One of the advantages of a decentralized platform like Lemmy is the ability to create parallel communities on the same topic. “You don’t like how a community is being moderated? Go to another instance and start a new community!” (with or without blackjack and hookers)

However, I think this is also a double-edged sword. The creation of multiple communities on the same (or similar) topics can also fragment the userbase, leading to very sparsely populated communities.

Example: I am open to being wrong, but I don’t currently see a need for five distinct Harry Potter sublemmies with (nearly) identical names:

There are also some other miscellaneous HP related communities:

I suspect that many of these were created during the 2023 Rexxit, when instances were less stable, and there was a temporary period of massive growth.

Now that Lemmy is more stable, would the moderators of the above communities consider some form of cooperative consolidation? If not, what distinct purpose do the separate communities serve?

A couple arguments in favour of consolidation: (credits to @[email protected] and @[email protected])

https://sh.itjust.works/comment/11171955

I think until there’s some tool or system that helps collate all the information out here, fragmentation is detrimental to growth.

I’m not going to copy and paste the same comment with every mirrored post.

So sometimes commenting feels like a waste of time.

Centralizing helps ensure that there’s vibrant, consistent discussion which is what Lemmy should be about.

https://sh.itjust.works/post/18388026

I like this because people showing up to those communities might think that topic doesn’t have activity on Lemmy, when it actually does.

I sometimes think that unmoderated communities should be closed, and just be left and locked with a pointer to the active one. In case an issue arises with the active one, they can still be unlocked and used as back up.

The next question is, of course “Which instance should we consolidate to?”

  • [email protected] is currently the largest sub, but also the largest instance, and moving off of the largest instance would be good for the Fediverse as a whole.
  • [email protected] seems appropriate, given that Harry Potter is, well, a book. Large sub on a small instance.
  • [email protected] is a small sub on a large instance.
  • [email protected] is very small, but European. (Might feddit.uk be an option?)
  • [email protected] is also an option, but risky given the fragility of the instance. Could blue_berry provide some assurances that the instance will be stable for the foreseeable future, and perhaps improve the bus factor of the instance?

My hunch is that a stable, medium-sized instance would be best. What are your thoughts? Is consolidation worth a try?

If nothing else, the experiment could serve as a test for whether or not consolidation is effective in boosting engagement and discussion.

  • threelonmusketeersOPMEnglish
    4·
    6 months ago

    a method for allowing the automation of cross posting between related communities on different instances

    Yeah, that would probably be the ideal solution, provided that comments are also automatically cross-posted as well. Perhaps @[email protected] can chime in on whether this feature would be feasible, and what the timeline might be to implement it? Until then, manual consolidation is something which could be done with the current version of Lemmy.

    • nutomic@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      6 months ago

      That doesn’t sound like a real solution because comments would still be spread between these different posts.

      • threelonmusketeersOPMEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        Yeah, that’s why I stipulated “provided that comments are automatically cross-posted as well”. Would it be feasible to federate comments between cross-posts within a “multi-community”? Or would that be a logistical nightmare?

        • Blaze@reddthat.comEnglish
          3·
          6 months ago

          Just wondering, if comments are cross posted across communities, why not merge them in the first place?

          Seems more difficult to moderate, too (can all mods moderate all the comments? If not, there will be issues, if yes then that’s the same as having one community)

          • threelonmusketeersOPMEnglish
            2·
            6 months ago

            Excellent points. Multi-communities seem like they might be more trouble than they are worth.

        • nutomic@lemmy.mlEnglish
          3·
          6 months ago

          Missed that part. Then there will be lots of duplicate posts and comments, which increases server load and confuses users. Better to merge the communities in the first place.