Looks like you had a nice influx (of a lot of brand new butts!)
https://ssb.picoreclame.nl/Map%20of%20the%20network%20with%20popular%20names.jpg (warning: large file)

I have looked for an alternative server without much luck...

There is no alternative, AFAIK, but you can install an earlier and more stable version:

$ npm install -g 'scuttlebot@13.0.3'

You can set e.g. NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX=~/.npm-global and include $NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX/bin in $PATH to avoid installing and running the damn thing as root.