this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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So when does the random instance is chosen? When the website is loaded? When the user clicks on a category?
Maybe currently there aren't enough instances categorised on the website to get enough randomness.
Is there, or would there be, a weight in the randomness in order to chose closer instances based on the user's location?
For example sh.itjust.works is an instance based in Canada. When the reddit exodus happened. That instance was slow due to the distance. While others closer to the western europe were faster because they where closer to me.
Tho rn, it's about the same. So not sure.
Instance is chosen when theres no subcategories for what the user selected
As an example of that when someone first goes to the site they get shown the 10 main categories (technology, gaming, sports, etc.). If they select technology they are then shown the technology subcategories (programming, android, radio, general). if they select general technology that has no subcategories so they are randomly sent to one of the three general technology instances (discuss.tchncs.de, lemmy.sdf.org, or infosec.pub)
A lot of the categories only have one site it sends to but thats fine for now since it still is distributing people to the different sites based on categories
Im not looking at location data at all but in the everything/other category theres countries that can be selected to send the user to country instances
Hmm, ok. I see. When clicking on the last button in a category tree, it chooses randomly an instance.
Tho for that specific category, I cannot access https://lemmy.sdf.org/. Why? I don't know, maybe broken or regional block?
If regional block, that is an argument to warts looking at user location. Tho not sure if it would be useful for anything else.
It would also be interesting to categorize more instances. Maybe even put smaller ones to distribute the load. Tho sometimes the smaller ones may not be well prepared for a lot of users. And at the same time the local feed may not be the most active. Tho the all feed may be interesting for new users.
The instance where I am, compuverse.uk is a general tech/computer instance, but had issues with storage for example.
Lemmy.sdf.org is where my main is hosted, but they're currently down (as is their pixelfed instance)
It's not just you / a regional block.