftist conspiracy.

counter.social is an interesting possibility. It was created by the hacktivist known as TheJester, and blocks all VPN traffic and traffic from IP addresses originating in countries he considers hostile to the US (Russia, China, etc). It styles itself as America-centric and privacy focused.

- Ew, that shit is awful! I just want a place with a sort of tumblr feel, but without any abuse/incest/pedophilia, and strict rules against -isms.

Give berries.space a try. They’re the most popular English-language instance in the federation (constantly vying with friends.nico, a Japanese instance, for first place), so there’s plenty of activity. Its rules are detailed and geared to appeal to a lot of tumblrites.

- That shit is awful, but I don’t like berries.space–I’d like something quieter but still strictly moderated, a little less tumblr-esque, maybe on a slightly different software?

Try out soteria.mastodon.host. Its rules are very slightly less strict than berries.space but still leave no room for [insert gross thing here], and it runs on another microblogging platform called Pleroma. It’s still interoperable with Mastodon, and if you’re used to one then the other isn’t too hard to learn.

- No, just blocking that awful shit isn’t good enough–those other instances still exist! They’re still over there, being gross and poisoning society! They shouldn’t be allowed to do that. How can anybody support a platform that also enables pedophiles and nazis?

Consider the possibility that federation may not be for you.

- No! Nazis shouldn’t even be able to talk to each other–at all! This is wrong!

I hear you, but what you’re saying is completely counter to the structure and point of federation. Everyone can create and choose a community that aligns with their values–whatever those values are–and if you think that community and values are shitty, you make that known by refusing to associate with them, in the form of blocks. Mastodon, and federated software in general, is just software: it makes no judgment on what speech flows through it, just gives communities the tools to police themselves and keep the peace within their spaces.

Please consider that the freedom that allows nazis to communicate with each other freely is also the freedom that allows LGBT communities to socialize freely. The law still applies, but beyond that there’s no central authority to appeal to when someone crosses the line into something you hate, and that’s the point. If you are coming from Tumblr, there’s a good chance you are part of some marginalized group: consider how many people hate who and what you are. Look at society. Do you really want to give somebody else the power to decide who can and can’t have a space?

- Okay, okay, I get it. I need a niche that you didn't already address in this list though.

The fediverse is a big, big place. Check out some instance lists, like Dzuk's and instances.social.