Probably a very polarizing question.

On the one hand, having most of the users and communities on LW causes technical issues (see this post), and also gives the LW staff too much power over Lemmy as a whole.

On the other hand, with 18k MAU on LW out of 47k (https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy/), every community listed there has a much higher chance of visibility compared to an alternative hosted on another instance

History of LW controversial decisions

  • Blaze@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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    7 months ago

    Hello,

    Thank you for your comment.

    I agree with the fact that a story of post should only exist once, as you said. I guess the remaining question is what to do where there are two communities for the same topic.

    I have a good example that I just stumbled upon: [email protected] is the most active community about maps, has usually one post per day every day for the last few months. Once in a while, someone posts on [email protected], and they instantly get a lot more comments than the first community.

    [email protected] is also quite active, despite not being on LW.

    Should we just give up with federation, and just aggregate all communities on LW?

    • Ashyr
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      7 months ago

      I would prefer we didn’t give up on federation, but until the tools are in place to mechanically support it, I don’t see it as strictly beneficial.

      A post a day in a community is a bot, more often than not, and trying to create discussion on bot posts often just falls on deaf ears.

      I don’t see a reason to push for fragmentation at this time, but rather organically support active communities wherever they’re found.

      I’d love for there to be a mechanical solution to fragmentation, so you don’t see so many duplicate posts in your feed and all those individual discussions are instead in one place.

      • Blaze@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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        7 months ago

        A post a day in a community is a bot, more often than not, and trying to create discussion on bot posts often just falls on deaf ears.

        In this case, I’m pretty sure it’s not, it’s a mix between @[email protected], @[email protected], myself and a few others.

        We had a nice discussion a few weeks ago about metal bands (https://dormi.zone/post/1721444)

        organically support active communities wherever they’re found.

        Makes sense

        so you don’t see so many duplicate posts in your feed and all those individual discussions are instead in one place.

        I guess at some points moderators of communities around a same topic will have to agree on where to host the community. The split between [email protected] and [email protected] still doesn’t make sense to me today.

        • Ashyr
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          7 months ago

          Sorry I didn’t mean to imply your specific example was a bot, rather my experience when I find a community with high post rates and low engagements it tends to be a bot.

    • Venia Silente@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Should we just give up with federation, and just aggregate all communities on LW?

      No. Half the point of federation is that not only communities (instances) can carry their own content but also their own culture. Posting or commenting about a soccer personality in, say, [email protected] is vastly different from doing it in, say, [email protected], even if the originating link to the discussion is the same.

      • Blaze@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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        7 months ago

        I know, but this question is asked in the specific context where posters are mostly alone on a community for several weeks / months, where the LW equivalent has much more potential.

    • ALostInquirer@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      Should we just give up with federation, and just aggregate all communities on LW?

      Might it not be more beneficial for related communities to, in the way of the old web, highlight each other in pinned/featured posts and sidebars? The idea being that there’s still some benefit to different moderation styles and community cultures/vibes.

      Maybe also encouraging community moderators to communicate with each other more to figure out how they want their communities to be, how they might want to differ to create more distinct identities?

      • threelonmusketeersM
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        7 months ago

        Might it not be more beneficial for related communities to, in the way of the old web, highlight each other in pinned/featured posts and sidebars?

        I think this is an excellent idea, and I have tried to do this with subs like [email protected]. It would be great if this became standard practice, or a sort of reciprocal courtesy between communities.

        Any ideas for how to encourage mod communication?

        • Blaze@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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          7 months ago

          Any ideas for how to encourage mod communication?

          I would just DM the other mods. Worked quite well for me

      • Blaze@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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        7 months ago

        Might it not be more beneficial for related communities to, in the way of the old web, highlight each other in pinned/featured posts and sidebars? The idea being that there’s still some benefit to different moderation styles and community cultures/vibes.

        Indeed, we kind of have that in the sidebar of [email protected]

        Maybe also encouraging community moderators to communicate with each other more to figure out how they want their communities to be, how they might want to differ to create more distinct identities?

        I guess. As said elsewhere, cases such as [email protected] and [email protected] still seem weird to me