Is the Lemmy sign-up just broken for most instances
I'm getting a lot of comments from friends that they can't make an account. I went to make test accounts on both lemmy.ml and lemmy.world and both are throbbing indefinitely (didn't see any network traffic either).
Did they select a language? Mine did the same thing on various instances. I tried a few things at the same time, so I don't know what finally let me register, but I learned a few things in the process.
For example, the most likely explanation is that the username is already taken. The back end fails silently when that happens, and there's already a bug open in GitHub. I figured I'd try a shorter password and selecting a language, and that worked.
If that's the case and it's just a bug that there's not feedback on the sign-up page then that's cool. Probably need to track an issue for that. But right now the new user is experience is pretty bad for even technically literate people.
I had the spinning wheel issue when trying to sign up at midwest.social this morning. I left it for an hour and it was still spinning so I copied my answer, closed the tab, and reapplied. After 3 attempts it went through instantly. YMMV with other instances though ¯\(ツ)/¯
I hope it didn't send multiple requests but considering I applied to Beehaw.org a week ago and left it spinning all day and never got a confirmation email, I assume it didn't.
The main issue I have with Lemmy however is the profound lack of discoverability for communities. This is exacerbated on smaller instances. It is human nature to want to be where many people are, and Fediverse instances are no exception there.
There's a lot of value in 1) a good chance the instance will be there in a month, 2) you can just subscribe to stuff and see the comments from before, 3) can create communities on a relevant server