Alright, relay.joinmastodon.org is offline. It was keeping up with the release candidate level of activity but it's not ready for so many servers using it.
Some communities are already running their own relay, and that will be fine.
For now, feel free to disable/delete relay.joinmastodon.org from your relays settings page. Sorry for the trouble.
@Gargron Would it be a good idea to make something like two or three "official" relays instead of one to compensate a bit?
@Gargron Did any alternative emerge? I'm looking into mastodon right now, but can't figure out the federation.
@erik There's relay.fedibird.com and relay.pettingzoo.co that I know of
@Gargron is this something that will ever be reimplemented? I would be very interested in subscribing to a relay that included mastodon.social.
原来如此
@Gargron Hey, can you point me a list of relays? Can't find that and since relay.joinmastodon.org is offline i have no relay to offer in my instancy. Thanks
@Gargron Is there a list of relays anywhere?
@Gargron
Eugen, I just join and looking on your avatar am I at some kids network?
@eyelashguard lol what
@Gargron
What does a relay do?
@Gargron Where is the relays setting page? @mastohost, do I have access to this on the shared hosting plan? (I don’t think I need access; I’m just curious.)
What does a relay server do?
https://source.joinmastodon.org/mastodon/pub-relay
Federation relays (#7998)
A federation relay is a semi-centralized server that pushes public messages between Mastodon servers that want to use it, thereby increasing the exposure of all participating Mastodon servers to each other. This is a solution to the problem of new Mastodon servers not having any content at the beginning, a way to subscribe to a more or less global timeline.
@martin @Gargron @mastohost Thanks! Do the relays auto-discover instances, or do they only know of the instances subscribed to them?
@mastohost @Gargron Oh, cool. Now, I need to figure out what a relay server is. 
@ramsey you're instance is already on v2.5.0 now.
if you find out, let me know 
I still don't fully know how it works
but I am sure we will find out.
The basic idea is that can subscribe to a relay server and you get all the public toots that it forwards you in the federated timeline. This way you can find more content/people without leaving your instance.
Anyone know if there is a list of relays out there?
@mastohost Thanks! I’ll let you know, if I find out.
I’m putting together some resources soon that I’ll share.