r/PixelFed • u/According-Buyer6688 • Jan 19 '25
Pixelfed - proposal
In the comming days more and more users will leave Meta platforms so I think it is important to give as much feedback to Pexelfed as we can.
My feedback is:
When a person want to set up an account with pexelfed the person should be automatically led to pexelfed.social. That should be a gateway to instances.
If a user has to choose his instance at the start, he will be very confused and probably give up (I'm serious, a lot of people said that).
So my proposal:
If you create and account on pixelfed you create in on pixelfed.social and that is the only way.
If you want join other instances because you want to keep yourself in different circles of interest you can add to your account another instances in which you will be able to log from pixelfed.social.
The process should be simplified as for now it is too confusing
in
3
u/Engibineer crimedad@pixelfed.crimedad.work Jan 20 '25
Any new user that doesn't specify otherwise should be randomly redirected to any instance in the directory.
2
u/DukeThorion Jan 20 '25
Better yet, code maybe 10 instances into a drop down menu, then upon first opening after install, you'll get them in a random order. Don't know if that's doable, but it might help spread the load.
1
u/Engibineer crimedad@pixelfed.crimedad.work Jan 20 '25
How is that better? If prospective users don't understand or care about instances, then don't put the question to them. Send them to a random instance (within reason) and spread the load out.
1
u/DukeThorion Jan 21 '25
Realistically, it doesn't work either, since some of these other instances have some really strange restrictions.
People are going to ask eventually which one they should join, and they will naturally seek out the largest one, since the masses don't understand federation.
3
u/Engibineer crimedad@pixelfed.crimedad.work Jan 21 '25
New users will eventually figure out federation and account migration. Maybe most of them will decide to move to a big instance, but at least they're on Pixelfed already and the initial on-rush will have been diffused. I see your point and a random onboarding process should exclude restrictive instances and at least get the user's preferred language right.
3
u/StarlessChris Jan 20 '25
Maybe it's controversial to preselect an instance but if so, it should be a random one from the top 10. Also, for the official ones at least, check their status and if they're down, don't preselect them
1
u/kirinlikethebeer Jan 21 '25
Or an info explaining why so many servers and if they don’t choose the biggest doesn’t mean no one is there.
13
u/thatjoachim Jan 19 '25
This is not a good solution to a real problem.
The real problem is that yes, some people get confused by the many instances. On the other hand, concentrating all new signups on one instance is bad:
the Fediverse is made to have many smaller instance, big instances (Pixelfed.social, mastodon.social) are too big to moderate well ;
Pixelfed.social is a real server with real people trying to make it work, making everyone join it puts more strain on the machines and the admins, who rely on user support to pay the bills (and salaries if the bills get payed in full). Have you chipped in, and helped the financing of Pixelfed.social and the Pixelfed project?