I just upgraded my instance to 0.18.0 using Ansible and I had to disable the option ‘Private instance’ directly on the database to get the lemmy docker up and running. I assume this is an intentional change, but should it really stop Lemmy from even running?
I said this elsewhere, I’ll repeat it here:
I don’t think you understand the point of federation or why you had to hack this. You cannot have federation - which is in fact putting yourself out there, making yourself publically known and open to send and receive messages - and also private, closed off, hosting your own instance.
I think all you wanted really was to close registrations and be on your own server, but that’s not private, that’s still a public server in terms of the 'verse. You’ll still be discoverable, just no one can sign up.
Private instances are for like companies who want to host their own internal lemmy instance for them to have a community. Maybe a marginalized group wants to have a completely private instance completely shut off from the rest of the fediverse that they don’t want to have shared with anyone.
