What caused users to sign up to specifically lemmy.ml, instead of other servers? I am aware a lot of users signed up after the spez AMA, but even before the AMA the site was overloaded.
instead of other servers?
The fact that when people started joining about a week ago or so,
lemmy.mlwas at the top of the recommendations in join-lemmy, the fact that it had in its description that lemmy.ml is ran by the developers of lemmy and the jerboa app so people assumed this is the correct one and lastly, unfortunately during that time the only alternative instances at the top of the recommendations waslemmygradand I don’t remember the other one that screamed communism so people flocked to other ones.
It’s the first site on join lemmy
I joined before the AMA, but not on lemmy.ml. Frankly, my first temptation was to ignore the overload warning for fear of missing something by joining another instance. Fortunately I spent more than two minutes figuring out how it works and decided otherwise, but that might be the reasoning behind other people’s choice
Frankly, my first temptation was to ignore the overload warning for fear of missing something by joining another instance.
I think many non tech savvy users won’t understand how Lemmy works and just give up trying to understand how to signup. Plus some instances have a form and users are waitlisted. I think that’s the biggest con of Lemmy.
It seems that the last point has been solved a few days ago by unlisting Beehaw and Lemmy.ml from suggested instances on join-lemmy.org
My first impulse as an ex-redditor is to flock to the server with highest population, because I am sheep. I want to see the most content and comments. For me fortunately likewise it took two minutes to figure out that you can see any content from any server. Maybe the server list on join-lemmy.org should show “load percentage” instead of “number of users” :)
I don’t think there’s a good universal definition of “load percentage”
For me, I think it was a combination of not understanding the system and not knowing anything about any instances. Which ones can you trust to not just shut down and make you loose your data?
This, I wanted to join an instance with management I somewhat agreed with on matters of federation and had longevity. I didn’t want to join beehaw or lemmy.one for the first reason; and the others don’t really have the longevity to see how admins will react in certain cases.
Am super new. What happens with my account if “my” Lemmy instance shuts down? What are my safeguards?
If your instance shuts down, you won’t be able to interact, your existing content will be in a limbo of pre-shutdown instances knowing about them and post-shutdown ones not. I assume a similar limbo will happen to the communities hosted on your instance, but I’m not entirely sure on what specifically will happen.
Sounds like something that will have to be addressed. Thus is definitely a reason to have an account with a large, established instance.
It’s been linked to all over Reddit when they should be linking to join-lemmy instead. Federation is a bit confusing if you’re new, plus you have instances like Beehaw and lemmygrad with their own questionable policies…
Well I made an account 10 days ago when the traffic was much less because the devs of Lemmy had just started advertising the site on Reddit.
People (like me) to jump ship before the AMA.
I did not know about it and I didn’t expect anything from it once I did. I was already here on lemmy anyways
IDK I just kinda like being on the OG instance/the instance with the devs. Also why I am on mastodon.social.
A lot of smaller instances defederate with mastodon.social because it’s very unmoderated. Tonnes of spammy accounts often flood smaller instance from mastodon.social which made a lot of admins defederate with it. Just as a heads up. You might not see posts from quite a few instances.