While I personally don’t care to use them myself, they generally don’t ruin my reading experience unless its obvious spam. However, I have heard that they are the enemy of people who rely on screen readers. Screen readers will say something like “Tongue sticking out emoji”. So depending on where they are placed in text it can probably be really difficult to read things.

Yep totally wrong post lol. Sorry for the missing context, I was trying to reply to a thread about the use of emojis.

My main worry with smaller servers is that whoever is running them may lose interest and decide to shut down permanently. It does seem that the pros and cons tip in either direction as a server’s population grows.

I hadn’t considered making my own instance for private use. Not sure if that was what you meant or not. But it may be the safest way of ensuring your data doesn’t get lost. My worry with small servers is that who ever is running them might lose interest and shut down permanently. But if a server is too big, there may be disagreements that lead to de-federating. Thanks for the tips.

I’m not too worried about getting banned. I plan to be a rather “average” person throughout the fediverse. I was a lurker for about 10 years on reddit, but I do want to be a more active contributor here. I’m going to try to respect each server’s rules as best as I can and just avoid the ones I don’t agree with.

Good point, I expect things to look very different a year from now. I’m honestly not sure if it will continue to grow or if its just a fad. I hope for the former.

I only have one lemmy account right now, but I’m definitely open to trying out other instances, I’m just not sure what the point is as long as you’re not stuck on one that has been blocked by several others. I’ve subscribed to many communities across several instances. It seems to me aside from making sure you don’t end up on a blocked server, you just want to make sure you pick a server that is in it for the long haul. From what I can tell you’re also on sh.itjust.works, but have you tried making an account on any other servers?

NSFW friendly content is a big factor for sure. I’ve seen a few complaints about hiding nsfw content not working too well, so it seems many servers are totally against it. I hope that gets straightened out soon.

I was referring to low admin interest. For example if you did allow a few users on your server, then you grew bored of it and shut it down, they would lose access to their accounts. But running a server just for yourself honestly sounds like the best option if you have the money for it.

lol I’m glad my post made its way around to you then.