Hello and welcome to the November 2024 edition of the Lemmy.zip Server Update!
Long time readers will know the format by now, but please have a good read and give this an upvote if you enjoy it :)
Communities
Take a look at these new communities. If you enjoy them, give them a subscribe :)
As I said last time, I was going to start clearing up old and unused communities. I've reviewed most of the communities and mods have been very good at coming back to me, so thank you. We've managed to reduce the list of communities now, which should make it a bit easier for those looking to host communities here or those that are new to Lemmy in general.
Server Update
We've had a couple of maintenance periods for the usual front end and back end updates, but I'm glad to report that the server has been mostly stable for a good few months now. I made some little tweaks to the database based on some feedback around shared memory running out (thank you @BrikoX!) otherwise our uptime in 2024 (so far, let's not jinx it) has been 99.8946% (including maintenance downtimes, i.e. when we moved server).
I have also recently taken the time to update the Terms of Service - nothing has changed materially, just an update to wording around GDPR and age limits/NSFW content.
Finally, my plan is to try and complete work on our "ban notifier" - we don't issue many bans, but there is no communication from lemmy if we do this. So a banned person has no idea why or for how long. Using webhooks we can share this information with the user and give them an appeals channel, I just need to put the finishing touches on it.
Interaction reminder (help support the instance!)
If you’re new to Lemmy.zip - WELCOME! I hope you’re enjoying your time here :)
I am sure that long term readers are bored of reading this now, but it is really is true that the easiest way you can support Lemmy.zip is to actively engage with content here: upvoting content you enjoy, sharing your thoughts through posts and comments, sparking meaningful discussions, or even creating new communities that resonate with your interests.
It’s natural to see fluctuations in user activity over time, and we’ve seen this over the wider lemmy-verse for some time now. However, if you’ve found a home here and love this space, now is the perfect opportunity to help us thrive.
If you want to support us in a different way than financially, then actively interacting with the instance helps us out loads.
If you've gone to the trouble of creating an account, then come and be part of the Fediverse! Please don't be a lurker! :)
Donations
Lemmy.zip only continues to exist because of the generous donations of its users. The operating cost of Lemmy.zip is over 50 euros a month ($54, £43) and is mostly funded by the community!
We keep all the details around donations on our OpenCollective page, with full transparency around income and expenditure.
If you're enjoying Lemmy.zip, please check out the OpenCollective page, we have a selection of one-off or recurring donation options. All funds go directly to hosting the site and keeping the virtual lights on.
We've also put up a link to our Ko-Fi page where you can donate via paypal instead of using a card. All Ko-Fi donations will be totalled up and added to OpenCollective each month for transparency. I've added a link in the sidebar, but you can also click the image below to go there:
We continue to have some really kind and generous donators and I can't express my thanks enough. You can see all the kind donators in the Thank You thread - you could get your name in there too!
It's Graph Time!
As I missed the update for last month, these graphs are over 60 days instead of the usual 30 days.
CPU:
RAM:
(The drops here coincide with the server/database container being restarted.)
Storage:
(Yeah that one is pretty boring)
Here are things right now as I type this:
Image storage:
And now for Cloudflare stats (which are back to 30 days)
Requests:
Bandwidth:
Unique visitors:
Region traffic:
(as a reminder, Lemmy.world and lemm.ee are hosted in Finland - as is Lemmy.zip! - which is why we see so much traffic from there.)
Anyway, that's it for now.
As always, if there is anything you'd like me to add to these going forward, let me know! Otherwise I hope everyone has nice November and I'll see you again in December :)
Cheers,
Demigodrick
Do you convert uploads to webp via Pictrs? That can help to keep the file sizes down :)
Edit: also, the version of pictrs you're on can help - later versions do some tidying up IIRC.