So, after being up and running for a week now I have implemented a few changes.
First change is a nice one: I set up an email server, so you can reset a password should you ever forget it. If you'd like to try for yourself, just fill in your email click the 'forgot password' link on the sign-in page! (Don't worry, nothing will actually be reset until you click the link in the email).
Second change has to do with the sign-up process. My assumption that people would use this instance in good faith was incorrect; today I observed a sudden increase in te amount of 'users' that had signed up. These users were created by a bot, and I'll be working to remove them again in the near future. I have enabled the captcha challenge to counter these automated sign-ups, and so far this appears to be working. I'd rather not enable mandatory email verification, so I hope that won't be necessary.
Finally, I made some under-the-hood changes to the reverse proxy to improve performance.
Version 18 of Lemmy should be rolling around soon, expect and update shortly after the release. Until then!