This site is currently struggling to handle the amount of new users. I have already upgraded the server, but it will go down regardless if half of Reddit tries to join.
However Lemmy is federated software, meaning you can interact seamlessly with communities on other instances like beehaw.org or lemmy.one. The documentation explains in more detail how this works. Use the instance list to find one where you can register. Then use the Community Browser to find interesting communities. Paste the community url into the search field to follow it.
You can help other Reddit refugees by inviting them to the same Lemmy instance where you joined. This way we can spread the load across many different servers. And users with similar interests will end up together on the same instances. Others on the same instance can also automatically see posts from all the communities that you follow.
Edit: If you moderate a large subreddit, do not link your users directly to lemmy.ml in your announcements. That way the server will only go down sooner.
Ok, say there was an established /tiki community on lemmy.ml, and some new server started up and started its own /tiki community. Would the posts from the lemmy.ml tiki community show up in NewLemmyServer.com/tiki... but only if NewLemmyServer was connected to lemmy.ml? Right?
From how I understand it, they would be different communities. Example: you have lemmy server A, B, and C. Your account is on C, and all 3 servers have tiki comunities. To access tiki on C you would go to tiki (since it's local), to access tiki on A you would go to tiki@A, b would be tiki@B.
If there's a community serverA/tiki, you can search on serverB for serverA/tiki and join the community serverA/tiki from serverB. Content ist replicated to serverB and back.
serverB/tiki@serverA is the replica you can fully use on serverB. This can exist beside serverB/tiki, which is a different community.
If someone writes a posting or comment on serverA/tiki, you can see it in serverB/tiki@serverA.
If someone writes a posting or comment on serverB/tiki@serverA, you can see it in serverA/tiki. (And even on serverC/tiki@serverA)