Fediverse server admins: have you considered putting a limit on the number of people that can join your instance?

If not, please do.

(This should really be a feature in fediverse servers like Mastodon, etc. “Max occupancy” or something with an auto-shutoff when it’s reached.)

Remember, small is beautiful ;)

If nothing else, I’m sure none of you want to become mini Zuckerbergs or Musks – eww – so let’s make sure we set the right incentives from the start.

#fediverse #scale #smallness

@aral

Maybe there should be gradually more friction on joining as the limiit is approached?

Otherwise it's like "99,999 - come on in!" ➡️ "100,000 - go somewhere else!" and people who aren't sure how federation works may be confused. The momentum of everyone joining may tempt the admin to stay open.

Maybe when a server gets to (for example) 70% of capacity it could switch to the "why do you want to be a member?" form which creates a bit more friction, and might push people to look elsewhere.

@FediThing @aral
I think we must think in terms of active users.
And communicating how many active users your instance aims at might already do the trick to help others migrate softly.
Just to make it clear we are not worried about you being the +1, just that we do not want to scale beyond our capacity.

@mwfc @aral

Good point. It's the MAU that count.