Free domains (such as .tk) are a bad idea. I recommend getting a cheap domain like a .xyz on a nice registrar. I personally use Porkbun and I’m satisfied with it. Used Namecheap before and while the service at its core is good, it has too much bloat everywhere (UI, emails, etc).
it’s definitely not impossible to change, not only is lemmy a very new site, but it’s especially possible since they’re not dependent on SEO for current growth (nor can they grow as well with .ml as you pointed out). all they would have to do is to redirect lemmy.ml to a new domain like lemmy.social or whatever, and maintain a statement that the new domain is their primary. after a year or two, the volume of people using .ml would be minimal to none.
You would essentially be shutting down your instance and starting up a new one with existing content. And you would have to rebuild your network of federations. I’d say it’s not “nearly impossible” especially if you give advanced notice of the change (think, weeks), but definitely a pain.
I’m not a fediverse developer but as I understand it the activitypub spec identities people and communities by their domain, and does not define a way to mutate.
Translation: you would loose all your peers and your comments.
If lemmy.ml copied the databases to a new domain, then when websites start to peer again there would be duplicate comments, one from the old domain and one from the new domain.
Translation: it would require the cooperation of every instance to be clean
I’m not a fediverse developer again, this could be wrong
even if that’s the case, cooperation from the satellite instances wouldn’t be hard. since, as it’s been said, .ml domains are bad for a myriad of reasons, so for the future of the project and everyone participating, it would be in the best interest of everyone to do this. especially this early on, before it gets too big to execute such action.
Free domains (such as .tk) are a bad idea. I recommend getting a cheap domain like a .xyz on a nice registrar. I personally use Porkbun and I’m satisfied with it. Used Namecheap before and while the service at its core is good, it has too much bloat everywhere (UI, emails, etc).
.ml is free, and probably why lemmy uses it.
Lemmy used
.mlin it’s infancy, and it’s impossible to switch domain names now.I can attest to the cons of .ml domains
it’s definitely not impossible to change, not only is lemmy a very new site, but it’s especially possible since they’re not dependent on SEO for current growth (nor can they grow as well with .ml as you pointed out). all they would have to do is to redirect lemmy.ml to a new domain like lemmy.social or whatever, and maintain a statement that the new domain is their primary. after a year or two, the volume of people using .ml would be minimal to none.
You can’t just change a federated domain like you can change from facebook.com to meta.com, it’s nearly impossible
You would essentially be shutting down your instance and starting up a new one with existing content. And you would have to rebuild your network of federations. I’d say it’s not “nearly impossible” especially if you give advanced notice of the change (think, weeks), but definitely a pain.
why?
I’m not a fediverse developer but as I understand it the activitypub spec identities people and communities by their domain, and does not define a way to mutate.
Translation: you would loose all your peers and your comments.
If lemmy.ml copied the databases to a new domain, then when websites start to peer again there would be duplicate comments, one from the old domain and one from the new domain.
Translation: it would require the cooperation of every instance to be clean
I’m not a fediverse developer again, this could be wrong
even if that’s the case, cooperation from the satellite instances wouldn’t be hard. since, as it’s been said, .ml domains are bad for a myriad of reasons, so for the future of the project and everyone participating, it would be in the best interest of everyone to do this. especially this early on, before it gets too big to execute such action.