I run a single-user personal Mastodon instance. Using relays help fill out what I can see and interact with.
Unfortunately public relays don't seem to live long. I just checked my relay list, and a bunch of ones I added have disappeared from the internet. Also, the Mastodon admin relays page doesn't show if a relay is actually working.
I found https://relaylist.com/ which has a list of alive relays.
Are there any semi-private moderated relays that people can recommend?