If you’re seeing “subscribe pending” on any communities it’s a bug, you’re still subscribed.
You don’t. The server just can only handle a finite amount of actions per refresh. If you wait like 10-15 seconds your subscribe will go through. It’s got nothing to do with approvals.
You don’t. I’m not even sure that’s an option yet.
Do you mean creating an account on an instance?
There isn’t an approval process to subscribe to communities - anyone with a Lemmy account can subscribe. What are you seeing that looks like you need approval?
There can be an approval process for signing up to an instance/server, though.
I think they’re referring the Subscribe Pending prompt that some communities give when trying to subscribe.
I’ve noticed it myself and actually have been wondering the same thing
When I search for a community that isn’t on my local instance, I often get a “subscription pending” text, instead of it immediately changing to “joined”.
I noticed this too, but it feels more like a pull for the community is scheduled, and usually within minutes I’ll see in under my subscribed.
I think that’s the server taking longer to process the subscription request.
I don’t think it’s about approval (there is no “approve subscribers” option when setting up new communities on lemmy). I think it’s a bug or burp in the process. I had about 5 pending the other day and now only one shows it now. All of them function normally.
It seems all of them work as well, but if I look at communities I’ve subscribed to around 20-30 say subscription pending. Most of them are subs I found yesterday, but some are from several days ago.
Here’s the bug report for it on github. As far as I can tell it’s cosmetic. Some folks report that unsubbing/resubbing fixes it but I haven’t tried that.
Edited to add: my sub for this community shows pending. :-)