I feel like it would be an interesting learning tool cuz I learn a ton on here and it gets me writing without anyone having to hold a gun to my head. I mean like even essay-length or at least essay-worthy treatments of things I respond to in longer-form, and even for the shorter-form stuff
There’s a “Private instance” checkbox in the admin that seems like it would do exactly what you’re thinking. No need to defederate, you can turn federation off entirely.
I like how this was posted within a minute of the other person saying “there’s no reason to do it”
Kind of funny because they give you the button to do it… It might not be the best software, but it’s definitely an option
You certainly do lose a lot of features, but you still have the advantages of offering users a somewhat familiar platform (they’re likely familiar with Reddit already), and all of the third-party apps we have for Lemmy already. So even though you could just as well host a Facebook group or a phpBB forum or whatever, it’d probably prefer that as a student because I can log into my favorite app and use it seamlessly. And a single-node instance like that would be very privacy friendly as well. So if OP wants user engagement in a private platform it’s not as bad of an idea as it seems, even though without federation you’re not getting the most of it.
I think Lemmy would be fun for a school, but I’m not sure if it could replace anything. Mostly because it’s made more for link aggregation than data storage itself.