• 13 Posts
  • 262 Comments
Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: November 12th, 2023

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  • Keep in mind that instances (not just communities, but instances) come and go. Worst case, if an instance dies, yes, a community can move to a new instance, but you might want to consider several factors when choosing an instance to start a new community.

    • How long has the instance been around?
    • How is the instance hosted, governed, funded? Donations, non-profit, some rando’s spare laptop, etc.
    • Which other instances are they federated with, and which instances are they not federated with?
    • Are the instance admins active?
    • How often do the admins update the instance to the latest version of Lemmy software?
    • Other personal preferences, e.g., does the instance have alternate front ends, etc.

    If you decide to just take over one of the existing communities whose current admins are no longer active, you can request for the LW admins to appoint you as moderator of said communities. Do try reaching out to the existing admins first. But yeah, if nothing else, you could then facilitate a transition to the new instance, e.g., poll the active users to see if they want to move, and if so, then lock the community and post a link so new users can find the other instance.



















  • Short answer: Mobile hot spot (w/ your own cellular device) is preferable to public wifi from a security perspective.

    There are other considerations, such as how much cellular data downloads cost to you, what sites you’re visiting, what you’re actually doing, etc. In general, it’s advisable to avoid public wifi if you can, but if you must connect to public wifi, then you should make darn sure you connect to the right network (watch out for imposter networks w/ a legitimate looking name) and use VPN (ideally a paid service) to encrypt your traffic. Even with both of these measures, you’re best off avoiding sensitive activities like online banking on public wifi. If you must do banking or other sensitive stuff, either do it on your phone or wait until you get home.

    Hope this helps.

    Editing to add: When I initially responded, I’d forgotten which community I was in. In this context, I believe the other responses are better than mine, but I’ll keep mine up in case it helps other readers.