Why did I create a Lemmy world account as opposed to beehaw or ml? Because it's the first one I saw. Because it doesn't matter. Because I don't know what ml stands for. Because Lenny world said "general use." Because I didn't have to fill out an application. Because I can still interact with everything else, and again, it doesn't matter.
Regardless of the how, I think it's really cool that the top instance isn't run by the devs. Really shows off the power and appeal of decentralized services.
Lemmy.ml had sign ups closed. Behaw required a short story or something to get accepted. Lemmy.world was accepting sign-ups wasn't hosted somewhere shady and had active communities. It was a pretty easy choice. Assuming the admins have a pledge drive or something to host on AWS/GCP so we can get better burst capabilities I'd love to donate.
I joined world before I knew what an instance was. When the RIF app shut down, the developer recommended lemmy.world. I honestly, thought it was a single website.
Idk about other people, but I don't really know how the instances work and the lemmy.world instance name seems the least abstract. Beehaw was confusing because it's not called lemmy so idk if it's a different thing or what, and idk what .ml means or stands for. Lemmy.world just looks like it's the default lemmy instance to me as a dunce who doesn't know how lemmy works.
Idk about other people, but I don't really know how the instances work and the lemmy.world instance name seems the least abstract. Beehaw was confusing because it's not called lemmy so idk if it's a different thing or what, and idk what .ml means or stands for. Lemmy.world just looks like it's the default lemmy instance to me as a dunce who doesn't know how lemmy works.
My leading theory is that both lemmy.world and lemmy.ml were in a list of 5+ “recommended” communities, and “world” is the only recognizable word that implies all-inclusivity. And now that the world population is so high, more people will assume that is the “default/correct” community.
I joined world because I figured it was a global community, and did not want to limit myself before I even knew what I was joining into. I may end up making 2 or 3 accounts just to have access to separate, possibly defederated, communities.
When I was joining ~a month ago the situation was very different
I tried lemmy.one - had some issues joining
I saw beehaw.org - no downvotes - not my jam
I saw lemmygrad.ml - too political for my tastes
I saw sopuli.xyz - most of local posts and server maintenance posts were in language I don't speak - maybe I can find something fitting me more?
I saw lemmy.world - small but not looking like private, in Europe, so pings should be ok and description seemed fine
I also saw lemmy.ml - seemed like the main instance with the most users - having some understanding of federation from Mastodon migration I decided to spread the load...
Probably because its name sounds official and it allows quick registration while others need approval (some never approves you).
Turns out it’s the right choice as the admin seems very active in updates and fixes. Lemmy.world also has a more chill homey vibes. At least that’s what I observed so far.
When Lemmy.ml was still on top I initially tried to sign up and was unable to. They could not handle the influx when the first migration occurred during the blackout days.
I think most of it has to do with that lemmy.world has better hardware than other instances. The admin Rudd has a lot of experience running federated services as well. So it may be his first rodeo lemmy-wise but not hosting a federated service with a large user-base.
So when a lot of smaller instances started getting overwhelmed and stopping signups, lemmy.world was going strong without the performance issues that other instances might see.
That along with the fact that NSFW content is allowed makes lemmy.world a good alternative for Reddit refugees looking for something stable with a similar set of rules as well.
I myself joined lemmy.ml at first, then beehaw.org when lemmy.ml asked everyone to spread out, and finally found home on lemmy.world because I didn’t really like how downvotes are disabled on beehaw. Not to mention the defederation that beehaw has done recently. Although I can understand and appreciate why they’ve done that.
I came here from Apollo for Reddit. There’s a web app called wefwef that is a lemmy client that literally looks and works EXACTLY like Apollo. It even has apollo json import to find similar communities. Anyway, .world is the first server listed in the list so it’s where I registered.
I tried to sign up with Beehaw.org, but for some reason it was taking forever. So I came here and joined. TBH, I'm still getting the hang of this whole lemmy.<whatever> thing. lemmy.world seemed like a good option.
RIF specifically directed me here. I didn't join one before that because I didn't know which one was "best". I honestly don't care which one I joined, I just wanted to be on the one everyone else is on. I know this mindset somewhat defeats part is the purpose of the federated communities. I don't care about that in the slightest I just want a clone of Reddit.
Also "world" sounds more generic/standard than ml. Most people probably think it's a military website or something.
You'll probably find 90%+ of casuals are in the same boat as me.
Lemmy.ml, to my understanding, was always meant to be a pilot instance from the devs of lemmy. Beehaw is kind of its own forum. There is also sh.itjust.works, but that has been caught up in some federation drama, and I don't think people like the name. Lemmy.world has been the right server at the right time to absorb everyone and I guess they have been able to keep up with sign-ups. Kudos to them.
I found a massive table of all the lemmy instances that allowed me to sort by features that were important to me. Does the community allow up/down voting, does it allow NSFW, does it allow porn? How many communities has it defederated with?
lemmy.world ticked all the boxes that were important to me.
At the time I signed up Lemmy.World was pretty small, I just wanted an instance that wasn't .ml and had better policies... As it turned out the modlog is very transparent and they were deleting posts critical of the CCP/Russia. So I left and made an account on World.
It seems World was a good choice... Although now that it struggles with the amount of users it seems it might be worth setting an alt up on another instance just to help me out when it gets too busy over here.
I have an account on .world but lemm.ee is a great name and the admin who runs the instance sounds like a cool guy. Plus .world is already way overloaded so I was looking for another instance.
A reddit user made a list of alternative services for reddit. The list was .world, .ml and bee. At this point i didn't know it's the same decentralised service. I picked the first one, liked it and made an account after a few days.
Lemmy.ml basically shut up shop, redirecting people to other instances, because they were struggling, and the developers never really intended it to be as big as an instance as it has become.
Their registrations are still closed, so even if you wanted to join, that is not possible at the moment.
lemmy.ml really lagged in the early days and the first post on lemmy.world was /u/Ruud bragging about new hardware and how it’s all running smoothly with the influx
Lemmy.world allows creating communities, where as lemmy.ml doesn't. For me that was a big reason why I moved from lemmy.ml to lemmy.world. (I made this account after beehaw defederated lemmy.world. I would have made this my default account, but sadly there still seems to be some communication issues between instances. I have some communities on lemmy.world, but I don't see the content sync properly here.)
I was overwhelmed by the options of instances. Then Reddit is Fun had a pop up message suggesting to go to lemmy.world. I trusted Reddit is Fun so I followed its suggestion.
For me it was the fact I kept mistyping the url as lm instead of .ml
You know, LeMmy dot LM
After nth time making this mistake, I decided to switch to something easier to remember.
I am new like most of us. When I signed up I had no idea what an instance was. To me the name Lemmy.world sounded like it was more general and therefore would have more content so I picked that one.
Yep! I added wefwef to my home screen where Apollo was (still installed but moved to an honoring folder). My workflow and habits are now unchanged and I feel like I’m on reddit, only federated. 🙂
I see a lot of posts about how lemmy.ml admins are deleting any posts critical of Russia & China. Are there any receipts for those claims? I haven't seen any actual proof, just a whole lot of people saying tankie.
When I had to choose I thought .world means, it‘s the central, most important place to be. Didn‘t know what the other abbreviations meant. Didn‘t care.
For me, I was looking at the "All" tab on a different Lemmy instance as I was figuring things out and noticed basically everything was coming from Lemmy.world, so I created an account there to be my main one, for now at least.
Lemmy.ml grew too large during the early days of June. They started to recommend people to NOT sign up for lemmy.ml and find another instance. The next instance that stood out was beehaw which rejected signups if they didn't like your answer as to why you wanted to join. After that, lemmy.world stood out the most.
I am new like most of us. When I signed up I had now idea what an instance was. To me the name Lemmy.world sounded like it was more general and therefore would have more content so I picked that one.
Lemmy.ml is run by tankies who brook no criticism of Russia for its conduct of the war in Ukraine. I was on there, saw posts about the war being deleted and users who raise even pointed criticism at the mods/admins for their Russophilia get banned.
I didn't join lemmy.world, because the way I understand it now, it doesn't matter much which instance you join. Lemmy.world was already under strain when I signed up, so it seemed best to go somewhere less populous. I also made an alt on my native language instance and on the nsfw instance, because you know why.
I already see a lot of slang bullying on these instances that claim to be inclusive. It's just like reddit forming the karen meme during thier anti bullying campaign.