How did Lemmy.world become more popular than Lemmy.ml?

Lemmy.ml actively asked people to sign up elsewhere. They have a small server and aren't meant to be a general instance.

Lemmy.world is run by people who have one of the larger Mastodon servers, and actively advertises to be open and neutral.

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 signed up on the 12th, after spending a little time comparing with the information I had. My thought process was:

I was uncomfortable with the fact that .ml was hosted in Malaysia
I thought a larger instance might mean it sticks around longer, but didn't really want to be on the largest (which .ml was)
Beehaw seemed otherwise a good fit, but their policies seemed too restrictive
.world seemed to have liberal policies, allowed NSFW, was large but not largest, and was hosted in a country that didn't worry me

I left Beehaw because the defederated from instances where half my communities were at. Ended up on Lemmy world because they had my favorites.

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.

I went for the most generic "official" sounding name.

As someone signing up for lemmy.world, my reasons were:

It sounds official or at least less obscure than ".ml" or "sh.itjust.works"
It sounded inclusive (we're all part of the world, so to speak)
It was in the list of default instances of Connect for Lemmy

Otherwise, I didn't give much though to which instance to pick.

Lemmy.ml are tankies anyway so, good

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.

The developer for RIF told me to come here. I figured that I should trust the person that created the app that I've used for hundreds of hours.

Mainly because signups were closed on Lemmy.ml and they were not on Lemmy.world.

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.

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.

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.

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.

By keeping sign-ups open, mostly.

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.

You can't create communities on Beehaw and they are abusing defederation, no wonder it's not growing. I don't know about lemmy.ml

Lemmy.world is run by an actually competent admin who has experience running other Fediverse software.

https://lemmy.world/u/ruud

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 think lemmy.world js the only one of the three that are still accepting new sign ups.

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.

Rif sent me to lemmy.world to make an account. Didnt know the deal here and still kinda iffy but im getting the idea.

For me honestly mostly the name. World. Seems like a default instance to me. What does ml even mean?

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 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.

.world is a catchy top-level domain

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.

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.

I wasn’t able to signup to lemmy.ml the best for me was to signup on lemmy.world and I get my journey started 😃

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.

Beehaw defederates like it's going out of style, Lemmy.ml doesn't allow criticism of the CCP. Lemmy.world seems much more stable and neutral.

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

Rif user here. When then 429s started I clicked on the RIF announcements part of the app which had a link to lemmy.world - and here I am.

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...

And here we are :D

They weren't selective about who is joining (unless people were absolute douches) and the community is pretty much nice to get along with.

Both of those instances tend to be fairly censorship heavy, so people who just want to have a chat will be less interested in joining an instance that's going to shut down a conversation that they're enjoying.

Before all this stuff with reddit went down, most of the instances on the threadiverse we're fairly censorship heavy, and so people didn't really bother coming over from the main fediverse. With the establishment of new and more liberal instances and the infusion of new users, the potential of Lemmy has really been unleashed.

I've been really happy to see it.

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.

Lemmy.world on the other hand worked just fine.

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 chalk it up to the name. Your name is your central piece of branding, and can be used to your advantage. To me, when I wanted to join what I thought would probably be the largest lemmy instance, I didn't look at the stats or rules. I just looked at the names of all the not-tiny ones. This one clearly signified to me that the owner intends to become a very large Instance.

To most people, it will simply sound cool and be very easy to remember. Both of those are very important points.

Look at the automotive industry. Performance is desirable in a vehicle, certainly, but according to the market, does it seem more desirable than looking cool and having enough cup holders?

Any lemm.ee gang?

in my case I couldn't sign up to ML it just kept timing out. this one didn't.

I was introduced to lemmy.world thru RIF. Ive been trying to figure it out ever since

The goodbye message on RIF pointed to lemmy.world so that's why I'm here.

Sync for Reddit suggested it, so here I am.

i checked out three or four instances and this one seemed to have the least amount of bullshit to deal with

I heard of Beehaw first but I got rejected twice when trying to make an account, so I tried World next and here I am.

Also don't understand how things work, so wasn't really sure what lemmy.ml was but I read it didn't matter where you created an account so I just stuck with World 🤷

Cause beehaw sucks

I actually started on lemmy.ml but it was always having issues so I went to lemmy.world and had better luck. Not saying lemmy.ml is bad I’m just saying it wasn’t working when I tried!

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.

At this point I don’t know how I got here and where I’m going and I’m too afraid to ask

For me it was the RIF good bye message, which mentioned lemmy.world.

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.

I didn’t really know what I was doing, and it sounded the most “official”.

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.

RedditSync app sent me here basically. I don't still understand whether I can log in with the lemmy.ml with the account I have on this lemmy.world.

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.

Branding. More like the damn instance name. Lemmy.world sounds more... normal or official or whatever

Lemmy.world has a nice ring to it. More ding then dong.

The reason I picked it out of the small list of options I was given when I made my account is because it was the only one I thought I could remember.

I don't know man, I'm here because shit just works.

For me, all lemmy.world communities I subscribed was totally blocked on my beehaw.org account, so I create another account on lemmy.world.

I left Beehaw because they defederated from instances where half my communities were at. Ended up on Lemmy world because they had my favorites.

I read several guides that suggested .world, that's it.

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.

A bit off topic, but isn't it great? Shows us decentralization is working!

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.

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.

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.

Not sure tbh but I do love the Instance I found. Great community it seems and GREAT domain.

Lemmy.tf

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.

it was the first instance i found when searching. i think it was a reddit post. so maybe world was more promoted on bigger reddit subs?

It might be completely false but i read that there were many tankies on other instances. One thing that got in the way of competitors in the past was the high number of extreme right wing people. My take is that people would rather not associate with either.

Tbh, .world and .social TLDs are just better 🤷‍♂️

Does it matter which server your account is? Asking because I am a NooB. Or nOOb? 🤔🙄

I can only speak for myself, but as a complete newbie who wanted to create an account and figure out how lemmy works, I honestly thought lemmy.world is the main site and everything else is just smaller niche communities.

There was an ELI5 post that clarified how it all works, but that was after I created my account.

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.

Ml sounds like short for make love to me, and world is pretty cool domain name.

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. 🙂

The question was already answered by others. As a nitpicky side note: Developers have nothing to do with server popularity. They just develop the software on GitHub. This software is then run on all lemmy instances, by admins. Admins can influence instance size, by opening/closing it for registration, through policy and communication. Further down in the hierarchy, the regular users can advertise for their instance.

I'm pretty sure Mental Outlaw helped a lot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBhDWTZDH9c

My favorite subreddit migrated to Lemmy.world so that's how it happened with me.

I went with lemmy.one, did I err?

Beehaw isn't as well known in general. It's always the third one mentioned when discussing Lemmy or Kbin.

And Lemmy.ml has been banning people for criticizing China, so...yeah, no one outside of extremist types want to be a part of that.

I've been sitting on the domain lyoko.cloud and now I'm thinking it could be a cool Lemmy instance domain

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 wanted an instance that was popular but not #1 to avoid slowdowns. Chose lemmy.world. Now it's most popular...made an account on thelemmy.club today

@gylotip meanwhile I'm just sitting over on kbin.social, eating popcorn and watching the lemmy instances rant at each other. Come to the dark side - we have kookies!

The migration of a certain subreddit I followed over here led me to this instance so here I am.

I switched to this instance, because lemmy.ml was just too laggy. Also I use mastodon.world so I knew it's a good instance.

I joined .world because there were c/hopeposting

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.

Saw a comment by the apollo dev advertising Lemme world on reddit. made the jump then.

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.

Neither really want more users and they've been around longer to establish a community.

I‘d guess .world is more popular than .ml.