[@jerry](<https://infosec.exchange/@jerry):> let’s take a look at what we get currently with the official Mastodon app (see picture below) - it highlights the button directing you to register on mastodon\[.\]social. Since it is in another colour (blurple?) than the background on the landing screen (green in the shown fragment), it’s easier to spot the “Join mastodon\[.\]social” button rather than the “Pick my own server” button (for non-technical people this button may also wrongly suggest to “get your very own server hosted by the foundation maintaining Mastodon”, which is not true as it puts you in a search engine of all available public instances). With what we have now, this strongly impairs the moderation abilities on the flagship instance, as one moderator now must handle more concurrent users on average than on any other instance (I haven’t heard of any other instance than mastodon\[.\]social being at 200 thousands plus monthly active users).

I think the best compromise for now is to:

reboot the official instances directory and enforcement of the Mastodon Servers Covenant;
change the wording in the official app so less technically inclined people will have less struggle with joining the Fediverse and/or switching apps when they discover an another one;
* and, with the official instances directory being relaunched, promote the instances committing to the aforementioned MSC instead of just the flagship one (mastodon\[.\]social).