3d ago

The best instance to host a big community in Finnish?

Dear Fediversalists,

I am new here. I moderate a 50 000 members Finnish language Facebook group on no-fly travelling since 2015. I want to reduce our dependence on billionaire owned media, so we are trying to start an expansion here on the free side. I learned about Feddit.org and founded the community https://feddit.org/c/maatapitkinmatkustus.

Do you think this was the best move to make? Maybe we should move to another instance before our community grows too big here?

There are some issues I am unsure about. First, I have realised after having created the Finnish language community, that feddit.org is listed as a local instance of German speaking countries and so I could not choose Finnish as the community language, I had to “officially” choose English and German instead, though we are discussing in Finnish in the community.

Second, I do not know how big our community could grow on this server. Maybe the server will decide some day that there is no room for us anymore?

Third, I am concerned about how Feddit.org is going. I just installed Voyager, but I cannot connect to Feddit.org. I could connect to any other instance with it. What if the server has to close – would our community disappear with all the data?

On the other hand, I am happy using Lemmy. The user interface is easy and intuitive (maybe because I happen to belong to the net forums and blogs reader generation). So what would you recommend to a Finnish language group with a potential to grow to (tens of) thousands?

19 comments

Surely has to be https://sopuli.xyz/
The admin is a Finn, although the servers are technically in Germany.
Also it's extra cool because it's one of the true OG Lemmy servers, founded in June 2021.
- The admins, @QuentinCallaghan@sopuli.xyz and @Moxvallix@sopuli.xyz, might have something to contribute to this discussion!
  
  Excatly. Sopuli has become the instance for all things Finland, so that community would be more than welcome!
- Actually Sopuli was founded in February 2021. Few months after Lemmy's federation got out of beta phase.
  
  Wow, TIL.
  I based that off fedidb but it seems to be very inaccurate. Obviously it wasn't tracking until a certain point in Lemmy development.
  I'll make a list of the major instances from before the APIcalpyse of June 2023 that are still active. For the Lemmy historians 🧐. I'm mostly basing this by the top admin account on each server, because the admins are listed in order of seniority in the sidebar.
  lemmy.ml - Apr 2019
  lemmygrad - Aug 2019
  hexbear/chapo - July 2020
  szmer.info - Aug 2020
  lemmy.ca - Dec 2020
  sopuli.xyz - Feb 2021
  midwest.social - Aug 2021
  mander.xyz - Dec 2021
  beehaw.org - Jan 2022
  slrpnk.net - April 2022
  feddit.it - May 2022
  lemmy.blahaj.zone - Jan 2023
  infosec.pub - May 2023
  Honorable mention to feddit.de which was an early instance too IIRC and now lives on in feddit.org
  This is largely just an interesting piece of trivia, but also somewhat notable because servers generally don't federate content from before they were founded. So the older servers will have local copies of posts and comments from the early days of Lemmy.
  For instance @QuentinCallaghan@sopuli.xyz actually has 2.37k posts and 1.73k comments. But sh.itjust.works only caches about 850/800 posts/comments from that account, because we only joined the network in June 2023.
- According to Google translate, "sopuli" in Finnish means "lemming"
- This would have been my suggestion as well. Cool instance, surely would be perfect for this.

The local Finnish Lemmy community is hosted on sopuli.xyz /c/suomi@sopuli.xyz
I don't know how well the server is prepared to handle a large number of users, but seems like an appropriate place for a Finnish language community. I think /u/QuentinCallaghan@sopuli.xyz is the instance owner.

Try getting in touch with the admin of https://sopuli.xyz/. He is supposed to be from Finland.
I've seen that instance recommended for European users.
Good luck with your move! We need to get rid of American oligarch influence. They are corrupt, dishonest and lack humanity.

Thank you so much for all your advice! I have already contacted Sopuli. I'll make an account there as my first step.

This group sounds great. Unfortunately, I don't read Finnish. Is there an equivalent group in English anywhere on Lemmy?
- Not really. There are things dedicated to specific modes of transport, !rail@feddit.uk, !bikecommuting@lemmy.world, etc but nothing for the whole category.
  If you'd like to see something like this, I'd recommend starting !nofly@lemm.ee.

It is probably wise to have the server admins speak the language of your community.
(And feddit.org works fine for me, it's one of the instances with the highest uptime).

I don't have any recommendations, but I'm sharing information about train travel through a Mastodon account in Swedish https://mastodonsweden.se/@interrailinfosvenska I wish you good luck creating a new community in the Fediverse! And I have posted a challenge for a similar thing in Sweden.
- Bra! I'll follow you there.

Finnish group for no-fly travelling
Out of curiosity, does it always start with a boat trip?
- No, not always – those living in the very north can take a train through Sweden. And it is always possible to travel domestically – Finland is a large country! But, of course, most journeys include seaways.

19 comments