What are some underrated instances of the Fediverse?

Do you want the furry porn ones or no

... there's entire instances for that? ::: give :::
- You might wanna check out yiffit.net

I feel like peertube gets overlooked way too often. I love the idea and think it should be more used

I want to like peertube, but the discoverability is terrible, and last I checked, it was pushing mostly cinspiracy theories. And every time I try to see around, it's just impossible to find an instance that would host interesting videos. Also, I find hopping around instances feels awkward.

Also, it seems to consist of "video dumps", resulting the instances having the "new" videos being hundreds of videos posted by just one user. It's just... not there for me, eben though I love the idea :/
- re peertube discovery, i saw this the other day:
  
  https://sepiasearch.org/
  
  framasoft developed both peertube, and this… i assume to address that exact concern
- Tilvids.com and from there you can subscribe to anyone a cross the videoverse.
PeerTube is great if you like low-quality DVD rips and hour-long discussions on Linux.

At least, that's all I seem to ever find.
- And sometimes that's exactly what I want, it definetly has its place
What PeerTube lacks is content creators. There is tilvids.com, but a lot of the content is just mirrored from YouTube and running a PeerTube instance can be expensive.
I hope aggregators like greyjay will be able to incorporate peer tube recommendations into their app, that might help the platform be able to grow past things no one else will host.
Eh... Having content like that made is difficult

https://startrek.website is pretty cool if you're into Trek

RISA might be one of the best communities on lemmy
- I'm not a trekkie, but I enjoy it.
  
  Then again the opening theme of TNG was my lullaby as a kid so I was exposed through my parents.
It's great, but hardly underrated! It's been mentioned by the Lemmy devs and gets referenced all over Lemmy. Deservedly so.
- You're right, but startrek.website can never have enough love (unless it's the hug of death lol)

https://oulipo.social/ is a custom Mastodon that forbids that fifth alphanum symbol in its toots. That is, using a,b,c,d is ok and any of f,g,h up to z is also ok and also digits and punctuation but that’s all.

This post would pass its validation.

You mean "e" is forbidden in toots?
- Yup, the software is patched to not allow e in usernames or posts (apart from in URLs). Expressing yourself without using any word involving e is a fun challenge, and often you think you succeeded until the validation tells you off.

Hexbear is so awesome, I can barely stand being there for more than 30 seconds.

Don't use sarcasm, it confuses me.
lol hexbears when called out on their excessive toxicity: here, have some more toxicity! that’ll show ‘em they’re wrong about us!

I like that bbc.social has a self-authenticating gTLD; a step up from a self-authenticating domain lol

Don't you mean social.bbc?
- Yes

Not sure if underrated, but i like https://metapixl.com/ and https://mathstodon.xyz

I would say infosec.pub but it seems pretty popular.

If you're using mastodon infosec.exchange is awesome as well. A significant chunk of the security folks I know ended up there.
- I've never liked twitter/X or mastadon format content but having it all infosec might completely change my mind.

I have accounts on most instances but https://lemdro.id works really good for me. Admin are active and they haven't defederated anyone yet.

Instances really aren't going to be all that different if you're federated with the greater fediverse

baraag(dot)net, long-running, stable and always up-to-date vanilla Mastodon server for an underserved niche (the "illegal in some jurisdictions" kind of niche, you have been warned!), it's remained in top 5 most active Mastodons by MAU for years. New user signups have been closed for all of 2023 and it hasn't budged.

If you were wondering, it's child porn disguised as anime-like pictures. Some people call it "lolicon" and "shotacon" when they want to feel like they're not pedophiles.

There's a chance your instance has already banned it: https://gui.fediseer.com/instances/detail/baraag.net
- Respectfully, there is legally no pornography on the site according to the jurisdiction it operates in. At best it is obscene, and it rightfully has an 18+ policy on registered users.
  
  This node maintains the fact that it does not allow pornography, and that all local content has artistic value.
  
  Because baraag.net contains no pornographic images depicting 'Actual human beings' within the meaning and definitions of 18 USC §2257 OR 18 USC §2257A, the admin of this node has been advised by counsel that they cannot maintain records pursuant to those statutes.
  
  You can try and malign them as if they're trying to "disguise" themselves to fit into society, but at the end of the day it is literally just people drawing what they like to draw. Admins are free to defederate them, they usually don't mind it since laws in most places don't align with common sense anyway, but throwing shade at a server that minds it's own business is kinda pathetic.
  
  EDIT: Up in the thread there's an 18+ furry porn instance getting highlighted, I like how fediseer.com themselves endorses it, as if the furry porn on there isn't just "animal porn disguised as cartoon-like pictures, that some people call yiff when they want to feel like they're not zoophiles" 🤡