Hello everyone,
Based on the recent instability of Lemmy.world, a lot of people have been wondering whether they should move to another instance.
I used to look at https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/list and recommend people to pick a generalist instance with as much users as possible (using the 1m column), usually
- lemm.ee
- sh.itjust.works
- sopuli.xyz
- lemmy.one
- reddthat.com
- etc.
Of course, there are also the regional options
- feddit.de
- lemmy.ca
- aussie.zone
- feddit.nl
- feddit.uk
- midwest.social
- etc.
And of course, the thematic instances
- programming.dev
- lemmy.blahaj.zone
- discuss.tchncs.de
- lemmy.dbzer0.com
- etc.
I used to recommend the most populated instances, as we know that All depends on users subscribed from the instance.
However, now with the introduction of the Lemmy Community Seeder (https://github.com/Fmstrat/lcs), which
tells your instance to pull the top communities and the communities with the top posts from your favorite instances
do you think this should still apply? I have seen promising instances (high uptime, already on 18.4 that was released today)
- discuss.online
- lemmy.ninja
- unilem.org
- etc.
Would you recommend users to join those as well, assuming that the admins use the LCS to populate the All feed? Most of us remember the Vlemmy.net disappearance, and it's difficult to tell users to join small instances based on good faith, but at the same time, every instance needs to start somewhere, and they should be given a chance.
What do you think?
Wouldn't this lead to the same problems lemmy.world is having?
I would recommend choosing based on interests, rules that align with you, proximity to where you live, stuff like that. Population is not a problem, you can still participate everywhere because of federation.
The issues with choosing a small instance (let's say less than 500 users) is that your All feed would be quite empty, as only communities that people on your instances subscribed to would show up, which is an issues with discoverability of new content.
As I said in the post, the LCS tool can be a mitigation against that.
Otherwise, I generally agree with you
I joined the fediverse a couple months ago, before the reddit protest started, admins of lemmy.ml were asking people to join smaller instances because they were being overloaded.
So an instance with less than 500 users was the parameter I used to choose, that instance was lemmy.world lol, look at where they are now.
I created a second account on lemm.ee only a few days ago for various reason, being populated wasn't one of them :)
You can lurk all the federation in clients, better choose an instance of your liking and is federated.
That's what I did, but some users are really afraid of having to change instances