There should be a kind of “sorting hat” personality test to attract the interest of prospective Lemmy joiners. People who love solarpunk stuff, for example, would easily find their home in slrpnk.net. Set a link to it on sites like join-lemmy.org to make the fediverse more approachable to casuals.
I’m not quite sure what part of that Lemmyverse.net page is like a sorting hat. I would say the official one is a gentler entry point than a big list of instances.
Though I am thinking another page with a better sorting hat would be better. It’s kinda crazy a place like Hex-bear gets suggested when you want a general instance. The Fediverse Observer recommends servers but it always recommends Hilarious Chaos to me, which is crazy (it’s Exploding Heads reincarnated).