A poll!
"How did you choose your instance?"
http://www.strawpoll.me/14362040
If you choose "other", please feel free to respond to this toot with your story!
maple classic™ 
@bea @djsundog @cassolotl computer fairies is a force of nature
@cassolotl I joined witchestown because of an hex.
@Baerd Damn, I should've added that as an option! :P
@cassolotl what does "joined mastosoc at first but went over to awoo to help out" count as?
@noiob Oooo that's tricky! Ummm, probably the "asked around" one, but that doesn't *feel* very accurate, so maybe "other"!
@cassolotl @noiob yeah i'm in a similar situation, picked "other" because it was more like "hey i'm starting a new instance people should come join it!"
@noiob @cassolotl (like, that's what chr said. so then I went and joined it)
@cassolotl i went the gayest one that was most on brand
@winterslex Excellent! 🌈
@cassolotl "when i joined there was only one instance" do people like that even exist? like fedi has been around for so long
@Pasty I know, right? Years and years! :D
But yeah, I gotta have one for Gargron to select.
Damn, should've put "am Gargron".
@cassolotl I'm pretty sure there were many GNUSocial instances around when Gargron decided to make a mastodon. does than not count?
@Pasty I think this poll is only about Mastodon.
@cassolotl @Pasty gargooble can just select "I run my own instance" ^^
@luluberlu @Pasty True! :P
@theru @cassolotl well apparently it's only about mastodon so you shouldn't have voted
@Pasty @theru Haha, I'm not the poll police, I *am* interested in what everyone has to say - it's just that a lot of people who joined mastodon.social when it was the only instance are going to be saying "there was only this one instance when I joined", forgetting that there were other OStatus things before that, so that option's answers are going to vary depending on the assumptions people have made.
@cassolotl Best name + best color scheme.
Also, being a computer fairy makes me feel pretty ;)
@nicoo Awwww that is lovely! I need to add "chose the one with the coolest URL" to that list!
@cassolotl I joined when .social was closed; in Gargron's post he suggested tchncs or another instance (I forget which). I definitely wanted something hosted in the EU, so I checked out tchncs.de and everything looked good, so I picked that one.
@frankiesaxx Ahh that's cool! I guess that's kind of like "a friend's recommendation" kinda sorta?
@cassolotl the EU part was non-negotiable so I guess you could say based on hosting/server location.
@frankiesaxx Oh yes, that makes sense. Thank you, mentally-noted!
@cassolotl I joined one instance because it was open and looked stable, then I saw toots from another instance that seemed a better fit, and moved, and then i looked at the list of instances and found one that seemed just right for me. And it is.
@gannet Ahhh that's cool! :) I will remember that and if I do another poll someday maybe I'll try to fit that into a checkbox option, haha!
@cassolotl it's a little convoluted.
@gannet Indeed. ;)
@cassolotl first joined mastodon.cloud because .social was closed and it seemed like a generic enough entry point to have a look around.
joined witches.town because @viv woke me up one day with a link to a thread about jorts, and told me if i wanted in on it, i should join before the witching hour ended 3 minutes later. so i very sleepily registered from my phone. (later abandoned it for less than fun reasons)
joined cybre.space from having seen it from other instances and liked its overall theme.
@cassolotl originally signed up on m.s, because it was open at the time and it was the flagship instance.
after deciding to create a new, transier account (whish is the one i'm using right now) i went with cybre.space, because it looked cool ^_^
@devurandom "Transier"! :D Awesome.
@cassolotl signed up to awoo realized i was't connecting to people. found mastodon.art and never left.
Had to refollow a bunch of people tho. lol
@cassolotl when I joined I thought it was just mastodon.social because I didn't know about instances etc, but I don't actually know if there were any other instances yet? Is there a timeline of mastodon instances somewhere 😅
@wolfpurplemoon Ohhhh I dunno! All I know is, when I joined in the big April influx, there were LOADS of instances!
@cassolotl I joined in November last year :D
@wolfpurplemoon Ohhh, then I have no idea! :P
@cassolotl woah wiki says it was launched in October 2016 so maybe mastodon.social was the only one, I am way too noob at Mastodon to have been here since so near the beginning 😂
@wolfpurplemoon Oh nice! You must have seen so many big changes!
@cassolotl The main thing I remember was the campaign to change the button to say TOOT
@wolfpurplemoon Whoa - what did it say before that?
@cassolotl it said publish, and it was Hbomb who got it changed 😀 https://mastodon.social/@Hbomberguy/146524
@wolfpurplemoon Wow! A piece of history! :)
@cassolotl The person I heard about Mastodon from said it was a good place.
@Hanfyren Awww that's good to hear. :D I hope it has lived up to its reputation.
@cassolotl I set up my own.
@cassolotl started at m.s when there was just the one instance, there were some unpleasant goings on and awoo was set up so I moved there looking for better management
@Miffy Ohh that makes sense! I didn't know awoo was so old, that's cool! :)
@cassolotl my instance chose me. I never had a chance.