Glad I can help! 😊

So, hard question in server selection. If .ml server isn’t for you then there are hundreds of other options. Lemmy Verse is definitely going to be your friend here. Instance is substituted for server, and is a more appropriate name.*

This highlight button in the image shows you what to select on Lemmy Verse to get a large list of networked Instances. It likely won’t be all the Instances, and may have some dormant and/or private Instances not open to the public to join. Most of the Instances with some size will be open and no problem to join though.

^*I only like to refer to Instances as servers because it reminds me that they also have a physical presence somewhere in this world, and the location selected has some importance.^

So thats a quick general guide for Instance selection.

Specifically ‘non-political’ Instances that I know is hard because I don’t know how political is too political for you.

Take my ‘Local’ Instance, its for Australians and people interested in upside down land. Theres plenty not political, but each day we are posting and discussing the daily political news. You know, things like, which bum scratchin politician has been caught pickin their nose again, etc…

Theres other location specifics for France, New Zealand, Netherlands, Midwest US (midwest.social), UK, etc…

If you’re looking to get away from politics as much as possible then maybe location specific areas won’t work for you.

With that said technology servers might be the go, db0 or programming.dev are examples.

You could join solarpunk and help them imagine a positive futuristic world rather than a dystopian one.

Or mander.xyz is more science based.

Book lovers might like literature.cafe

These are just some of the larger (in fediverse terms) options you could look into.

I hope that helps you and anyone else reading.

If you do decide to change I’d love to know where you’ve gone off to and why that Instance was chosen. Theres so many Instances I still have no idea about 😆

So I have some advice that you might already be thinking/implementing.

For Lemmy use your three buckets well.

You have,

1. All

2. Local

3. Subscribed

4. Use ‘all’ feed for keeping an eye out on that bigger social media and taking the value of being ‘informed’ on the current narratives and events.

5. Pick an area of relatively specific interest, i see your currently on our premier Marxist/Leninist server, if thats anything like Aussie Zone its a completely different bucket of topics thar you will hopefully be able to relate to in a very different way to the ‘All’ feed. If your local server is fairly sleepy or not that different from ‘all’ considwr moving server fedidb or Lemmy Verse might help with server selection.

6. Use subscribed to drill down and keep a tight list of the niche communities rhat will really keep you happy, don’t subscribe if you only think its important to keep abreast of, keep that list as your happy place. 😊

I’ve recently joined Mastodon. For individual to individual connection it is better. So to my surprise, I’ve found Lemmy and Mastodon work well used as a pair. Even though if I want to, I can see the agonisingly embarrassing comments I make on lemmy very easily from my Masto account.

• install a solar system, no matter how big or small

Gee, get a load’a this one, goin round whackin heliocentric planetary systems in people’s yards. Kickin off the gravitational alignment of Earth with their extra “sun and planets” next to the lavender.

I hear they even do dual-star solar systems… pffft… thats just showing off.

Not really a counterpoint, they’re talking about how a person can make their life easier by learning something. Your example is analogous.

You learned a different way to record the written word to make life easier. OP is talking about learning a different way to calculate numbers, to make life easier. They’re the same.

Holy shit! I just realised I walk the dog around the streets in my area in a counterclockwise direction at least 90% of the time.

Sorry, nothing about what you said, thats why i commented to let you know. I just re-read my comment and felt it didn’t come across in the same way I thought it did last night.

I’s trying to be funny in my previous comment, but re-reading it I think I completely missed the mark. Sorry, I’ve deleted it.

deleted by creator

Our arms end up where your balls are, and vice-versa. It makes for rather awkward boxing matches between the hemispheres.

Because you used ness, i instantly thought of Loch Ness and imagined that there is a duck that lives in that loch whose shadow was randomly made huge by a boats light one evening resulting in the proceeding mania. Thus leading to the highly confusing situation for Duck Ness of waddling about telling people she’s who they’re looking for while they ignore her or threaten to put her in a pie.

Option 4 is where developers and server owners should be heading. But I think they need help with organisation. I think without foundations or some less casual organising group supporting these servers a lot of the iterative feature development is too much for one person to take on.

I got hung up on the technicalities between sauces and pastes… I am very closed pastes.

I am the most open of sauces advocate!

Fuckin dronk that drink!! DO IT!!

This is an interesting analogy. So in your scenario Lemmy World is like a Pub (Public House) where any bludger can mosey on down to ‘warm their toes’ with a little socialising.

To get creative we’d name Lemmy World, The Lemmy Worlds End, an ever popular name for a pub.

My server, being Aussie zone, is like Mercury, a centimetre from the sun ;)

And your server is probably like Yosemite National Park or something.

Yeah, I like that frame. I think I’ll incorporate that into how I talk about the fediverse. Might need to polish my examples a bit more though. 😆

Hahaha!!! Oh to be a fly on the wall in your lunch room! 😆😆

I’ve generally found it difficult to communicate why the fediverse, or even the social web is better than these walled gardens run by private companies. I think a lot of people haven’t had a motivating moment to shift. I’s always skeptical of fb, never really liked the set up, so i suppose i hadn’t had the same investment into the account like others.

Although I gave up Youtube also, and I used that a lot more. But that was more a ‘viewing’ account, rather than social media communication. So different reasons driving that I think.

I guess most people are. I am to a degree, but only with family private message chats. That network effect is like cement. So theres not much chance for someone like me to talk about the fediverse on other aocial media. Maybe this experience is common. I think there was a post asking about this the other day that gor pretty high up the ‘All’ feed.

Something similar happened with the Federal Liberals in Australia a few years back, maybe in a more cynical manoeuvre. They structured things to get two or three good years of budget balance, had a big song and dance about budget being ‘back in black’, coffee mugs were made, anybody who cared to read a little understood the transitory nature of it, but that didn’t stop the media screeching and squawking.

Joke was on the Liberals in the end, their main opposition, Labor, benefited more from those years than they did, since the Liberals then went ahead and lost the next election.

Lets hope Mamdani is less cynical, and has more humility than the Australian Liberals. In the process proving to Americans that some right winger churning out Friedman quotes isn’t actually that good for an economy.

Yeah, i’ve had a similar experience. Even with those friends running their own servers seem to have a lack of awareness. Considering the strength of the Linux and Foss communities here i’m surprised more information hasn’t crossed over into other forums.

Placement of the events page is wonderfully hard. A lot of effort must have been spent making that very unidentifiable.

I guess thats a “wow! How did they do that?” Moment for me.