Quick question: I'm thinking of joining Mastodon. Anyone here knows an instance relating to FoC, with a mix of techy and artsy vibes? I'm thinking of something like Merveilles, for example

I'm at https://vis.social but the nice thing about the fediverse is that picking the instance doesn't limit you (other than the benefit of the local timeline aligning with your interests)

I've tried applying to https://merveilles.town in the past, but my application was ignored / silently rejected... 😓 @Kartik Agaram has an account there, I wonder if they know any secrets required to get one...

I'm on Merveilles; there are some good discussions on there, it is worth trying again. They have rules about your avatar (has to be black and white). I didn't know about vis.social; joining!

Looks like Merveilles has changed to explicitly invite only, as I no longer see the "request account" path... I wonder if any existing users can invite people, or if it's admin only...

I recently requested one from the admins. Hasn't actually gotten used yet, and it feels like a big enough deal that I'm not feeling comfortable asking immediately for another 😅 @Chris Maughan how did you end up there? I actually got invited without asking, and by then I'd been following enough people from there that it felt worth uprooting myself. @J. Ryan Stinnett, I think a link to a demo would go a long way here. Looking at https://github.com/merveilles/The-Town#common-hashtags they don't seem to care about academic writing..

Hmm, I guess I find it odd to be checking so closely things like demos vs. papers, but of course if that's what they want... Perhaps better for me to just ignore it then, there are many other instances. Mostly I just noticed that many of the people I follow on Twitter are on Merveilles, so the local timeline seemed like it would be of interest.

Yeah exactly same as you, @J. Ryan Stinnett. But I also get that ppl prefer to keep their instance small, which is why I was looking for an alternative. vis.social seems pretty nice, although quite big 🤔

Yeah they seem to want to stay small 😕

Extremely valid tbh

I would happily contribute to the server costs... 🤷

And yes, the local timeline is absolutely the draw here. Interestingly, I've seen people called out for "spamming the local timeline." So maybe that's the top reason for the gate-keeping?

I don't remember how I got on there, it was quite a long time ago; probably because I was chatting with Devine a bit....

Might be worth spinning up a new instance with similar interests?

people called out for "spamming the local timeline."

Seems like a lot of strange social rules to navigate then, not sure I really want to deal with that... 😕

Yeah, it's a bit like living in a co-op. Perhaps I overstated when I said "called out." Everyone's very nice.

Yeah the few times I've checked the public timeline there, it seemed like a welcoming and inspiring place

Partly it is driven by Devine's work; he often sets the tone too.

Yeah that makes a lot of sense