cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/65824884
Hey everyone
We’re really sorry to say this, but lemm.ee will be shutting down on June 30, 2025.
What you need to know
As of now:
- New user registrations are disabled
- Creating new communities is disabled
What you should do:
- You can export your settings at https://lemm.ee/settings to take them with you to another instance.
- If you’re moving to another instance, consider adding a note to your lemm.ee profile with your new username. Your old profile will still be visible from other instances even after we go offline.
- Alternatively, if you want to delete your lemm.ee profile, now is the best time to do it, so the deletion can federate out before we go offline.
- If you’re one of the folks supporting us with a recurring donation, please remember to cancel it (Ko-Fi donations should have been cancelled automatically already). Our leftover funds are already enough to cover our bills for next month, so we can keep things running without any more support.
Because of how Lemmy is built, everything posted on lemm.ee will still be accessible from other instances, even after we go offline.
Why this is happening
The key reason is that we just don’t have enough people on the admin team to keep the place running. Most of the admin team has stepped down, mostly due to burnout, and finding replacements hasn’t worked out.
The sad reality is that while there are a lot of great people on Lemmy, there are also some who use the platform to attack others, stir up conflict, or actively try to undermine the project. Admins are volunteers who deal with the latter group on a constant basis, this takes a mental toll. Please understand why our admins chose to step down, and be kind to the admins on whatever instance you decide to join.
We know this sucks. We’re genuinely sorry it’s ending like this. Thank you to everyone who spent time here and helped make it better.
– lemm.ee team
The OP has comments disabled and it didn’t seem right to not say thank you and goodbye.
To the entire team past and present at lemm.ee- Thank you for the time and resources you poured into this platform. You will undoubtedly be missed.
why are comments even disabled in the first place?
… They are literally saying they don’t have admins/mods enough. You want to strain your mods? Allowing comments on that sort of post is how you do that.
it could have been a cool free 4 all like in the good old internet times xD
good
Was it?
Yeah sure its all fun and games until people start posting csam.
He said he’s fine with csam on lemmy, as it will be voted away
“Think of the kids”
Seriously, I have enough of people using this kind of reasoning for censoring everything and having strong moderation. I’m pretty sure nearly no one does that
then block them with your user power. i dont see the problem?
The problem, besides that just being gross, is that hosting csam is a very serious crime in most places. Leaving that unmoderated can very easily end with alphabet agencies from around the world shutting down lemmy instances.
And hosting CSAM is immoral.
Yes officer, this one right here.
Removed by mod
CSAM stands for Child Sexual Abuse Material (child porn under its old moniker).
I’m going to assume you didn’t know what the acronym meant because saying “just block them I don’t see the problem” to CSAM posts is very idiotic.
its probably because its just an important announcement post they plan to pin for the whole month and they dont want it to get filled with people talking in it which could led to the comment derailing the discussion
Probably because if they were enabled it would be filled with people soapboxing about their irrelevant hobbyhorses or offering to help just to keep the instance alive. Neither are useful or relevant. If people wanted the instance to survive then they should have been volunteering months ago, not at 11:59 on the Doomsday Clock.
The sad thing is that nobody knew there was a doomsday clock.
There always is. No one is getting paid to do this, they’re giving up their free time and (often) money. Leaving it to the last minute to volunteer or donate is never sustainable long-term. If people really care so much and are willing to sacrifice either, they need to be proactive rather than wait for emergency pleas for help.
On the other hand, as far as I can tell, they only called for new admins/mods 4 months ago and not since then. I agree that if you care about something, you should support it and not wait until they cry for help, but there is also a matter of being proactive and transparent about how volunteer recruitment is going (well or badly).
Completely. This feels like a major communications fail. It’s a basic technique of fundraising and mobilization: put a big ticking clock on your campaign and people will step up in time.
Yet, they’re entitled to their own decisions, triumphs and failures. So, they can shutdown the instance. Now, it would be a different thing if people really want them to be around again, raise some money, grab a backup, buy the domain name, let’s gooo!! …or not. Fine by me. If only 2 users from the instance decided to start a new one this is a huge win :)
I think you’re missing the point. The call for new admin volunteers was stickied by the instance for an extended period. Even using an app rather than the web interface, it was stuck at the top of my feed until I hid the post.
The group of people who ignored that call to action yet would have volunteered with a follow-up post of a “big ticking clock” as it were, aren’t necessarily the type of people you want to admin an instance. Especially one as big as lemm.ee. Certainly, if any admin will do then increasing recruitment efforts makes sense.
❤️
Ahh, this is really sad. Lemm.ee was always an instance that shined brightly, and @sunaurus@lemm.ee has helped me out a couple of times.
Sad day indeed.
This instance will live on. Definitely understand the burnout and hope @sunaurus@lemm.ee and the other volunteers here stick around.
Sail into the sunset lemm.ee
You will be missed
Definitely
What a loss. =(
It’s a strange quirk of lemmy that we will continue to be able to see content from lemm.ee even after they’ve shut down. It’ll feel like seeing ghosts.
@The_Picard_Maneuver @FrostyTrichs I think this is a common attribute of the fediverse in general. Once a post has propagated to other sites, the non-existence of the originating site is not going to remove that post, but in some cases posts may contain references to images on the original site and the site that it propagated to may elect to reference images from the original site rather than store them locally. In that case, the new site will have the post but not images that it contained.
A lot of the internet has been lost to time already so I actually appreciate this place having this kind of permanence.
Really nice that they’re doing a sunset period with advance warning instead of just randomly going dark. As Lemmy’s first major “shutdown” we need to accept that this sort of thing seems inevitable from time to time, maybe this can set an example and open a conversation on how to handle this sort of situation in the future. I’d hope this creates some pressure to Fediverse developers to improve portability for users (and communities!) moving between instances, maybe even some kind of immigration/emigration mode for people or communities who want to apply to transfer their account and history rather than simply sign up a new account while posting a link from their old account. Federation should be able to do better than that.
and they don’t support voyager
Voyager doesn’t support them
Mastodon handles it pretty decently where it automatically gets your followers to follow your new account, there’s no reason why communities/groups couldn’t do the same thing
Individual users’ follows are not very useful in the threadiverse compared to backlog of content.
The historical backlog isn’t going anywhere. It will still be viewable on other instances.
For example here’s an old thread from a community on vlemmy.net, an instance that disappeared more than a year ago.
Yes, but people can no longer engage with that content. It creates the appearance of relatively dead communities.
Yeah and that kinda looks bad at first glance. Just clicking on what seems like the biggest community (most subscribers) and seeing that it’s actually dead (instance went down or the community was migrated elsewhere).
feddit.de disappeared a while back. As did the original UK one. (Both have been replaced)
Was there an original uk one? This one is the only one I’m aware of, it had a moment of doubt a year back but we got new admins before we needed to move.
It reminds me of DMV.social’s shutdown, and for similar reasons (admin feeling overwhelmed). I don’t recall how big that one was though.
Sad to hear, had a very inspired name and the admin was very strong with hosting tech. Unfortunately however a generic instance with lax federation rules and no solid ideology, is a recipe for burning out your admins. The owner seemingly losing interest in lemmy also didn’t help.
This is sort of unfortunate, but as long as the fediverse remains genuinely decentralized, I expect it’s just going to be a fact of life. Instances are going to come and go, alternately riding in on waves of determination and enthusiasm and out in sluggish streams of burnout and ennui.
And in a way, I think it’s arguably even a good thing, or at least not a bad one. The basic structure of the fediverse prevents centralization through ownership, but there’s still a risk of individual instances gaining enough clout to effectively act as a centralizing force. Not that Lemm.ee was in that position or even headed that way, but still, broadly I think that the understanding that instances are likely ephemeral — that they come and they go, and much more to the point that that’s as it should be — is an important one.
And it neatly illustrates a large part of the reason that I have at least a dozen or so accounts scattered around the fediverse, including, for a little while longer, this one.
What’s really disappointing is that I just made my Lemm.ee account because Lemmy.One had announced they were closing down. Kinda disheartening to make a new account only for the new instance to also shutdown.
My 2nd cake day was going to be a few days after shutdown :(
Lemm.ee was a fantastic instance, it will be greatly missed. Huge thanks to the admins and owner that made it happen for so long.
A shame the communities will be lost in the transition, the movies/television communities are genuinely cursed. This is the 4th or 5th time people moved that community.
I guess now would be a good time to give Piefed another shot. I love Lemmy and all, but new features have stalled for too long and I’m ready for some change.
So long, lemm.ee
A shame the communities will be lost in the transition, the movies/television communities are genuinely cursed. This is the 4th or 5th time people moved that community.
It’s okay, it’s routine now
the great movies/television migration starts again
Posted a meta poll on !movies@lemm.ee, same for !television@lemm.ee
thanks for letting me know
We are currently preparing the 1.0 release which will have lots of major new features, such as private communities, multi-communities and much more. Although 0.19 is also getting constant updates with smaller improvements, for example 0.19.11.
What are some good mobile clients for piefed?
Thunder is coming, but for now only Interstellar is official iirc (last I saw Thunder support was only available as a fork of the code).
The web interface is great though.
Interstellar - https://interstellar.jwr.one/
Yeah hope ppl remake them quickly
For lemm.ee users who will be migrating to new instances: You can export your subscriptions and blocks to import them to your new instance! You can export that info in your profile settings panel, and import it from the same page on your new instance.
deleted by creator
After checking just now, it appears that it does! :D
deleted by creator
I was sure it wouldn’t but it sure does!
Doesn’t work for piefed though it seems. Or I just don’t know where to find it :D
yep, if you’re a lemm.ee user then your Export button will be here: https://lemm.ee/settings
the bottom of the right column
so you have to create a new account as well, when you join said instance.
Yes you’ll have to create a new account somewhere else, so that you can import settings
i just created on another instances, 2 im waiting for approval.
Also PieFed can import those exports that Lemmy makes.
Thank God I don’t have to reblock all the furry communities.
it seems that this will save your subscriptions list and some other settings but not your list of blocked communities. at least, it hasn’t worked like that for me. edit - disregard! they showed up after a while.
also, you need to save your avatar pic and re-upload.
I actually decided it’s fine, I’ll just reblock all the annoying things. Never had an avatar, never will prolly
all the kink porns/furry porn yea, i had to block alot of nsfw, and a whol host of users i blocked
Huh. One of the least expected instances I thought would shut down :(
Right? Where will I go? What will I do?
I figured it’s all federated and I can block and find tune regardless, so I just hopped over to .world. Literally took 2 minutes, so that was nice at least. But sad to see it go. It was my home for two years and it was perfect for what I needed :/
The settings import / export feature is extremely cool.
Reminds me of the many times I was banned from reddit for no good reason and then had to reset every one of my subs. So much easier, and just goes to back up the decentralized philosophy of lemmy.
First thank you for the work (always keeping server up to date, fixing issues quickly, blocking spam,…).
Now time to think about migrating, any advices for another great instance?
General instances:
Sopuli.xyz is a great medium sized general purpose instance. Good admins that update to the latest Lemmy release consistently.
Lemmy.cafe could be another option if you’d prefer a smaller general purpose instance (to help spread the load and prevent the burnout that lemm.ee experienced) that’s also run by a solid admin.
Themed instances:
Retrolemmy.com - a cool place for retro tech/game enthusiasts
Literature.cafe - For book lovers and readers!
lemmy.dbzer0.com - fantastic instance for Anarchists and those who like to go Yarr! 🏴☠️
Programming.dev - For techies interested in programming and linux
Mander.xyz - Focused on Science and Nature
Lemmy.zip - PC Gaming and Tech focused
You can find more over at Lemmyverse.net
Piefed:
If you’re willing to try an entirely new way to interact with Lemmy and the threadiverse, consider giving Piefed.social a try, a completely independent project from Lemmy. It’s still a little behind in some ways, but also has a bunch of features that lemmy doesn’t. If you’re a community mod looking to migrate, Piefed apparently makes it particularly easy!
Lemmy.cafe could be another option if you’d prefer a smaller general purpose instance (to help spread the load and prevent the burnout that lemm.ee experienced) that’s also run by a solid admin.
Some feedback on lemmy.cafe: it used to be my alt for a few weeks end of 2024. I liked the idea of the instance, and the them, and Illecors (the admin) was indeed quite nice to talk too.
That being said, there was an issue that lasted from 22th of November to 18th of January with the thumbnails not loading, while other instances running the same version didn’t have those issues: https://lemmy.cafe/post/9986198
I know that Illecors did his best, and people should definitely give the instance a try if they are interested, but this is just a warning to keep in mind that this is an instance mostly run by one person, so troubleshooting can take a bit of time.
That’s a good point. On a similar note, Programming.dev had pretty severe database breakage that took quite some time to fix, but thankfully both instances seem to be healthy and working well nowadays. :)
Oh yeah, that was quite something too 😅
I chose lemmy.zip at the end. I hope this one will stay longer (I started on vlemmy.net which was put offline without notice and then I switched to lemm.ee…).
Just do it like me and create a couple accounts here and there while also migrating settings.
Thank you!
Tagging so I have this pinned. I need to find a new instance
Many thanks for that curated list
I’m migrating to lemmy.zip, at least for the short term. They also have public instance reports, which was the major reason I joined lemm.ee. Transparency and accountability is essential. I guess the fact that those reports got more and more sparse at lemm.ee was a canary in the coal mine here…
Enjoy lemmy.zip, it’s great!
These days, join-lemmy is pretty good at narrowing down instances to match your likes.
I disagree. Some of its top recommendations include lemmynsfw.com (I have nothing against NSFW but go there and read their admin posts - they have been struggling for a long time so like lemm.ee not stable), beehaw.org (a fantastic instance but I feel like one not to be casually recommended to people without explanation), hilariouschaos.com (are you fucking kidding me with this neonazi shit?), lemmy.ml (certainly nothing ever controversial can be said about that one - at least not while on that platform!😜😞), and all of this is just what I noticed today but in the past iirc multiple times even it has suggested hexbear.net to me.
So no, I don’t recommend the recommendation of this site to people.
::shudders:: hexbear…yikes!
I moved over to piefed.social - it’s another platform, but federated with lemmy, and has some nice features like subscribing to whole topics instead of individual communities.
Discuss.Online has fantastic admins. The uptime rate there is breathtaking. I hopped across many instances before I settled there.
PieFed is also pretty fantastic too, with so very many features that Lemmy lacks - like flairs (post and user), voting polls, categories of communities, which are user customizable and shareable, etc.
I need a recommendation as well. Lemm.ee was my gateway to Lemme.
Me too. I’m wondering where to go next. I can’t really search until I get home later.
sh.itjust.works has lived up to its name
I may be biased, but lemmy.ca is pretty great
I may be biased
So far everyone has recommended their home instance. 😆
I recommend… Wait, shit
i might join it, eventhough im not canadian.
I’m very happy with infosec.pub. If I had to pick a different one, then I would choose lemmy.dbzer0.com.
Sad to see it go, one of the biggest instances. But I totally get it from the admins’ point of views.
After the call for admins, there was never an indication that the search wasn’t going well. Honestly, I would’ve put some time in (& I’m sure many others would’ve) if we’d known closure was imminent.
