I heard once that the case for which instance (for any federated app, be it Lemmy or Mastodon etc) on which to sign up is to choose based on “administration” not subject. That is to say, it is better to experience the fediverse through moderation and other administrative decisions than it is to do so on a server that is “subject based.” Thoughts?
I’ve been thinking about the same thing, and I feel more and more that hosting your own server seems to be the best way to ensure that you get the content that you want without question
I’m curious to see how this all plays out. I’m running my own instance and it will be interesting to see if small instances get excluded on any large ones due to spam or abuse. Not that I plan on letting that happen with mine but I could see it has an anti abuse measure in the future.
How hard was it to set up an instance? I’m fairly decent with these things, and could spool up an shared server, but have never used Docker if that’s the best way.
I started my own as well (I also run my own Mastodon server) in a Kubernetes cluster. It took maybe 30 minutes to get everything up and running in my home lab setup.
If you’ve never used Docker before and wanted to give it a shot, there will be a learning curve, but it’s honestly very rewarding and depending on whether it’s relevant to you, it’s a good professional skill to have as well
I run my own Mastodon instance, but I haven’t been able to configure a lemmy instance. The readme is not currently as user-friendly as the one for Mastodon. I will try again sometime later if it’s improved.
I have my own server collocated in a data center so I spun up my instance in a virtual machine. All the infrastructure was ready to go and I’ve got a testing and production environment setup between my colo and my home lab. All that to say I’ve done things like this before so it wasn’t that difficult for me. I complied Lemmy from scratch which I do not recommend unless you really know what you’re doing. Docker would be the easiest way but I don’t really use it so I can’t recommend anything there.
Yeah, I haven’t set it up yet, but if a major instances refuses to federate based on you allowing everything, it’ll pressure you to restrict what they require. Almost an abuse of power based on access.
I think both are important considerations. You don’t want the owner to disappear on you the next day and you have to migrate and you still want a local timeline that’s relevant to your interests.
Also a good point. I had an instance crash and burn without warning. It was only a backup login, which was more open but still, all the info has gone.
Most instances that shut down were small ones that didn’t grow.
I thought it was obvious… we need to make our own! xD or at least that’s what I did.
A consideration is to check which instances are blocked. (See the instances link in the footer to check) to ensure the server doesnt block a specific instance you want to view.