I’ve heard people talking about e.g. not subscribing to lemmy.world communities (because they are the largest instance), and others like Lemmygrad seems to be defederated by quite many instances. But what about lemmy.ml? Should that instance and those communities also be avoided? The “issue” is that many large communities seem to be based on that instance. Like [email protected] and [email protected]
Ehh I’d suggest feeling it out for yourself to be honest. I’ve had some great interactions on .ml communities, as well as .world communities. But also some hair-pulling insanity. That’s where some of the most active conversations happen, but that also means you’re more likely to encounter some trolls and some awful petulant fools. When you do, just unsubscribe from the community or block the user and you’re all set.
Self-curation is one of my favorite things about Lemmy, and it’s why I like .ee as an instance, because it’s quite neutral and they let individual users choose what communities we want to see and don’t force decisions down our throats. The beauty of this place is that you can always switch instances or block communities and users you dislike, you just have to spend some time curating your experience.
You are correct, I think there are quite a few moderate instances out there.
The inner struggle to self curate comes down to summoning the effort between being on passive autopilot and the desire to not fall into an echo chamber by actively listening and participating.
Personally, I’m less scared about getting my feelings hurt and more the need to not be such a lazy fuck;)