While I’m not interested in encouraging /r/selfhosted users to leave reddit, I thought it would be good to have some discussion around the possibilities for a selfhosted community on lemmy.
It looks as though most users are washing up in !selfhosted@lemmy.ml, but this is but a temporary refuge in these troubled times. The single mod is not responsive, lemmy.ml is already struggling with load, and the background lemmy.ml community may not be right for us. If we set up shop here we’re just going to have to move, probably sooner rather than later.
So if we move, do we create our own instance or move to an existing one better aligned with our needs?
Given that there don’t seem to be any instances which are really ideal, the remaining advantages to choosing an existing instance is simply that we rely on someone else’s infrastructure (and the associated time, skill, and responsibility). This is a significant advantage which makes this option tough to pass up, but the equally significant disadvantage is that we don’t get our own place. It’s like renting a room in a frat house rather than building our own mansion.
The remaining option is to create our own instance. If we were to go this route, in my opinion it is critically important that the responsibility for this be shared amongst several people. This dramatically reduces the odds that someone loses interest, or lacks the resources to support the community long term. While I’m certain that everyone in this sub could spin up an instance, we all know that providing high availability to potentially thousands of users is not something to be undertaken on a whim. There’s a significant risk to the community in allowing someone to take this on themselves.
I think fosstodon (mastodon) with several admins is a good model of how something like this can work. I also think it would be a good idea to broaden the subject to FOSS rather than merely self hosting.
So the questions are…
Do you think we should create & support a community on an existing instance, or create our own instance?
If an existing instance then which one?
If a new instance then how would you like to see it operated?
I can transfer this community to whoever wants it, seeing as how the current mod is MIA.
That sounds like the right move if you’re happy to do it.
I would be happy be a mod at least in the short term, but willing to hand over to someone else later on if someone appropriate emerges.
Also @casey@lemmy.wiuf.net are you still interested ?
Mmmk it’s yours.
You don’t need to move ftom lemmy.ml. You’re a group of self hosted gurus, so this is your chance to actually self host. Don’t hide behind excuses that lemmy.ml won’t be able to handle things. Just do what you do best and host your own instance. Sounds bloody fantastic to me!
This is your time to shine!
Everyone can host their own instances but you still need a central instance to host the community.
If the selfhosted community decides to create an instance, I think it would be cool to host a bunch of selfhosted communities. For example you would have the instance at example.selfhosted, then a selfhosted community, and also other communities that use selfhosted software. So example.selfhosted would have communities: selfhosted, plex, jellyfin, vaultwarden, ect.
As for leaving lemmy.ml I vote to wait a bit. I don’t think there is a easy/good way to move instances at the moment. So in effect you would be abandoning this community and starting over on a different instance. Although I might be wrong about that.
Yeah you’d want to target FOSS in general instead of just selfhosting.
The concern with waiting is that lemmy.ml becomes unstable.
I wouldn’t create an own instance just for this community and rather try to get more and different people as community mods if the current mod isn’t responding.
Yeah that’s what I said in the post. FOSS instead of just selfhosted.
Edit: sorry I think I misunderstood you. You mean just get an additional mod added to this sub? I that’s a possibility I guess.
There is the !community_requests@lemmy.ml community where you can petition to get the mod power for a community who’s mod has gone silent.
Probably a good first step would be to get an active mod team for the existing community.
