Statement on “Join The Fedi” jointhefedi.com is a website owned by known “gender critical” activist Alex Gleason. The domain name and SEO is clearly designed to appeal to individuals curious about the fediverse, and potentially take traffic from joinmastodon.org. Unfortunately, Gleason does not have the best intentions when it comes to helping the fediverse grow. Gleason formerly contributed to other fediverse projects, before being removed from doing so due both his behavior and poor code quality. This is a problematic individual, recommending problematic services.
Join The Fedi has an explicitly right-wing agenda and seems to only promote instances which either a) run the “Soapbox” front-end software created by Gleason himself or b) advertise themselves as “free speech” instances. As of right now, the site actively recommends the following instances:
poa.st (blocked by Howlr for harassment)
Spinster.xyz (blocked by Howlr for transphobia)
Shitposter.club (blocked by Howlr for harassment)
Gleasonator.com (blocked by Howlr for transphobia)
Freespeechextremist.com (blocked by Howlr for hate speech)
In other words, Gleason is using the site to promote his own agenda rather than simply gain more users into the fediverse. This is not a site that should be recommended to new users. I would recommend using https://joinfediverse.wiki/ instead!
Thank you!
@naia I'd like to see post reference in the list or as footnotes... I don't have much in it either way but I know the personal relationships (or styles or people stuff) do get in the way often and are underestimated as time goes on (which is why I believe in 'maintenance' or time spent on these things as they end things pretty quick and sometimes for little to now reason or could be more clearer in the disconnects.
