It seems that Australia introduced some similar laws recently, and we can expect other western countries to follow their example over the next years. These could be handled by builtint geoblocking in Lemmy, but I'm not sure if it would really be flexible enough.

Then there is also the case of countries blocking certain websites/instances via DNS, for example China. This is not so noticable now because we have few users from such countries, but it may also get more relevant as Lemmy grows. And this is not something which can be specified on the instance itself.

The cleanest solution would be to run a service in various countries which pings the different Lemmy instances to see if they are reachable. But that would be complex to setup, and expensive to host (unless we rely on volunteers, which makes it even more complex to manage).

You can also quick join with the third button "See all servers". Again the button texts are maybe not clear enough. It could make sense to add a button "Visit random instance" directly on the homepage, similar to #513. Not sure if that should go to registration or to the instance homepage, as the user may want to have a look around first.

@geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml also made some similar suggestions in a sibling comment.

NSFW instances are already excluded from the list.

The term Link Aggregator has got to go. Call it a forum and call it a day

Its not the same, as forums dont use scores and have less focus on external links. The text already mentions forums, by removing link aggregator it would also be too short here.

See all servers button at the top as well

That is what "Join" does, but the text is probably not clear. "See all servers" is a bit long, would "Instances" be clear enough?

There needs to be more “general” servers. Lemmy.world was the most popular choice because people want to check out Lemmy and just click on “general”. Not sure if .ml still has the commie paste prompt.

There are a few like lemmy.zip, lemmy.wtf or reddthat. We could also consider showing lemmy.world again, but with the current sorting it is always shown at the top because it is so much larger than other instances. lemmy.ml still has the commie paste prompt.

If possible let their first server be a general one without email verification so they can quickly join

From what I can see, all the general instances do require email verification.

Images of Lemmy at the bottom are a bit confusing maybe? undecided on that

You mean those grayscale images by the features? Those are just general placeholders to avoid having all text. There arent really any images which are relevant to show for a software project.

Maybe that can be added as a filter. For now I added an icon to instances which require email to signup (#523).

Language customization should be less emphasized, or should be put in the “interests” section based on their country IP while joining. On the internet imperialist English has been considered the default language. The join-Lemmy page is English to begin with.

It uses the language configured in your browser. For me it shows in Spanish. We can also use browser language to filter the instance list without manual selection.

Join Lemmy button is redundant. In fact I don’t think it should even exist. All the buttons have got to go and people should directly see the “what are your interests” selection menu.
Donation button can be on top, but I don’t think it’s handy to have it at onboarding when people don’t know what Lemmy is

Frontpage buttons and topic selection are definitely the trickiest part. I would consider removing the topic selection, because there are some which barely narrow it down (technology, general or politics each show a few dozen instances), or shows only a few instances which dont match well. Plus the topics are not actively maintained.

I made a PR with some changes to the frontpage: github.com/LemmyNet/joinlemmy-…

if you have any specific suggestions for better images I would be happy to replace them.

Okay. I will give this some thought.

(tags) dont exist in Lemmy itself, and the ones defined on joinlemmy are practically unmaintained.

It's unmaintained but at least it exists. I'm sure you'd go through the effort of updating them if an instance owner asked, right? So they're probably still close enough. You do have data to present and it's better than nothing.

For a normal user it shouldnt be necessary to understand federation before signing up.

But then what decision are they making? Both what decision are they actually making and what decision do they think they're making? Knowing that they can interact with all* the instances is hugely transformative to your heuristics.

Number of linked/blocked instances

Number linked is good, but blocked has the problem of confusing narrow scope and being vigilant against spam. An instance might federate with everyone* but because it's more maintained they also block more.

Is there any other information you would like

Cloudflare is useful to know for our privacy-consonous userbase. It might be kinda technical but if there is one or two stats visible the user cares about or at least understands then I don't think having one they don't understand matters. They essentially don't understand "users" and that's the main thing presented right now.

It’s unmaintained but at least it exists. I’m sure you’d go through the effort of updating them if an instance owner asked, right? So they’re probably still close enough. You do have data to present and it’s better than nothing.

Sure, and they can also update it on their own by making a PR to this file. In fact anyone can do that.

But then what decision are they making? Both what decision are they actually making and what decision do they think they’re making? Knowing that they can interact with all* the instances is hugely transformative to your heuristics.

Very good question. I suppose the main criteria are:
- Topic (general purpose or specific interest)
- Language or country
- Instance size (small, medium, large)

Cloudflare is useful to know for our privacy-consonous userbase. It might be kinda technical but if there is one or two stats visible the user cares about or at least understands then I don’t think having one they don’t understand matters. They essentially don’t understand “users” and that’s the main thing presented right now.

This is a niche topic again, most normal users dont even know what Cloudflare is. Those who care can choose an instance which mentions privacy, or check it themselves.

Opened an issue here: github.com/LemmyNet/joinlemmy-…

Right now it feels like the website is geared towards the style and content that technical users appreciate. I agree with the other comments that it would be nice to simplify the website down. Technical users are willing to explore for more information while the average user taking a quick look will likely leave.

Taking inspiration from other Fediverse platforms, my favourite landing pages are from Peertube and Mastodon:

https://joinmastodon.org/
https://joinpeertube.org/
https://pixelfed.org/how-to-join

Makes sense, this all seems similar to the frontpage changes I drafted today (added screenshot to the OP just now).

This is likely a biased opinion, but could you add ‘region’ as a field, or ‘regional’ as a topic? For our instance, I think that’s how a lot of people are choosing to make an account with us given recent events. It also helps the user find an instance that is nearby (for lower latency), and within a jurisdiction that they are familiar with / can have an influence over through voting or other means. pangora.social seems to be down right now, but I recall them having a nice way of organizing that

This also makes a lot of sense, showing regional instances can make the choice much easier. Opened issue: github.com/LemmyNet/joinlemmy-…

Another biased opinion, I agree that it’s better to have large instances near the top since they’re more likely to be up / fixed quickly / on top of moderation. You could include a note saying that larger instances are near the top because of XYZ, and that people can always make more accounts down the road if you change your mind. That way there’s less pressure to pick the “correct” instance.

This is already the case since yesterday, there is a semirandom sort which always shows larger instances near the top and smaller ones further down.

Could you potentially collaborate with lemmyapps.com/ ? It would be easier for users to submit updates to one place (whether it is a PR to you or an update on that site)

Very good idea, also opened an issue: github.com/LemmyNet/joinlemmy-…

Could you make the logo have a rectangular / circle background around it? Right now edges look odd over the dark background. The hover effect looks nicer, maybe with different colors

You mean the Lemmy logo in the top left? It seems the thin lines are not rendered well at this small scale. What colors would you use?

In the header: News, Docs, & Contact can be collapsed into a dropdown under ‘About’ or something similar, since those are pages that someone would go searching for

Maybe, but there are so few items that it seems fine like this.

Instead of ‘Join a server’, ‘Donate’ and ‘See all servers’, it might be better to have one massive “Join a Server” button/card on the front page that leads to the instance list page.

Again see github.com/LemmyNet/joinlemmy-…

The paragraph is a large block of text. I’d prefer something closer to what Peertube did

With Peertube they have a good designer on board to make these graphics. We are all programmers, so its very difficult to make a good design without more concrete suggestions.

The images give off ‘AI generated’ vibes, even if that wasn’t their origin. Could you have large cards with simple icons, similar to the 3 header cards on our site: fedecan.ca/en/

The images are just to avoid having too much text, a bit similar to the Peertube site. I already mentioned it in another comment, if you know any better images to put there I would be happy to replace them. The icons on your site are very small, so it would still show a lot of text.

I like the ‘Create your own discussion platform’ card’s format. It’s a bit hard to read, but otherwise nice

True the texts should be a bit bigger. github.com/LemmyNet/joinlemmy-…

The ‘more features’ section could be simplified down to the important points, and maybe even combined with what is being done with the screenshots area

True these havent been updated in a long time. Any specific features that you would emphasize?

Is every instance under one topic, or would it be possible to let the user select multiple and have instances appear and disappear from the list live?

Instances can have multiple topics, in fact you can make a PR to this file to update it yourself.

I like Pixelfed’s join page since I can quickly narrow down an instance based on what’s important to me: pixelfed.org/servers

That does look good, though it also has some problems. Most instances are uncategorized, and country selection is by server IP so Germany also has pixelshot.it listed. Manually specifying countries would be more reliable (but also more effort).

I just took another look at the site, and I love the new changes already!

Very good idea, also opened an issue: github.com/LemmyNet/joinlemmy-…

I see the developer also found the issue, great to hear that you both might be collaborating.

The images are just to avoid having too much text, a bit similar to the Peertube site. I already mentioned it in another comment, if you know any better images to put there I would be happy to replace them. The icons on your site are very small, so it would still show a lot of text.

That's a good point. I like the images you have currently, and I'll keep an eye out for anything that might be better.

True these havent been updated in a long time. Any specific features that you would emphasize?

A few of them have nice big cards now, so those could be combined. Otherwise the features that I personally would have been interested in are (in no particular order):

• Emojis with autocomplete support. Start typing :
• User tagging using @, Community tagging using !: You could also emphasize that this works across instances. For example: "Tagging users and communities from any federated instance"
• Integrated image uploading in both posts and comments.
• i18n / internationalization support for > 30 languages
• RSS / Atom feeds for All, Subscribed, Inbox, User, and Community.
• By hosting your own server, you can be in full control of your content.

Instances can have multiple topics, in fact you can make a PR to this file to update it yourself.

Thanks, I made a note for our team to look into that in the future!

I like Pixelfed’s join page since I can quickly narrow down an instance based on what’s important to me: pixelfed.org/servers

That's a good point, I'm also not sure if there is a good way for instance admins to change that on Pixelfed's site. I don't have a strong preference either way, but having some way for admins to update the information would be ideal. Perhaps an automated system with custom overrides through a file on the GitHub?

Some more feedback on the current version of the site:

• It might be good to indicate that the instance in the first card is a random instance, and not an official or 'flagship' instance. That way, if it links to a poorly moderated / maintained instance, it doesn't reflect poorly on the project. My personal preference would be to have the Browse All Servers be the primary button, and then the join button be secondary. A refresh button might also work: "Refresh for a new randomly selected server"
• Very minor, but some of the images are light mode while others are dark mode. It might look better if it was consistent

That’s a good point, I’m also not sure if there is a good way for instance admins to change that on Pixelfed’s site. I don’t have a strong preference either way, but having some way for admins to update the information would be ideal. Perhaps an automated system with custom overrides through a file on the GitHub?

Not sure how you mean. Is it too complicated to make a pull request and edit the file I linked above?

It might be good to indicate that the instance in the first card is a random instance, and not an official or ‘flagship’ instance. That way, if it links to a poorly moderated / maintained instance, it doesn’t reflect poorly on the project. My personal preference would be to have the Browse All Servers be the primary button, and then the join button be secondary. A refresh button might also work: “Refresh for a new randomly selected server”

Its not random from the whole list, but selected from a curated list (currently only lemmus.org and thelemmy.club, see #545). Its displayed like this because a lot of people complained that choosing an instance is too complicated.

Very minor, but some of the images are light mode while others are dark mode. It might look better if it was consistent

The images are not great, I will make a similar post soon to get contributions, and feedback for better texts.

Not sure how you mean. Is it too complicated to make a pull request and edit the file I linked above?

Not at all, I accidentally quoted the wrong text in my reply. I meant to reply to this bit: "Most instances are uncategorized, and country selection is by server IP so Germany also has pixelshot.it listed. Manually specifying countries would be more reliable (but also more effort)".

I was proposing having an automated system that uses the server IP (or another method), and then overriding it with any manually entered information from that file. That could be paired with an extra visual indicator or filter method to differentiate between the two.

Its not random from the whole list, but selected from a curated list (currently only lemmus.org and thelemmy.club, see #545). Its displayed like this because a lot of people complained that choosing an instance is too complicated.

That's fair. Maybe you could add a line above those buttons saying something like "We have picked a random instance for you to try:"

That might be enough for the user to understand that the highlighted instance is not official / run by your team.

The images are not great, I will make a similar post soon to get contributions, and feedback for better texts.

Sounds great, looking forward to it!

Some other people also mentioned this, made a post to gather suggestions: lemmy.ml/post/41767599

Nutomic

2026-01-16 11:01:50

[Help Design Lemmy] How to describe Lemmy in a single Sentence?

On join-lemmy.org, the project is described as "A forum and link aggregator for the Fediverse". In the previous post, multiple people mentioned that this is not a good description. However I have a hard time coming up with anything better.

So please post your suggestions below, and upvote the ones which are both accurate and easy to understand for new users. Later I pick one of the most upvoted options for the website.

By the way the second title "Follow communities Anywhere in the world" will likely go away (see the pull request for frontpage redesign). After this is decided I may also make another post to get suggestions for the longer description text below ("Lemmy is a selfhosted social link aggregation and discussion platform. ...").

Edit: Please only post concrete suggestions in top-level comments, and use replies to discuss. And here you can see how a few other Fediverse projects do it:
- joinmastodon.org/
- joinpeertube.org/
- pixelfed.org/

Frontpage changes by Nutomic · Pull Request #524 · LemmyNet/joinlemmy-site

Some changes to discuss: Removed donate button (not relevant for new users who dont know about Lemmy) Removed instance selection dialog (topics are not actively maintained, and language selection ...

^GitHub

The website is already linking to google play store and apple store. right now apps that are purely web don’t have a platform to read reviews on . plus neodb lib.reviews are open source although they might not yet be ready for the task yet.

Those links are specifically for people searching an app for those platforms. Very different from asking for reviews.

I doubt that, any data? similarweb shows the top referring site for now is openalternative.co (although at least one of the referring sites mentioned doesn’t seem to make sense for me ).

No data, its my impression from reading various related discussions on Lemmy. We also added a new signup question on lemmy.ml today, asking people how they found out about Lemmy. That should give us some more info.

I think people would want to see average ratings. reading a community page means you only read 1-3 reviews and that sample size is too small and potentially biased. you could just run into people who hate a instance for some particular reason (and it’s not hard for me to think of reasons like that).

Feel free to start something for community ratings, I dont really have time or interest.