I also have an account on another instance. The sole admin hasn’t been heard of for three weeks. There don’t seem to have been any mod actions for a month and the instance hasn’t been updated to the latest version.
At the moment I’m more concerned about the admin (I hope they are okay). But what would happen if they don’t show up? I guess eventually the instance would disappear without warning or be defederated if bad actors take over.
Is there anything built in to Lemmy that would allow a takeover if a big instance went under?
I doubt it. You really are relying on the word of another person in that situation. I feel like a best case scenario is multiple admins with backups.
If it’s only been a few weeks though I wouldn’t be too concerned. Chances are the admin isn’t making their living off of Lemmy so they could be preoccupied with work, family, a vacation, or some other thing.
You’d probably be able to tell if a Lemmy instance is coming back based off of how long it’s been around and if there’s some kind of stickied post about what they want the instance to be.