Got what I needed, thanks to those who responded in good faith!
This isn’t my main account but after poking around Lemmy for about half a year, this seems to be what people are saying (and my general impression)
- Lemmygard, Hexbear - Ultra Tankies
- Lemmy.ml - Commies and Tankies, the gateway to the above. Users can and will use every opportunity to drown others in Marxist rhetoric
- Beehaw - Highly sensitive lefties who are blocking both lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works on Instance level because of open registration policy (as if registering to any instance takes effort).
- slrpnk.net - Hippies who like cyberpunk
- lemmy.dbzer0.com - Anarchists who hate tankies and any rules except their own, which are different and therefore better
- lemmy.blahaj.zone - LGBTQ+ folk who hate tankies
and lefties(i meant to write rightoids) - various regional instances - left leaning but according to above, not enough and therefor fascists and nazis
- lemmy.world - open instance, therefor if you ask anyone above regional instances, basically fascists and nazis
- sh.itjust.works - anything goes, therefor if you ask anyone above lemmy.world, basically fascists and nazis
- programming.dev - nerds and therefor suspicious to everyone
- piefed - no idea but judging by how people talk about it, Lemmy is clearly becoming too mainstream so some people feel they need to move into further obscurity.
anything else: either nazis or tankies depending on who you ask.
I really like Lemmy on paper but good god this instance drama is off-putting. Also it’s hard to find out which instances are blocking which instances - which I find silly altogether because people are specifically hyping fediverse because “iTs AlL coNnEcTeD” and “you are in charge of your feed”. I’m contemplating running one or two communities (and I’m totally fine with them being small and slow) but I don’t know where I dare to make them because apparently I’d have to be paying far closer attention to the nitty gritty of every bit of instance drama to make sure I’m not on “the wrong side”. Or if I make the communities on some instance with banhappy admins who decide that I’m a tankie/nazi because I allowed someone to post content from someone who said something vaguely wrong on Twitter 10 years ago.
Is there like a guide document somewhere that lists the features, vibes and general content policy, and banned instances and all that of at least the major instances? Because this is like walking on eggshells.
Its kinda the point to me. I would like to see specific instances. Like there is one that was sorta an old school internet club that existed before federation but they made an instance for the members. Then like I totally think the world science fiction society should have one. It would make sense for them to not allow general comunities but instead put up a few for their things. Around science fiction literature. Then they also provide accounts to members. Maker spaces would be another. I would prefer a lot more smaller and niche instances than larger general ones.
There used to be more topical themed instances but some shut down
I mean I can see maker spaces shutting down but something like the science fiction society does the hugo awards and runs cons and their clientel are big nerds. It amazes me they would not run an instance. I mean instances like that would not have open sign up as an account would be part of membership but given their missions they are slam dunk for running certain communities.