join-lemmy.org has a list of instances you can join. If you just want to look through a list that’s a great place to browse.
If you’re looking for specific recommendations I’d say lemm.ee is great in terms of moderation, they don’t overmoderate and tend not to defederate from many places so users can kinda choose themselves whether or not to block an instance. Dbzer0 is similar, it’s the instance with the big piracy community which .world blocked, and the admin is also great.
Both of those are in the top 10 communities in terms of size though iirc, which ideally people would avoid the biggest instances and join smaller ones to try and prevent centralization like what happened with .world communities.
Lemmy.zip is also great from what I’ve heard, and while it’s not small, it’s top 20 instead of top 10 at least.
Wow that’s spot on the kind of information I was looking for! You’re incredible, I appreciate it!
Do you happen to know if there is a way to port comment history to a new account yet, please?