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

  • FrostyTrichs@crazypeople.onlineOPEnglish
    297·
    6 days ago

    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.

      • Ilandar@lemm.eeEnglish
        1408·
        6 days ago

        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.

          • Ilandar@lemm.eeEnglish
            181·
            6 days ago

            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.

            • SorteKanin@feddit.dkEnglish
              20·
              6 days ago

              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).

              • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.worldEnglish
                12·
                6 days ago

                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.

                • adr1an@programming.devEnglish
                  3·
                  5 days ago

                  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 :)

                • gila@lemmy.zipEnglish
                  2·
                  5 days ago

                  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.

      • SorteKanin@feddit.dkEnglish
        722·
        6 days ago

        … 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.

      • SuguroGeto@lemm.eeEnglish
        21·
        6 days ago

        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

  • The Picard Maneuver@lemmy.worldEnglish
    99·
    6 days ago

    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.

    • deus@lemmy.worldEnglish
      67·
      6 days ago

      A lot of the internet has been lost to time already so I actually appreciate this place having this kind of permanence.

        • FundMECFS@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          6·
          6 days ago

          Your correct. Lemm.ee’s ghosts will only live on in the instances around during it’s life.

          Kind of like humans after they die. You still live on in the memories of those who knew you.

              • irelephant [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                4·
                5 days ago

                Interesting, what browser are you using?

                Anyway, its written in markdown.

                The contents of FEP-ef61.

                FEP-ef61: Portable Objects

                Summary

                Portable [ActivityPub][ActivityPub] objects with server-independent IDs.

                Motivation

                Usage of HTTP(S) URLs as identifiers has a major drawback: when the server disappears, everyone who uses it loses their identities and data.

                The proposed solution should satisfy the following constraints:

                • User’s identity and data should not be tied to a single server.
                • Users should have a choice between full control over their identity and data, and delegation of control to a trusted party.
                • Implementing the solution in existing software should be as simple as possible. Changes to ActivityPub data model should be kept to a minimum.
                • The solution should be compatible with existing and emerging decentralized identity and storage systems.
                • The solution should be transport-agnostic.

                History

                Nomadic identity mechanism makes identity independent from a server and was originally part of the Zot federation protocol.

                Streams (2021) made nomadic accounts available via the Nomad protocol, which supported ActivityStreams serialisation.

                FEP-c390 (2022) introduced a decentralized identity solution compatible with ActivityPub. It enabled permissionless migration of followers between servers, but didn’t provide full data portability.

                Requirements

                The key words “MUST”, “MUST NOT”, “REQUIRED”, “SHALL”, “SHALL NOT”, “SHOULD”, “SHOULD NOT”, “RECOMMENDED”, “MAY”, and “OPTIONAL” in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC-2119][RFC-2119].

                Identifiers

                An [ActivityPub][ActivityPub] object can be made portable by using an identifier that is not tied to a single server. This proposal describes a new identifier type that has this property and is compatible with the [ActivityPub] specification.

                ap:// URLs

                ap:// URL is constructed according to the [URI][RFC-3986] specification, but with a [Decentralized Identifier][DID] in place of the authority:

                ap://did:example:123456/path/to/object?name=value#fragment-id
\_/  \________________/ \____________/ \________/ \_________/
 |           |                |            |           |
scheme   authority           path        query     fragment
                • The URI scheme MUST be ap.
                • The authority component MUST be a valid [DID].
                • The path is REQUIRED. It MUST be treated as an opaque string.
                • The query is OPTIONAL. To avoid future conflicts, implementers SHOULD NOT use parameter names that are not defined in this proposal.
                • The fragment is OPTIONAL.

                [!NOTE] ActivityPub specification [requires][ActivityPub-ObjectIdentifiers] identifiers to have an authority “belonging to that of their originating server”. The authority of ‘ap’ URL is a DID, which does not belong to any particular server.

                [!WARNING] The URI scheme might be changed to ap+ef61 in a future version of this document, because these identifiers are not intended to be used for all ActivityPub objects, but only for portable ones.

                DID methods

                Implementers MUST support the [did:key] method. Other DID methods SHOULD NOT be used, as it might hinder interoperability.

                [!NOTE] The following additional DID methods are being considered: did:web, did:dns, did:webvh (formerly did:tdw) and did:fedi.

                DID documents SHOULD contain Ed25519 public keys represented as verification methods with Multikey type (as defined in the [Controlled Identifiers][Multikey] specification).

                Any [DID URL][DID-URL] capabilities of a DID method MUST be ignored when working with ap:// URLs.

                Dereferencing ap:// URLs

                To dereference an ap:// URL, the client MUST make HTTP GET request to a gateway endpoint at [well-known] location /.well-known/apgateway. The ap:// prefix MUST be removed from the URL and the rest of it appened to a gateway URL. The client MUST specify an Accept header with the application/ld+json; profile="https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams" media type.

                Example of a request to a gateway:

                GET https://social.example/.well-known/apgateway/did:key:z6MkrJVnaZkeFzdQyMZu1cgjg7k1pZZ6pvBQ7XJPt4swbTQ2/path/to/object

                ActivityPub objects identified by ap:// URLs can be stored on multiple servers simultaneously.

                If object identified by ap:// URL is stored on the server, it MUST return a response with status 200 OK containing the requested object. The value of a Content-Type header MUST be application/ld+json; profile="https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams".

                If object identified by ap:// URL is not stored on the server, it MUST return 404 Not Found.

                If object is not public, the server MUST return 404 Not Found unless the request has a HTTP signature and the signer is allowed to view the object.

                [!NOTE] This document describes web gateways, which use HTTP transport. However, the data model and authentication mechanism are transport-agnostic and other types of gateways could exist.

                Authentication and authorization

                Authentication and authorization are performed in accordance with [FEP-fe34] origin-based security model.

                The [origin][RFC-6454] of an ap:// URL is computed by the following algorithm:

                1. Let uri-scheme be the ap string.
                2. Let uri-host be the authority component of the URL.
                3. Let uri-port be the number 0.
                4. Return the triple (uri-scheme, uri-host, uri-port).

                And the origin of a [DID URL][DID-URL] is computed by the following algorithm:

                1. Let uri-scheme be the ap string.
                2. Let uri-host be the DID component of the DID URL.
                3. Let uri-port be the number 0.
                4. Return the triple (uri-scheme, uri-host, uri-port).

                Actors, activities and objects identified by ap:// URLs MUST contain [FEP-8b32] integrity proofs. Collections identified by ap:// URLs MAY contain integrity proofs. If collection doesn’t contain an integrity proof, another authentication method MUST be used.

                The value of verificationMethod property of the proof MUST be a [DID URL][DID-URL] where the DID matches the authority component of the ap:// URL.

                [!NOTE] This document uses terms “actor”, “activity”, “collection” and “object” according to the classification given in [FEP-2277].

                Portable actors

                One identity (represented by [DID]) can control multiple actors (which are differentiated by the path component of an ap:// URL).

                An actor object identified by ap:// URL MUST have a gateways property containing an ordered list of gateways where the latest version of that actor object can be retrieved. Each item in the list MUST be an HTTP(S) URL with empty path, query and fragment components. The list MUST contain at least one item.

                Gateways are expected to be the same for all actors under a DID authority and MAY be also specified in the DID document as [services][DID-Services].

                Example:

                {
  "@context": [
    "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams",
    "https://w3id.org/security/data-integrity/v1",
    "https://w3id.org/fep/ef61"
  ],
  "type": "Person",
  "id": "ap://did:key:z6MkrJVnaZkeFzdQyMZu1cgjg7k1pZZ6pvBQ7XJPt4swbTQ2/actor",
  "inbox": "ap://did:key:z6MkrJVnaZkeFzdQyMZu1cgjg7k1pZZ6pvBQ7XJPt4swbTQ2/actor/inbox",
  "outbox": "ap://did:key:z6MkrJVnaZkeFzdQyMZu1cgjg7k1pZZ6pvBQ7XJPt4swbTQ2/actor/outbox",
  "gateways": [
    "https://server1.example",
    "https://server2.example"
  ],
  "proof": {
    "type": "DataIntegrityProof",
    "cryptosuite": "eddsa-jcs-2022",
    "created": "2023-02-24T23:36:38Z",
    "verificationMethod": "did:key:z6MkrJVnaZkeFzdQyMZu1cgjg7k1pZZ6pvBQ7XJPt4swbTQ2#z6MkrJVnaZkeFzdQyMZu1cgjg7k1pZZ6pvBQ7XJPt4swbTQ2",
    "proofPurpose": "assertionMethod",
    "proofValue": "..."
  }
}

                Location hints

                When ActivityPub object containing a reference to another actor is being constructed, implementations SHOULD provide a list of gateways where specified actor object can be retrieved. This list MAY be provided using the gateways query parameter. Each gateway address MUST be URL-endcoded, and if multiple addresses are present they MUST be separated by commas.

                Example:

                ap://did:key:z6MkrJVnaZkeFzdQyMZu1cgjg7k1pZZ6pvBQ7XJPt4swbTQ2/actor?gateways=https%3A%2F%2Fserver1.example,https%3A%2F%2Fserver2.example

                This URL indicates that object can be retrieved from two gateways:

                • https://server1.example
                • https://server2.example

                Implementations MUST discard query parameters when comparing ap:// identifiers and treat identifiers with different query parameter values as equal.

                Inboxes and outboxes

                Servers and clients MUST use gateways to deliver activities to inboxes or outboxes. Servers specified in the gateways property of an actor object MUST accept POST requests to respective gateway URLs.

                Example:

                POST https://social.example/.well-known/apgateway/did:key:z6MkrJVnaZkeFzdQyMZu1cgjg7k1pZZ6pvBQ7XJPt4swbTQ2/actor/inbox

                Delivered activities might be not portable. If delivered activity is portable (has ap:// identifier), the server MUST verify its [FEP-8b32] integrity proof. If the server does not accept deliveries on behalf of an actor, it MUST return 405 Method Not Allowed.

                ActivityPub clients MAY follow [FEP-ae97][FEP-ae97] to publish activities. In this case

    • nanook@friendica.eskimo.com
      2·
      5 days ago

      @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.

  • Knightfox@lemm.eeEnglish
    29·
    5 days ago

    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.

  • Elaine Cortez@lemm.eeEnglish
    57·
    6 days ago

    I literally just woke up and opened Lemmy to see this. As a lemm.ee user this is sad news but I respect the decision of all those involved as they navigate this

  • cecilkorik@lemmy.caEnglish
    97·
    6 days ago

    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.

  • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    873·
    6 days ago

    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.

    • Draconic NEO@lemmy.world
      English
      3·
      5 days ago

      Yeah I agree, that model just isn’t sustainable. Moderation is one of the most challenging aspects of running a Lemmy instance, and deciding to never defederate because of “free speech” and “user choice” just makes the job that much worse. It feels almost inevitable that instances like this will ultimately succumb to this type of burnout.

      Really I feel like we should stop talking about “defederation” as an abstract concept without context or reason since it makes it seem like defederation happens for no reason. Which is almost never the case. We don’t talk about other forms of moderation that way, and if someone did it would be clear they’re one of those free speech trolls, so why do we so casually talk about defederation this way? Seriously, defederation, like any other moderation is 100% necessary, because humans are evil pieces of shit. Not all of them, but many are. That’s why we ban people, that’s why we defederate the most rotten places in the fediverse. Saying “just block users” is counterproductive. You know what Lemmy would look like if that’s all we offered here? Probably a more extreme version of 4chan, since those are the people that dominate when moderation isn’t enforced.

    • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
      58·
      6 days ago

      shouldve kept the nsfw, ml and hexbear instance seperate when they had the chance.

      • dditty@lemm.eeEnglish
        102·
        5 days ago

        Ironically, that lemm.ee still federated with .ml, hexbear, and lemmygrad was one of the primary factors for me deciding to move my account there from lemmy.world. I want to be a part of an instance that federates with those communities and then I can just block individual communities and accounts on a case-by-case basis from my account.

        • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
          3·
          5 days ago

          ml and hexbear were getting problematic for me so i blocked them. and the users there were infesting other posts with thier rants.

  • WatDabney@lemm.eeEnglish
    781·
    6 days ago

    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.

    • Jayjader@jlai.luEnglish
      5·
      6 days ago

      I suspect there is wisdom to be learned from forest management, specifically how regular, small controlled burns are how you avoid huge, unmanageable forest fires.

    • Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.socialEnglish
      5·
      6 days ago

      It’s important now that we don’t all move to lemmy.world we want many smaller instances, not one really big one.

      PS. Checkout PieFed, it’s much more feature rich compared to lemmy, and has better mod tools.

    • nanook@friendica.eskimo.com
      548·
      6 days ago

      @WatDabney @FrostyTrichs I started my friendica instance after facebook banned me for pointing out issues with the Covid-19 vax, then I started my mastodon instance after twatter did the same prior to Elon’s ownership. I’ve had some hardware issues along the way but we’ve got those straightened out. There seems to be the this false assumption on many peoples part that fediverse instances should be echo chambers like the old facebook and twitter were. I think it’s healthy for opposing viewpoints to be expressed, but I believe it is unhealthy to allow to degrade to ad hominem attacks, I run my sites accordingly, others don’t feel this way they prefer an echo chamber and there are instances that accommodate those folks well, and to me this is the beauty of the fediverse. I personally prefer long format posting because I don’t believe short format provides the opportunity for the depth of discussion needed to explore opposing view, historical perspective, cause and effect elaboration, etc, which is, of my nodes I spend most of my time on friendica. Friendica is however not efficient, it takes a lot of hardware resources to run it efficiently.

      • Wiz@midwest.socialEnglish
        552·
        6 days ago

        issues with the Covid-19 vax

        healthy for opposing viewpoints

        Vaccine skepticism is not a “healthy viewpoint”, but quite the opposite. Vaccines and inoculations are about as much “proven science” as we have, with hundreds of years behind the science. Spreading anti-vaxxer propaganda kills people.

        • elephantium@lemmy.worldEnglish
          34·
          6 days ago

          “proven science”

          Vaccines are a good example here. Handwashing is another. We’ve had empirical proof on the latter since the 1850s, but it’s STILL super hit or miss whether people will bother :(

      • booly@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        28·
        6 days ago

        I think it’s healthy for opposing viewpoints to be expressed

        Yeah, that way the community can get inoculated with these ideas and learns how to respond to them, and over enough time the response gets faster and more efficient so that the body as a whole builds up a resistance against whenever those types of comments show up.

        • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.worldEnglish
          13·
          6 days ago

          This is why we don’t need vaccines.

          We just need gradual exposure to a lesser form of bullshit, so we can develop immunity to the greater whole of bullshit!

          /s

      • ayyy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        221·
        6 days ago

        If only you could dedicate as much effort into understanding basic science.

      • Ledericas@lemm.eeEnglish
        11·
        6 days ago

        alot of people came here from the recent reddit ban waves, which correlated with the large jump in users on .ee, unfortunately, it also includes people that were banned for spreading rw propaganda, israeli talking points, general trolls. legitmate users were also part of those bans.

        • nanook@friendica.eskimo.com
          13·
          6 days ago

          @Ledericas Unfortunately, this is often how it goes. The fact that I got some 30 or so dislikes and two SYN flood DoS attacks for simply offering my services I guess illustrates the make up of the crowd. Ah well, they will all relocate somewhere and life will go on.

  • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.netEnglish
    74·
    6 days 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.

  • simple@lemm.eeEnglish
    731·
    6 days ago

    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

  • MangioneDontMiss@lemmy.caEnglish
    261·
    5 days ago

    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.