@ItsBillN

There are literally thousands of servers out there and more appear all the time, anyone can start their own.

It's difficult to know from a raw server list which ones are reliable.

The ones on the JoinMastodon list have committed to the "Mastodon Covenant" which has very specific requirements about reliability (multiple staff, long warning if they close etc) and responsible moderation (basically no hate speech). If they break the covenant they are removed from the list.