I'm thinking about joining mastodon, but I don't know what server to go with, and the list of servers seems to have very little information about each. Right now I think I'll open an account on mastodon.social.
I'd prefer a server with a high character limit and that has access to most other servers.
You can still decide to transfer your account later on, so starting on mastodon.social isn't too bad. https://guide.toot.as/guide/move-mastodon-server/#1-guide-configuration Even if i would suggest to change it, as it kind of beat the decentralization aspect to it, i believe ~80℅ users are just on this default instance. The official website has it's own list of suggested servers per interests and some rules here : https://joinmastodon.org/servers You can search via a minimum maximum character limit here : https://mastodon.help/instances/en
By default, Mastodon servers can access all other servers. It's just the admin who can decide to block other instances on a blacklist for all the users on the instance they use. You can also just block yourself instances or users if you want. As long you don't take a political, shitposting, or fascist one which are often blocked on a lot of instances.
Oh I didn't know that, I thought they were locked to the server like Lemmy. Ok then I'll just use masdodon.social for now until I know more about the rest.
I would join infosec.exchange of the ones mentioned. Or just join mastodon.social. It's not going anywhere and it's the default and it's likely going to be the most stable in terms of user experience and longevity.
Having said that, to a degree it doesn't matter? Just follow the hashtags that you are interested in as soon as you get there and it should create an instant active feed. And don't forget to tip your server (I recommend kicking in a buck or two a month to the server admins and same to the mastodon devs.)
