1y ago

(Controversial) Should lemmy.world close registrations at a certain user count?

To support decentralization and spread, should lemmy.world close registration at some point to prevent a performance overload due to too many users? Of course, if registration is disabled, there could be a hint placed somewhere near that from other instances you can interact with content on lemmy.world just like you had registered on it. There could be a link to join-lemmys instance overview.

71 comments

One of the great things about lemmy.world's insane user count growth is actual live stress testing of Lemmy software. Instead of having an open question of how Lemmy might scale with large instances, there's now real world production systems providing that opportunity.
The technical issues will pass, but the notion that merely spreading out the load will alleviate them is probably just treating the symptom than the cause.
I suppose from my PoV I see this as very much live testing in production and have adjusted my expectations around that instead of anticipating a wholly seamless experience.
- Lemmy.world - on the way to being the new reddit
  Cheered on by its new users.
  
  I'm definitely willing to deal with some jank for a while while u/ruud tries to get on top of the quickly expanding userbase.
- We're already seeing the development move forward thanks to it. Today's updates made a huge difference in .world performance.

I think no.
I'm having the same issues with pages not loading as everybody else - but this is a critical moment for Lemmy. A site like this only works if it has a lot of users - the more signups the better.
I understand that new users can sign up for other instances, and still see and interact with lemmy.world content - but I think adding any barrier to entry at all will potentially discourage a huge number of new users. As a rule, new users have no idea how lemmy, federation, instances, etc work - and telling them they can't sign up and to consider another instance will probably end with a lot of them just giving up and sticking to reddit.
The server issues will pass, but stunting our growth at such a critical stage might not. It's bad enough that beehaw defederated at a time like this.
- I agree, I initially focused on Lemmy.world but as I understood the Fedverse better I shifted to a smaller instance. I think we need to let people get into Lemmy, and then people will naturally spread out.
- I honestly think during the sign up the registration to a server needs to be randomized to spread the load. That and allow the user counts to be global and not just to your instance and you then have user load balancing.
  If we could also migrate our data between servers with a backup server option. When lemmy.world goes down, just switch to a different randomized backup server.
  
  The danger in randomizing servers is that some smaller servers not only have less than 99% uptime but are also just run by random regular people who couldn't handle the increased load and/or have no desire or ability to keep the servers running long term. It could maybe work if the randomization occurs from within a vetted list.
  Account migration is a feature that has been noted for the future and would indeed be very important since it would essentially make the entire network bulletproof. Being able to move instances and/or link accounts across multiple instances would create the necessary redundancy and reduce fears of choosing a smaller instance as home.
- What's to stop .world "defederating" and cutting all the new users off completely.
  It's an odd platform and one that feels like it could all fall apart to someone completely new to it all.
  
  Well Ruud who runs .world also runs Mastodon.world which is a fairly large mastodon instance, so he is somewhat of a known quantity and has experience running large Fediverse servers. His mastodon server has handled a large population and donations happen through Open Collective for transparency as well. He also runs Calckey.world though that is much smaller.
- I couldn't get anything to load in my phone browser half the time either and my updoots never register. Then I downloaded the jebora app and when it disconnects from the server it flashes at the bottom so you know when it won't post.
  Now I can see everything on the site all the time
- As an immigrant from reddit myself, the multiple instances and where to call my home was the first big hurtle by far. With that, my biggest concern was if the instance I was joining was going to allow me to see everything in the fediverse since instances can be blocked.
  Right now I have a kbin and Lemmy account. Because although the Lemmy account I'm on isn't being blocked by anyone, I'm finding it difficult to find some instances where on kbin the same search yields the results I'm looking for.
- I think Beehaw defederating was a good thing. Their rules are pretty totalitarian. It would have happened eventually anyway, better to do it sooner to effect the least amount of content I get.

I'm in favor of simplifying the signup process with auto-assigning an instance. [Edit: For users coming from https://join-lemmy.org/]
For people who start using the fediverse or lemmy, the concept of federated instances is hard to understand. It also does not matter that much at this part of their journey. How about randomly assigning new users to instances which are open? This could also help with load balancing between instances.
The idea is to make entry as quick and easy as possible. Once users familiarized themselves with content and communities, they can reevaluate their 'decision' which instance they want to make their home. At this point, they have a better idea what this is all about.
Choosing an instance right from the start should still be possible, just not be the default mode. Make it a small link at the bottom 'advanced mode' or whatever, just don't scare or burden newcomers with unecessary complexity.
To answer the question directly: I think each instance can make that decision for themselves, and open or close registration accordingly. Both is fine.
- Not all instances are going to be equal in terms of things like stability and uptime. It's going to be unfair and frustrating to users who might randomly end up on a bad instance. It might work if it only chose along the top x instances or something, to ensure a bit of reliability for new users.
  
  It’s going to be unfair and frustrating to users who might randomly end up on a bad instance.
  That's true. On the other hand, we currently entrust this decision to people who know the least.
  I think we should weigh the benefits of an uninformed decision against the benefits of making signup easier.
  It might work if it only chose along the top x instances or something, to ensure a bit of reliability for new users.
  Yes, that sounds like a good idea. Not sure if top x is the right measure, but you're right reliability should be a criterion.

It makes sense to pause registrations if an instance is actively overloaded, but there’s no reason it can’t keep growing if more hardware is added and the performance issues are resolved.
- Some of the issues might be on the software side, so it'll take some time until it can scale to more hardware resources. But yeah, I agree! What scares me more is the monetization path. Servers can become a really expensive.
  
  With a larger userbase comes more people willing to donate, so it will depend on whether that revenue stream grows faster or slower than the increasing server costs. Mastodon.world has run fine on donations alone but lemmy.world will soon outgrow it so we're entering uncharted territory for Ruud. Mastodon.social is significantly larger but I believe they also have sponsors and grants to complement the donations.

I get the point, but that limits the users' right to select which community they want to join. I feel that is more important than preemptive decentralization of content. Hopefully there is a way to migrate communities from one instance to another. Should an instance get too large that would be a good feature to mitigate risk.
- I'm not a lemmy.world user (so I have no dog in this debate) but I'm gonna disagree. I'm of the opinion that signups for an instance should stay open as long as the admins can afford/handle the growth. I think it's unfair to force the admins to keep it open if they aren't able to handle it which is the crux of what OP is asking.
  Besides, it's not like those users cant just federate with all the communities of lemmy.world they want. And I bet there won't be a dearth of choices for decent instances if the demand calls for it. Lemmy.ml closed signups despite being the big instance and lemmy.world emerged as an alternative. So why wouldn't something similar happen if lemmy.world did the same?

Depends on server loads and scaling.
If the engineer(s) and admin(s) running things can handle the costs associated with growth then I think it should stay open. However at a certain point the load on the infrastructure, sysadmins, and cost make that untenable.
It’s not cheap to run this kind of stuff. I know that first hand because of my career running HPC clusters and running them in cloud environments.
I’ve got a pretty solid idea of what this must be costing and I’m really thankful that someone is putting in the thankless labor of love. That’s why I canceled my Reddit premium and started donating to this instance to help with that in some way. The only other way I could help is donating my time & experience. But I think they need money more than engineers lol
The TL;DR is that if we want to keep these things online we need to donate money (and/or time/labor).
- Funilly enough, apparently they have enough server power and the bottleneck is the software. Or so I was told.
- This is the one of the best takes here. It's a delicate balance. Performance, cost, and manageability. Fail in any of these, and it doesn't matter, you'll either lose access to the site or be unable to manage it.
  If staffing or money are insufficient, the site should do what's necessary for survival, but only just before that threshold is exceeded. Users are important, but self destruction is not an option.
- Even as a small instance operator, the media storage increases at a pretty steady rate. It's probably going to be a case of months or even years before it starts getting to costing money I will notice. But, still I guess we can by then start to purge very old stuff if we're not a big instance though.

It’s already laggy and unstable. Maybe more hardware and improved software will help, but it might just be hard for lemmy to grow.
- It’s not hard for Lemmy to grow at all. Use a different server. There’s no upside to being on a crowded server. Join a fast and reliable server. Hit “all.” Done.
  Lemmy is designed to grow easily.

If the hint and instructions are clearly visible then it sounds like a great idea.

I think apps should contain the ability to create an account, and select a server at which that account is created. Maybe they could sort the servers by distance depending on country or something.

Yes. Encourage people to use federation FFS.

Personally I registered in lemmy.world not knowing any better. I would migrate my account to another instance in a heartbeat if it was possible.
- It’s been three days. Do it while you’re fresh. You won’t regret it. Responsiveness is worth losing 3 days of points.
  
  This won't improve responsiveness when interacting with lemmy.world communities though right?

Making it difficult for people to abandon reddit and join lemmy at THIS stage would be a bad idea. I think it has to scale.
Eventually if it successfully catches on and becomes the popular option, maybe. But even then I think I’d prefer a (or several) round-robin type options for joining. I think the server names are too exposed in lemmy to be easily understood by the masses. Like I get it but I’m a 20 year dev. Not a person in my family understands.

I don't think it's necessarily worth it to close, as others have pointed out it's a great real-world stress test for the software.
I DO think it's very much worth having some info on the signup page to let people know
they're welcome to join but the server is currently overloaded and experiencing performance issues
they don't need to sign up there to access the content
and of course
where to go instead
Then everyone is informed and can make up their own mind instead of blindly signing up and assuming this is just what Lemmy is like.
- Maybe Guides / Information could be shown on the lemmy web frontend by default to lower the entry barrier?
  
  Having something there would definitely be wise I think, given how many people are apparently just being sent links direct to a specific instance to sign up (and therefore skipping join-lemmy entirely). But it would need to be very short, to the point, and sum things up in a way non-techy folks can immediately understand. In my experience so far, a lot of people here struggle to explain the basic concept without writing a whole esseay about it, and nobody is gonna read a wall of text on the signup page.

At the early stages no. It is vital we keep it open to get as many people through the door to promote fediverse. Eventually some people will create accounts in other instances.

I do think there should be a hard limit to the number of total users in an instance. Otherwise as you said the content will get centralised in a specific instance. But that limit should be much higher than what lemmy.world now has. Also closing new registration at this time would be detrimental to the overall ecosystem. This is just my personal opinion.
- Having the user count far exceed what the servers can handle is also detrimental to the ecosystem.
  People aren't patient. And the current instability we're seeing will just make people give up on Lemmy after a brief attempt to settle in.
  
  You raise a valid point. But finding new communities is much harder in smaller instances. So there is a chance the user will not find content they are interested in.

I think it should redirect users to other instances. But ultimately, we need account migration like mastodon.

I think strategic, times windows where sign ups are paused, in order to help distribute users, might be necessary. I don't think that's optimal for user experience, but I feel like if volume of sign ups stays where it is, that it's probably needed.

Maybe it would be a good idea to put up a request for people to register elsewhere, but honestly, where? Randos naturally gravitate to large servers so if the largest one closes, it gets confusing unless there's one that is ready as a direct replacement.
- People figured out everyone doesn’t need to use the same exact X to have access to the same things X provides many times throughout civilization. Maybe the join page needs to communicate it better, but also people need to try to figure it out.

Would there be any benefit to lemmy.world admins running a lemmy2.world and redirecting new users to sign up there? It would spread the load and federation between the two should be easier due to proximity and having the same admins.

I'm not sure. But maybe it makes sense to sign up to more than one instance.
My main account is on lemmy.world, but now I've signed up to another one on aussie.zone. I can see all the content from there and it's nice and fast unlike world at the moment.
It feels kind of like I'm experiencing a benefit of federation, when I can simply switch accounts and keep browsing when things slow down on one instance.

No because we want people there more than on Reddit.

If there is a performance overload isn't that a natural block to more users?
- Yes but it would hurt the rest of the Fediverse that gets content from here.
  
  Maybe... haven't seen any issue accessing lemmy.world content but maybe there are delays.

Probably not. I understand the concern, but another issue is sending people to smaller instances which may end up disappearing. It's all run by small groups of volunteers or even by individuals, at least on the bigger servers you have, at least in theory, a lower chance of the instance vanishing (with your account).
I don't know if there are any plans to cooperate between instances for tech support/funding or if accounts can be transfered one day. Until then - a slow lemmy.world feels like the lesser evil.

nope, that would make the experience way worse with federation not working well with communities. like for example I've made a community over on lemmy.world and it has a couple of members and a few posts in it, but I can't see it from any other lemmy instances I've tried (unless it doesn't work if you're not logged in). you can kinda make kbin see it but to make posts appear you have to search for them and if you search for them before you search for the community, they appear in a random magazine and then when the magazine for that community is created the posts that were put in random stay there and never return... so yeah...

yes, limiting users is one tool to encourage users to find another "home" instance that they normally use to browse and post so that the system as a whole can scale better

71 comments