This site is currently struggling to handle the amount of new users. I have already upgraded the server, but it will go down regardless if half of Reddit tries to join.
However Lemmy is federated software, meaning you can interact seamlessly with communities on other instances like beehaw.org or lemmy.one. The documentation explains in more detail how this works. Use the instance list to find one where you can register. Then use the Community Browser to find interesting communities. Paste the community url into the search field to follow it.
You can help other Reddit refugees by inviting them to the same Lemmy instance where you joined. This way we can spread the load across many different servers. And users with similar interests will end up together on the same instances. Others on the same instance can also automatically see posts from all the communities that you follow.
Edit: If you moderate a large subreddit, do not link your users directly to lemmy.ml in your announcements. That way the server will only go down sooner.
Ok, that works great. I do have another question though. When I want to view stuff, I go to lemmy.ml and view the stuff I'm subscribed to, but now I'm worried that that causes more overload on the lemmy.ml server. Is that true? Does it work that way?
You are subscribed to lemmy.ml, so anything you view from lemmy.ml including federated communities, will be served from there. Therefore: yes!
But anyway, that's how it is supposed to be, so your doing will just contribute to the beta-testing.
Ah ok I see, thanks for the reply.
Maybe a developer is better suited to answer that question. @nutomic@lemmy.ml i'd assume there's a difference in load in the backend and load on the frontend.