Is there a way to backup instances or transfer ownership, so this doesn't keep happening?

I wonder what the domain costs? It'd be cool to redirect all of its traffic to Piefed, maybe feddit.online or maybe just the piefed development landing page.

"For a hot minute it was honestly great but eventually all that remained was tankies propaganda and depressing news. And probably a few non-political communities that sadly don’t really offset it for me."

I'll never understand why someone would go through the trouble of starting an instance and then tolerate nonsense on the instance that they (again) literally own.

The entire point of the fediverse is decentralizing power. So why are you making it worse for yourself abiding by someone else's rules? Did it occur to him that maybe his users don't want tankies and depressing news either?

I get that keeping the engines running is thankless work a lot of the time but damn, don't make it harder on yourself because someone else (who is not you) wants to use your thing that you pay for and maintain to force their propaganda onto your users.

I believe it's more about the Fediverse as a whole, not the instance they were running. No instance is an island, and all that - we don't have enough activity for a thriving community on our own, so we have to pick-and-choose who we federate with. Too closed and the community dies. Too open and you can become overwhelmed by bad faith actors. At some point, it may be that you just decide that you can't find the balance, or that the balance isn't attainable in your position.

It's a thankless job, being an unpaid admin. I absolutely sympathize with Rikudou_Sage's position.

read it as lemmy.world first, i was getting ready to pack my bags

I agree with your point, but disagree that the fediverse is too small to block all Tankies or that an instance "dies" when it owner enforces minimum standards of quality.

I think we all would have been better off if instead of burning out, the Lemmings.world admins banned everything except a single post per day if that post was an absolute banger.

If an instance admin wants to attract like-minded users to their instance, that instance needs to show people what their mind is like.

I don't think that the admin is talking about the process of administrating their own instance when they talk about being disappointed with the Fediverse, but about their own user experience as a user of the Fediverse.

They want to browse and comment and doomscroll too. As it stands, they find that there's no instance or comms with the correct 'balance' of quantity and quality (or, at least, morality), and they don't see any immediate solution or combination of federations that would fix that, for their experience.

Huh, I wonder what other social media outlet they think will be better? You have so much control here with blocking and stuff, that I don't get it either. Uplifting communities are awesome:

• superbowl
• bats
• aww
• shitposting (usually about some random food like beans or corn)

Maybe I'm missing something?

Technically that is possible, but a) people who know how to run an instance rarely want to be responsible to run a second one, and b) there are some legal issues with personal data transfer (under GDPR), meaning members would need to agree individually to the transfer and those that do not agree (in time) would need to have their personal data deleted before the transfer.

You probably should find another instance if you can. They're not the greatest.

I’ll never understand why someone would go through the trouble of starting an instance and then tolerate nonsense on the instance that they (again) literally own.

Totally guessing here, but I think this comes from wanting to be fair and open about content.

Everyone always complains about censorship, eco chambers, and freedom of speech. So I could see someone being very tolerant and allowing lots of content on their server.

Users also harass moderators and post about them on yepowertrippinmods, so allowing shit probably saves them some harassment.

It seems to take a specific type of person to be able to run a server. They can't be too nice. They have to have a clear line in the sand.

I sometimes (maybe more than sometimes) 2nd guess myself. "Am I being too sensitive?" "Did they really mean it like that?" "Was I too harsh?"

It all depends on one's interests. If I was primarily a lurker, like I was back on The Old Place, I probably wouldn't find enough historical content to keep me invested in the Fediverse, for example.

Just keeping this here as a small archive, i could have written this post myself tbh

https://lemmings.world/post/41938713

Hey there everyone!

It’s been a nice run, but all good things come to an end as they say.

This nice thing comes to an end on Jul 2nd, 2026 which is when the domain expires and I’ve decided to not renew it.

It’s been a nice run and I’m grateful to all the active users of our small Fediverse home!

click here if you're interested in the reason

As for the reason for this decision, it’s because Lemmy and the Threadiverse in general didn’t turn out into what I envisioned it would be.

For a hot minute it was honestly great but eventually all that remained was tankies propaganda and depressing news. And probably a few non-political communities that sadly don’t really offset it for me.

I was pondering on keeping it running even if I don’t really use it that much anymore, but then Hetzner announced a significant price change (and you can bet that Lemmy is an unoptimized resource hog) which is not the reason on its own, but the proverbial last straw.

So yeah, that’s it I guess. I promised that if the instance ever goes down, I’ll let everyone know with enough time and I believe I managed to do it.

I’ll maintain the instance until it expires and I’ll keep on moderating it of course but it’s probably a good time to start looking for a new Threadiverse home.

Yet again, thank you very much to everyone who has been part of this instance! And to many of the friendly admins of other instances!

Absolutely true, but I've lurked at the old place occasionally and it's seriously overrun with bots/ai in the most popular subs. I get your point though, there are still places you can't find here. The fucked up attitudes are shocking though. If you look at any place-specific, travel sub, the snark is so rude and shitty in more than half the posts. Here, you mostly just get downvotes as trolling

I hear you, but I also believe that the balance you describe is size-independent. If the fediverse consisted of only three people, and one was an asshole, what's to gain from allowing that asshole to run rampant on your platform if you're trying to attract non-assholes to your anti-asshole platform? There is no scenario where that doesn't lead to burnout.

Beehaw.org is a good example of an instance that defederated basically every other large instance and their users seem very happy about it.

And if someone actually wanted to doomscroll and look at shitposts (I don't get it but they do exist)... they'll eventually just go to reddit or twitter where that experience will always be superior.

Yeah I agree with you. I do think the only kind of instance administrators that don't eventually burn out are the kind with an absolute rock solid understanding of what it is they're trying to create and what kind of people they're trying to attract.

I hear you, but I also believe that the balance you describe is size-independent. If the fediverse consisted of only three people, and one was an asshole, what’s to gain from allowing that asshole to run rampant on your platform if you’re trying to attract non-assholes to your anti-asshole platform? There is no scenario where that doesn’t lead to burnout.

I mean, the amount of media on a platform one consumes certainly adjusts the amount of bullshit on a platform one is willing to endure. I don't think it's size-independent.

Yeah, The Old Place literally is beginning to feel like Facebook. A bot reposts some rage bait and a million oblivious commentors eat it up.

I went into the comments section a few times since, as an observer. Whole place has shifted right, hard.

Well, they were the only one that seemed to be actually accepting new users during reddit's major exodus event a few years back.

Oh..... I read it as that yesterday when it was announced..... Shit this brings me great relief, thanks fellow lemmy.world-er!

What happened?

They curate the front page and have rogue admin that do what they want.

Some poor judgement from admins, essentially, combined with... ambiguous policies.

It's not something like "Holocaust denial", but a big kerfluffle with them refusing to remove a particularly bad mod, and especially pussyfooting around the issue for the longest time, giving contradictory or vague answers as to what they were doing, has damaged faith in the admins pretty severely, and it'll take time for them to win it back - assuming they do so.

I was with them at first too.

lol. Yep, the Fediverse does suck. Like all ideas we come across, the concept is amazing, but watch human nature fuck it.

The irony of tankies is absolutely insane. It's how I know they're all low IQ and to not be taken seriously. They're not even self-aware.

The Fediverse has its flaws, but it's also better than the alternatives.

Such is human existence - seeking improvements, never finding utopia.

I mean, the obvious pivot if they are smart is Outside:

• People less dickish
• Immediate, 3d immersion - ability to pet cute puppies
• Can use skills to make money, instead of just updoots

Personally, I feel like the communities you mentioned aren't particularly "uplifting". Like, I'm not hating on cute bat pics - but it feels like basing your whole nutritional strategy on sugary breakfast cereal. Eventually you need something with more substance.

On reddit, I liked 3 types of communities:

• Hobbies
• Lifestyle/advice
• In depth/discussion

Hobbies
The hobby comms have almost no activity. I'm into climbing, hiking, motorcycles, diy, and lifting, among other things. A post in one of these communities is almost a special occasion.

Lifestyle/advice
People looking to improve their productivity, social skills, financial situation, dating life, etc. I liked these subs on reddit because I could often contribute some useful advice, and often learned something to improve my own life. On lemmy, the default is that improving anything about your life is impossible, because capitalism or something.

In depth/discussion
Subs like askereddit or truereddit - places where the idea was to discuss a topic and share stories and theories and ideas. On lemmy, these subs consist mostly of tankie propaganda and conspiracy theories.

People looking to improve their productivity, social skills, financial situation, dating life, etc. I liked these subs on reddit because I could often contribute some useful advice, and often learned something to improve my own life. On lemmy, the default is that improving anything about your life is impossible, because capitalism or something.

I hear you, this one made me laugh. I guess we have to be the change for this, we really are too small. I can see the bitching on being too big when those communities get enough traction though.

I swear it happened in the few months I first started using Lemmy. I joined then a few months later I was looking for something that I couldn't find here and ended up back on all. It was 90% right-wing propaganda and ragebait.

I legitimately think that a relatively small but overwhelmingly leftist proportion of the userbase leaving had a very negative effect both on actual discourse, and on what third-parties find productive to push there.

'Hey could you maybe transfer this important established server to anyone else?'

'Nope! Fuck yourselves! <3'

There may be legal questions, but also, they mentioned that the price of keeping it running was a factor.

Why is that server important?

The thing about transferring ownership is that price stops being your problem.

Any established server is important, by being distinct from a new one with no established user base. Adoption is a feature you cannot design.

I mean there may be legal questions about transferring ownership.

As for price, the question then arises - who is offering to pay for it?

Maybe if you reach out to the admin, they'd be happy to transfer it to you. I don't know how these things work or the admin's opinions. But the admin saying "It's been good guys, but it's too expensive and not what I hoped for, so I'll keep it up for this last lease period and then let it go" is hardly a declaration of "Go fuck yourselves, I'm just burning everything down"

Right right. But why is that specific server important?

The Fediverse both sucks (aka imperfect) currently and at the same time is the only hope for the future. Reddit, Xhitter, and Facebook will and even can never get any better. The Fediverse is our only hope.

'Any established userbase matters.'

'But why this userbase?'

Incorrect.

There's gonna be more Lemmy servers.

A new one will be worse-off than taking over an existing one, as a rule.

For all the same reasons that having a new NSFW-heavy server doesn't make up for LemmyNSFW disappearing and taking years of content with it.

And "fuck yourselves" is explicitly how several websites I care about have disappeared.

I'm not disputing that it's desirable to acquire the server and perpetuate it over starting a new one, my point is only that the admin no longer being able to hold up the burden is hardly an act of spite.

And “fuck yourselves” is explicitly how several websites I care about have disappeared.

Okay, but as I said, that's hardly the tone or implication here.

Oh sure, that's why the announcement is about looking for someone to take over. Can you imagine if the admin simply announced a definitive end because they stopped giving a shit?

Transferring it to someone else isn't that simple. I mean, I guess it can be if you're willing to hand it over to some random stranger with zero vetting.... and then hope they don't do anything malicious.

Ideally, you'd want to hand it over to someone trustworthy. That takes work.

There's two entire months between this announcement and the fuck-you date.

How long should it take to vet someone?

Would it really be worse to let a flawed bastard take over, versus deleting everyone and all their content?

Oh sure, that’s why the announcement is about looking for someone to take over.

Most people would not presume that there's someone waiting in the wings willing to take up a thankless job and pay a regular fee for the privilege over a small hobby project.

How would you pick a successor?

Would it really be worse to let a flawed bastard take over, versus deleting everyone and all their content?

A flawed bastard might be a government. Given that the US is in full fascist mode, I personally would consider deleting everyone's content the fast, easy, and secure option. Although, not necessarily the best option for the community.

The US government running its own Lemmy instance would not be worse than any established instance suddenly disappearing.

There's gonna be more Lemmy servers.

No one running this software thinks they're the last person who'll ever bother. They got into it figuring it was a sensible protocol and they only bail once they cannot be arsed to moderate all the people who show up.

Surely the fediverse is better-off letting some existing userbase soldier on, under whoever constitutes new management, than destroying any existing instance and expecting a fresh spate of randos to show up.