The previous one by The Black Company was too wide to defend against Italy. Let's make this one! I know LEMMY.ML is not the full Lemmyverse but we don't have space for JOIN-LEMMY.ORG now.
I know, it's better for decentralization to link to the directory. The Black Company tried but they were overrun by Italy. LEMMY.ML is the "shortest" Lemmy link and we cannot fit anything more unless the canvas expands or the very loose Fuck Spez Coalition lends us more space.
If your goal is to advertise the fediverse You should have used 'kbin'.
People can go directly to "lemmy.ml" but the site might disappear due to Mali re-establishing ownership of .ml domains, also its run by a tankie which will upset some people.
"Lemmy" provides 10 google sponsored results and then 'join-lemmy', the join-lemmy website has you 'join a server' and then presents you lots of options.
During the first Mastodon surge one of their issues is people felt overwhelmed by the options and it hurt Mastodon adoption, so a single website does make a lot of sense. Personally I would suggest lemmy.world its a general instance and the admins aren't linked to any extremist views, but you said that would be too long.
If you put 'kbin' into search the top result is kbin.social, that makes it seems like a reddit alternate. It keeps user choice limited and brings them into the fediverse. That means people aren't confronted with the complexity of the fediverse immediately and can learn and understand it at their own pace.
So if your goal is to advertise the fediverse I would push kbin, if your goal is to specifically get people to use a Lemmy based website I don't think you have a good option
You can thank Meta for that. They sued the registrar managing several ccTLDs, including .ml, .ga, .gq, .cf, and .tk. Meta even goes so far to fabricate a conspiracy theory about the registrar being part of a cybercriminal ring; they feign concern and wreak havoc.
That website is confusing to the average user and makes no sense. Linking directly to an instance, doesn't matter which, gives them a familiar UI to Reddit, and allows them to click "sign up" without issue. From there they can learn about instances and join a different one.
join-lemmy.org is confusing, and makes it seem like it's some software you download to the average user.
It is the wrong instance to link to then, because lemmy.ml has severely limited who are allowed to join it. That would just leave much more confusion and antagonism towards the concept of lemmy than the join lemmy page.
There's an ongoing fiasco with the Mali government reclaiming all .ml websites. Fmhy lemmy is already gone as they used a .ml. You may want to link to the org instead, just in case
The guy that currently runs the .ml registrar is warning the US military that a lot of emails meant for .mil addresses are ending up on mail servers that he currently controls, and will end up in the hands of the Mali government very soon. He set up the navy dot ml and army dot ml domains years ago to intercept and discard those mistyped emails, but is renewing his efforts to contact the US DoD about the issue because he's losing access/control of those servers when the Mali government takes back .ml.
I know, it's better for decentralization to link to the directory. The Black Company tried but they were overrun by Italy. LEMMY.ML is the "shortest" Lemmy link and we cannot fit anything more unless the canvas expands or the very loose Fuck Spez Coalition lends us more space.
Spend $9 on a reputable domain name rather than a domain name you technically “rent” from an unscrupulous registrar that eventually takes back domains and redirects them to adult websites? Thus leading to them getting sued by Facebook and bringing enough attention to Mail for them to take back the domains? Nah.
Not r/Place imo, it's 100% feeding back into reddit directly and is clearly bringing back even Lemmy users just to engage. Deleting comments or editing existing ones with comment about Lemmy or something and just leave reddit.
Or only contribute to "reddit alternatives" reddit. The people on there already, especially on place, won't leave reddit for Lemmy that's for damn sure. It's a pointless advertisement and is just feeding into the engagement cycle