Because of the nature of federation posts and comments on LemmyNSFW communities will live on basically forever. However the photos and videos will likely be lost. Some were links to external media and will stick around, some may be cached. But most photos and videos that were uploaded directly to the instance will break when the server fully goes down.
For example: [NSFW, OBVIOUSLY] [email protected] - that link should load fine on your instance. It should look functional just with no new posts. (Note: it’s actually possible to post and comment in these communities still, but only people in your instance will see it)
The images are served from links like these: (mild NSFW) https://lemmynsfw.com/pictrs/image/d50379d3-7d64-440c-bcf6-13dbf2b81c1b.webp?format=webp
The fact that the images still load is a somewhat hopeful sign. The server is still running, Lemmy just crashed. There’s still time for the head admin to come back, the data still exists. This seems unlikely though as the other admin says they haven’t heard from them since October.
So there’s a small window to archive this stuff, if you’re interested. Between now and whenever the media server crashes or gets shut off for non-payment.


I mean I could plug my shit. https://goatmatrix.net/
It’s not super active on the nsfw front but I’m open to it. You’ve just got to hit “hidden from front” on nsfw content.
Any sub exists. Just submit to any topic.
Hopefully that plug isn’t unwelcome, but you really can use it.
Isn’t that just another centralized reddit clone like Voat or Tildes? The top/most active communities also aren’t promising… Right-libertarians and Ancaps 😒
Not sure how that would be better than just spooling up another lemmy/piefed instance that allows for NSFW. The big advantage of federation is that the rest of us can continue on even if some instances like LemmyNSFW falter, where as if you ever decided to shut down goatmatrix, that’s it, all of it is gone.
EDIT:
Uh oh…
That seems… Very optimistic.
What behaviors will lead to a ban? Is it so free-speech that someone could start an openly white nationalist or neo-nazi community there? If so, that’s how you get Nazi-bars (which is why Voat failed).