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.
I'm going to set up a general purpose instance tomorrow with the intention of handling a relatively large number of users. The main problem is choosing a domain!
It's a week later, but I did get this done finally. I've set up https://lem.monster/ . Still doing some tweaking, but it's open.
Nope. You can subscribe/post/comment on any community on any instance. There is one small seam though: if you're the first person to subscribe from your instance, you need to put in the full URL of the community (https://lemmy.ml/c/gaming, for example) to pull it into your instance.
After that, everybody on the same instance as you will see it when searching for communities just like it was local.
EDIT: Oh, forgot to mention: make sure the search is set to "All", not "Communities" when you do this.
@nutomic@lemmy.ml It might be a good idea to default the Communities page to All instead of Local, to help push users into discovering other instances and promote them.
Can I login to another instance with my lemmy.ml account? Or do I need multiple accounts?
An account on a given instance only lets you log on to that instance. You can use that account to interact with people from other instances, however.
