Nice to see the growth! I came over from reddit, hearing about Lemmy when the blackout was being planned. Lurked a few days and finally joined today! I really like Lemmy.
I've been on reddit for a looong time (arrived there during the migration from Digg) and have seen other migrations from reddit and this one seems most successful and diverse. Way to go reddit for pissing off thousands of subreddits instead of just one or two. The upside of that for us is a variety of communities created in our new home so there's much less of a reason to go back to reddit. Many thanks to everyone creating, contributing, modding, and admining here!
Aside from maybe a few niche subreddits until they find their way over here or I find a replacement community somewhere else, as of now I don't plan on going back to reddit. I haven't been there since the day before the blackout. If I'm really curious about what's going on at reddit, I just check teddit as long as it's available.
Wow, I didn't know defederation was a thing until reading the comments in this post. In that case, I agree with the OP that not leading with federation when promoting Lemmy is probably the best.