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

  • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    75
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    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.

      • Ledericas@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        4 months ago

        all the kink porns/furry porn yea, i had to block alot of nsfw, and a whol host of users i blocked

      • cartoon meme dog@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        edit-2
        4 months ago

        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.

        • hello@retrolemmy.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          4 months ago

          I actually decided it’s fine, I’ll just reblock all the annoying things. Never had an avatar, never will prolly

  • SuguroGeto@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    im going to miss lemmee also this is going to led to more lemmy.world centralization sadly

    • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      4 months ago

      I would hope that the users would not go immediately to lemmy.world, but rather other instances. But you may be right unfortunately

  • rglullis@communick.news
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    4 months ago

    Maybe we can take this as an opportunity to understand the importance of separating “instance for groups” and “instance for users”?

    • fuzzzerd@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      4 months ago

      I’ve had this idea as well, and I definitely see some benefits though as stated in the thread by someone else, most admins would want to be on a groups instance and not a users instance and I’m not sure how to combat that. The thought that occurred to me was a lemmy federation compatible community only instance server that could augment the current thrediverse landscape. Essentially making it easier to spin up a community for your topic than it is to spin up a while new instance. It would still be easiest to just make a community on your main user instance but it would introduce a new difficulty level for communities to run separate without standing up a whole Lemmy instance.

    • Blaze (he/him) @lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      4 months ago

      Doesn’t really solve the issue, admins will all want to manage an instance for groups rather than instance for users as that would avoid much of the drama.

      • rglullis@communick.news
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        4 months ago

        Doesn’t really solve the issue, admins will all want to manage an instance for groups rather than instance for users as that would avoid much of the drama.

        And that is bad why…?

          • rglullis@communick.news
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            4 months ago

            This argument applies more to “instance with lots of users and groups” (what we have now) than “communities with lots of users on topic-specific instances”, so I don’t think this is the problem here.

            • Blaze (he/him) @lemmy.dbzer0.com
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              4 months ago

              Let’s say we are in a different universe where lemm.ee is a users instance, and not a groups instances.

              Drama still happens involving lemm.ee users.
              Admins still get burnt out.
              They still shut down the instance.

              So indeed the communities wouldn’t have to move, but the 5.5k monthly active users of Lemm.ee (out of 47k total) would still have to find a new instance.

              • rglullis@communick.news
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                4
                ·
                edit-2
                4 months ago

                They still shut down the instance.

                Only the users on lemm.ee are affected by it, in this scenario. It is bad, but the current scenario is much worse.

                Drama still happens involving lemm.ee users.

                User-only instances are less dependent on each other, defederation is not as big of an issue, so a lot of the drama would go away.

                Admins still get burnt out.

                Less communities on their instances means less traffic, less activities, less moderation reports (they would have to deal only with users on their own instances) and if even then they are overloaded with work, they could decide to scale down the operation before reaching burning-out point: close the instance for new registrations, make user registration conditional on payment/donation, etc.

                • Blaze (he/him) @lemmy.dbzer0.com
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  4 months ago

                  Less communities on their instances means less traffic, less activities, less moderation reports (they would have to deal only with users on their own instances)

                  Those users are the same as in our universe for lemm.ee as a user instance. They stir the same dramas, create the same number of alts, violate rules in a similar way.

                  if even then they are overloaded with work, they could decide to scale down the operation before reaching burning-out point: close the instance for new registrations, make user registration conditional on payment/donation, etc.

                  That was available to the lemm.ee admins in our scenario as well. They preferred to shut the instance down rather than reduce.

  • fievel@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    60
    ·
    4 months ago

    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?

    • OpenStars@piefed.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      4 months ago

      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.

    • Ashtear@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      29
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      4 months ago

      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…

      • OpenStars@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        30
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        4 months ago

        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.

    • Lily33@piefed.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      4 months ago

      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.

    • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      70
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      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!


      Also @1024_Kibibytes@lemm.ee

      • fievel@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        edit-2
        4 months ago

        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…).

        • dubyakay@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          4 months ago

          Just do it like me and create a couple accounts here and there while also migrating settings.

      • Blaze (he/him) @lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        4 months ago

        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.

        • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          4 months ago

          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. :)

  • lai, a supersonic warrior@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    57
    ·
    4 months ago

    Censorship kills another server. rip.

    there needs to be less of it and more discussion. if someone posts something you dont like, ignore and downvote it and move on. i rather be allowed to read the other sides comments than not at all.

    why even are lemmy servers so overmoderated, jts not like we get flooded with users. whats more important, the fediverse success or thay you can ban another user because he doesnt fully support and yield to the current thing?

    it seems the issue wasnt the server cost that will shut down lemm.ee.

    im sick of mods. nobody likes mods!

  • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    22
    ·
    4 months ago

    I almost joined you. Thank you for all you did and I’m sad to see you go. I guess there’s a reason why it’s not that toxic on Lemmy, you guys were/are taking the brunt of it.

  • Goretantath@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    4 months ago

    Sucks, made a new account on world. The app i use defaults to .ee so thats why i chose it when i joined lemmy.

  • celeryfc@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    4 months ago

    I think I might be based there, but how do I know? I’ve literally only used the app to access this place. Laptop is strictly reserved for porn. lol

  • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    4 months ago

    I was taking a break from browsing lemmy the last few days and just saw this. I’m absolutely devastated. I knew the admins were looking for new mods and such but never knew it was this severe. I don’t think I could’ve spent my time doing this work but I definitely could’ve given a few dollars if that helped.