You can read their motivation in the linked pull request. FWIW I don’t think there’s any ill intent here and certainly not an attempt to boost their own instance. I think they just want Lemmy to be decentralized and lemmy.world being as big as it is kinda prevents that.
I’m not sure I would’ve done it that way personally but I can see the reasoning and it’s not entirely unreasonable.
Lemmy.world becoming the default Lemmy instance, and it growing to outsize all other instances is a danger: it makes the Fediverse centralized, easy to take down and easy to take over.
I believe yes, but at the last time I checked it out no instance had open registration, matter of fact you will have to look for good time for a free instance to register on.
Maybe they changed it now, but 1 year ago that was the case.
I think I generally agree with you, but I don’t think this is a big grievance. Lemmy.world has enough traction as it is, they don’t really need the “publicity” from join-lemmy.org.
It would’ve been better if they had written this as some kind of policy beforehand. Like if they had written somewhere before this pull request something like “any instance with more than 40% of active users may be excluded from the join-lemmy.org listing”, then it would’ve been more reasonable too.
It would have been better if they communicated to us first.
I don’t disagree that user signups should be spread over instances. We now have a link to https://lemmyverse.net on our signup page so people can check if another instance would fit them better.
I posted about this in the admin chat on matrix, but you’re right the pull request was merged very quickly.
The lemmyverse link is also a good idea, but users only see it after filling in their email and password. At that point it’s unlikely that they would cancel it and go to a different website.
Edit: I’m now thinking to change the joinlemmy code so that any instance with more than x% of active users will automatically be hidden.
That is a very weird thing to do, unless they are looking to boost their own instance.
You can read their motivation in the linked pull request. FWIW I don’t think there’s any ill intent here and certainly not an attempt to boost their own instance. I think they just want Lemmy to be decentralized and lemmy.world being as big as it is kinda prevents that.
I’m not sure I would’ve done it that way personally but I can see the reasoning and it’s not entirely unreasonable.
In my humble opinion, join lemmy should only exclude the instances that is harmful.
They should not choose the instances to include for the users.
Lemmy.world becoming the default Lemmy instance, and it growing to outsize all other instances is a danger: it makes the Fediverse centralized, easy to take down and easy to take over.
The same applies to the mastodon . Social instance and the same applies really to every Fediverse software available, with the exception of pixelfed.
Why not that one? I’m not familiar with pixelfed.
Pixelfed has a default limit to the number of users per instance.
But this is only a default right? Surely an admin can open registration anyway?
I believe yes, but at the last time I checked it out no instance had open registration, matter of fact you will have to look for good time for a free instance to register on.
Maybe they changed it now, but 1 year ago that was the case.
I think I generally agree with you, but I don’t think this is a big grievance. Lemmy.world has enough traction as it is, they don’t really need the “publicity” from join-lemmy.org.
It would’ve been better if they had written this as some kind of policy beforehand. Like if they had written somewhere before this pull request something like “any instance with more than 40% of active users may be excluded from the join-lemmy.org listing”, then it would’ve been more reasonable too.
It would have been better if they communicated to us first. I don’t disagree that user signups should be spread over instances. We now have a link to https://lemmyverse.net on our signup page so people can check if another instance would fit them better.
I posted about this in the admin chat on matrix, but you’re right the pull request was merged very quickly.
The lemmyverse link is also a good idea, but users only see it after filling in their email and password. At that point it’s unlikely that they would cancel it and go to a different website.
Edit: I’m now thinking to change the joinlemmy code so that any instance with more than x% of active users will automatically be hidden.
They’d then have to hide their own instances…
I very much doubt that they have discouraged signups to their instance many times