I don’t understand how Lemmy.world developers managed to surpass both Lemmy.ml and Beehaw.org instances in user activity.
Lemmy.ml actively asked people to sign up elsewhere. They have a small server and aren’t meant to be a general instance.
Lemmy.world is run by people who have one of the larger Mastodon servers, and actively advertises to be open and neutral.
It’s also the devs server and they have Lemmy code to write. Can’t be spending time moderating.
And the other stuff
It’s also presented as the default on most apps, I believe
That’s a big one. People tend to go with the default
That’s why the apps on the official stores are so important. Convenience wins.
Rule of the defaults. Most people use whatever the default is. That’s why there is always a push to he the default thing. Microsoft pushes edge on their stuff, Google pushes chrome, apps pushes safari, etc.
That’s also why Google pays Apple $20 billion annually to be Safari’s default search engine. Most people can’t be bothered to change their defaults/don’t want to after having it as their default for so long.
That’s a problem that will reveal itself later. Decentralization goes away when everyone flocks to one server. Turns into Reddit 2.0
I’m not sure whether the issues plaguing Reddit really apply to lemmy, even with a single instance being disproportionately larger than the others, which makes “Reddit 2.0” a bit less derogatory to me. Reddit’s moderator tools were severely lacking for the required output (federation helps diffuse communities, and lemmy doesn’t encourage bots to swarm in order to increase apparent user numbers for investor satisfaction), every big anti-hate decision required a media spectacle to precede it (admins here aren’t free speech absolutists with authoritarian hard-ons), and staff retention at Reddit is an odd loop of promotion into managerial obsolescence which severely increases overhead (irrelevant to lemmy). Reddit 2.0 wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to me.
This is the correct answer. The devs have been saying this for years but new users often weren’t aware of this and saw it as the default instance. It’s good to see that’s changed.
They’re not neutral though. They’ve already started defederating instances with users whose opinions they don’t like.
Well I said they advertise, not that they are.
I think most of it has to do with that lemmy.world has better hardware than other instances. The admin Rudd has a lot of experience running federated services as well. So it may be his first rodeo lemmy-wise but not hosting a federated service with a large user-base.
So when a lot of smaller instances started getting overwhelmed and stopping signups, lemmy.world was going strong without the performance issues that other instances might see.
That along with the fact that NSFW content is allowed makes lemmy.world a good alternative for Reddit refugees looking for something stable with a similar set of rules as well.
I myself joined lemmy.ml at first, then beehaw.org when lemmy.ml asked everyone to spread out, and finally found home on lemmy.world because I didn’t really like how downvotes are disabled on beehaw. Not to mention the defederation that beehaw has done recently. Although I can understand and appreciate why they’ve done that.
I’ve signed up for a bunch of them and still haven’t decided where I want to make my main. I know that annoys some people but I love it because it means I get to have a choice! I think I’ll have a Lemmy world account since they’re big, buti also want to find a good smaller community to have slower more meaningful conversations. I hope the Lemmy protocol adds support for account linking some day.
I’ve signed up for a bunch of them and still haven’t decided where I want to make my main.
Same story for me, although I keep coming back to Lemmy.world in the first instance, at least for the Lemmy instances (also explored kbin, tildes and squabbles). Mixed feelings about Lemmy.ml as I think there’s virtue being on the instance the devs run as it seems unlikely to go away, although there has been the talks around political views. From the political side, I do hang out more often than not in tech spaces though so I doubt it’d actually impact anything I’d want to engage in discussion about.
Also have an account with Beehaw which was my first but silly as it may seem, the name of that one puts me off a bit. “Lemmy.world” sounds like something I can more easily communicate to a friend verbally, for whatever that is worth.
Indeed. Even though I’m using the Lemmy.ca instance to distribute the load, I use Ruud’s Mastodon instance.
The developer for RIF told me to come here. I figured that I should trust the person that created the app that I’ve used for hundreds of hours.
Same. Like the parent of a child grown up, RIF has been forced to let us go, but not without influencing our direction lol
My exact reason. Had the popup show.
Then I created my own instance
I signed up on the 12th, after spending a little time comparing with the information I had. My thought process was:
- I was uncomfortable with the fact that .ml was hosted in Malaysia
- I thought a larger instance might mean it sticks around longer, but didn’t really want to be on the largest (which .ml was)
- Beehaw seemed otherwise a good fit, but their policies seemed too restrictive
- .world seemed to have liberal policies, allowed NSFW, was large but not largest, and was hosted in a country that didn’t worry me
I was uncomfortable with the fact that .ml was hosted in Malaysia
Not to discount your other points, but lemmy.ml isn’t hosted in Malaysia. The .ml TLD is for Mali, a country in Africa. And the site is hosted by OVH, on servers in France.
It’s intended to stand for Marxist - Leninist, is what I heard. I didn’t want to support a tankie thing which is why I went to world.
Wow, thanks for that, I really thought .ml was Malaysia. While I had some mild concerns about Malaysia, isn’t Mali a shit show as far as human rights? If the servers are in France, that mitigates a lot, but I think I have more concerns about Mali.
Ya. I’m pretty sure they just took .ml because it was a cheaper domain, but someone’ll have to correct me on that.
Mali has nothing to do with the instance though. Every country has a top level domain, like .CA or .UK etc. Most of them you have to pay to make a website using the domain. Mali is one country that lets anybody use the ML domain for free. That’s the only reason Lemmy.ml uses it, they have nothing to do with Mali else-wise. (Well there is the bit about ML = Marxist Leninist, but that is a bit of a backronym.)
For me ML stands for Machine Learning. Mali is sitting on a goldmine of a tld, and could turn into Tuvalu
The country of Mali has little to do with lemmy.ml, apart from an annual transaction worth 10 USD.
The admins of .ml are tankies. The letters don’t reference a place, they reference a couple of communist leaders who the admins are fans of. I’m surprised that more people aren’t aware of that on this platform.
This is pretty much the same thought pattern I had, however I made my account here after Beehaw defederated and have since decided not to use it anymore. Lemmy.world reminds me so much of the older style internet and forums and it’s a breath of fresh air.
I love how World and Blahaj are lgbt friendly and anti authoritarianism, unlike .ml.
Can I ask what worries you about it being hosted on Malaysia?
I’m not any authority, and I could be just ignorant, but my understanding is that the Malaysian government makes liberal use of laws against sedition and that govern communication to silence dissent. There was an artist who has been jailed a couple times this year for political satire. That kind of atmosphere doesn’t seem like a good place to host communities that want free discussion.
Malaysian police are also asking Interpol to help them investigate a comedian in New York over a joke she made about Malaysia. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65894721
That’s a pretty valid reason, I’ll have to look into it more as I already created an account on .ml. While I do call myself an anarchist/communist, I don’t zealously jump at the defense of a government without nuancing the situation.
It’s decidedly not hosted in malaysia. I’m also unclear why that would be a problem though.
Regardless of the how, I think it’s really cool that the top instance isn’t run by the devs. Really shows off the power and appeal of decentralized services.
Probably because its name sounds official and it allows quick registration while others need approval (some never approves you).
Turns out it’s the right choice as the admin seems very active in updates and fixes. Lemmy.world also has a more chill homey vibes. At least that’s what I observed so far.
I am new like most of us. When I signed up I had no idea what an instance was. To me the name Lemmy.world sounded like it was more general and therefore would have more content so I picked that one.
Yeah the name sounded the most inviting. It’s Lemmy… That’s the name of what I want… And it’s world, that sounds like a generic description of “everything”. But at the end of the day I just clicked a link in a comment. Seemed to me to be the more popular one suggested.
I don’t know man, I’m here because shit just works.
I am new like most of us. When I signed up I had now idea what an instance was. To me the name Lemmy.world sounded like it was more general and therefore would have more content so I picked that one.
Mainly because signups were closed on Lemmy.ml and they were not on Lemmy.world.
Ya, I applied for beehaw.org and didn’t get access after a few days and lemmy.world was open so made an account there. Not much else to it.
I didn’t really know what I was doing, and it sounded the most “official”.
I went for the most generic “official” sounding name.
Underrated comment. I picked it because I had no idea what I was doing and it sounded all-encompassing and I wanted access to everything. I didn’t even know what an instance was. I just picked it because it sounded like a good guess to get access to all of Lemmy.
Yeah same. But from .world we’re able to access all the other instances right?
Well, not beehaw right now.
Lemmy.ml had sign ups closed. Behaw required a short story or something to get accepted. Lemmy.world was accepting sign-ups wasn’t hosted somewhere shady and had active communities. It was a pretty easy choice. Assuming the admins have a pledge drive or something to host on AWS/GCP so we can get better burst capabilities I’d love to donate.
Donations to keep the lemmy.world instance up-and-running can be made through:
https://opencollective.com/mastodonworld or https://patreon.com/mastodonworld
@ruud does good work, and he’s a HELL of a good admin. I’d recommend that we all contribute in order to have a place to gather. I’ve been looking at the various solutions to the Reddit conundrum and, personally, I think that lemmy.world is our best bet at this point…
EDIT: I have no affiliation; I just think that we should pay it back however we can. It costs money to run servers and, even if we just “buy him a coffee,” every little bit helps IMO.
@Ruud has been great and Lemmy.world has very transparent so I will throw some cash their way. The mastodon.world blog is transparent with costs and financials which I appreciate.
I would love to see if they have a roadmap of how they plan to address the current surge of traffic or if they plan to just wait it out with their current VPS.
@Ruud has been great and Lemmy.world has very transparent so I will throw some cash their way. The mastodon.world blog is transparent with costs and financials which I appreciate.
I would love to see if they have a roadmap of how they plan to address the current surge of traffic or if they plan to just wait it out with their current VPS.
Rif sent me to lemmy.world to make an account. Didnt know the deal here and still kinda iffy but im getting the idea.
By keeping sign-ups open, mostly.
Lemmy.ml, to my understanding, was always meant to be a pilot instance from the devs of lemmy. Beehaw is kind of its own forum. There is also sh.itjust.works, but that has been caught up in some federation drama, and I don’t think people like the name. Lemmy.world has been the right server at the right time to absorb everyone and I guess they have been able to keep up with sign-ups. Kudos to them.
federation drama
Not really. We had a thedonald community for like 5 hours before it was banned, and a tiny number of people started shouting about how terrible we are because we don’t read the minds of people joining.
Also, we’re trying to run this instance democratically, and the first vote is a pretty easy no-brainer: defederate a hate speech instance. Not really “drama” as much as everyone has an opinion.
You can check out the discussion on the agora, the vast majority of the discussion is very respectful.
EDIT: Discussion I’m talking about is here.
I’m talking about on other instances, who are trying to figure out if they are defederating.
