This site is currently struggling to handle the amount of new users. I have already upgraded the server, but it will go down regardless if half of Reddit tries to join.
However Lemmy is federated software, meaning you can interact seamlessly with communities on other instances like beehaw.org or lemmy.one. The documentation explains in more detail how this works. Use the instance list to find one where you can register. Then use the Community Browser to find interesting communities. Paste the community url into the search field to follow it.
You can help other Reddit refugees by inviting them to the same Lemmy instance where you joined. This way we can spread the load across many different servers. And users with similar interests will end up together on the same instances. Others on the same instance can also automatically see posts from all the communities that you follow.
Edit: If you moderate a large subreddit, do not link your users directly to lemmy.ml in your announcements. That way the server will only go down sooner.
The mods at lemmy.ml moderate the content that is hosted there. That includes copies of content that originate elsewhere, such as your instance. You're still responsible for moderating the content your instance sends out regardless of where it is sent to. For example, this post will show up at lemmy.ml. The mods could delete it, or ban me, but the post will still exist on my instance and be readable to the general public. At least that is how I understand it.
If a post from a remote user gets removed in a community on lemmy.ml, that removal should also federate back to the user's home instance. At least in theory.
So if you host an instance with no communities, the only moderation you need to do is prevent spam bots or trolls from using it.
Interesting. So if you delete this comment on lemmy.ml, it will delete off my instance too?
Yes it should. I tried to test it just now but federation is overloaded.
I've learned something new :)
Can you tell me why my comments show up at lemmy.ml even if my instance is turned off? Is it a cache thing, or is the content copied / stored at lemmy.ml?
Yes comments are stored in the database of each instance. Similar how email is stored on the servers of each participant. Fetching it from the remote server for each view would be way too slow.
Are posts stored the same way?
Yes everything except images/videos.
So actually, your comment's actual data is in your grouchysysadmin.com instance, and similar to following a symlink, lemmy.ml is just pointing to your data.
Oh that's super interesting.
It's mirrored in both databases.
I think this is the part I see as a potential hurdle for hosting a primarily auth-purposed instance. Fetching remotely would be too slow but data replication would exponentially increase storage over time. So anyone planning to self-host would need to take on the storage growth costs of all other federated instances raising the barrier for entry over time. Unless I've misunderstood this point
You only need to store the content from communities that you follow. So in a single user instance it will be very limited. And anyway its all text which doesnt take much space. Remote images/video are not mirrored.