Why consolidate communities?

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, 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.

A few perspectives in favour of consolidation: (credits to @[email protected], @[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://lemmy.ca/comment/8823953

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

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/8370860

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.

Consolidating electric vehicle communities

Applying these principles to the EV communities on Lemmy, let’s take an overview of what currently exists:

General-purpose:

Location-specific:

Other:

Do all of these communities serve a distinct purpose? If not, could we consolidate some of them?

While Lemmy does not currently have a built-in way of moving or merging communities, @[email protected] has had some success with pinning an explanation post directing users to the new community and locking the old one. Is this something which could be applied to the EV communities on Lemmy?

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

Given the general sentiment to move off of ML (for ideological reasons) and off of World (to avoid centralization of instances), my proposal would be [email protected]. I think the SolarPunk instance is a nice match for an EV community, but I am interested to hear what others think.

  • OtterEnglish
    4·
    1 month ago

    Having one community helps a lot with growth; a few people posting to a few small communities vs. all of them posting to the same larger community.

    Once a community has momentum (ex. world news, technology), this is less important and having multiple communities all open at once isn’t a big deal.

    In this case, I think all the people from those communities want to see more content and discussion. If any of the communities listed above want to stay open for whatever reason, I’m sure people here will respect that choice too.

    What is the purpose of such a report?

    I don’t like the drama or fights in the comments, but I find that communities like that serve as a way to start discussion about moving. Same as on centralized platforms (reddit), if mods are power tripping or making poor decisions, posts like that help with an organized move to a new space. The same place can be used if an instance goes down, a mod disappears, etc. The advantage of the Fediverse is that it’s really easy to move to new communities if/when there are problems with a community/instance.

    (posting with my alt since there are some federation issues with this post right now)

    • threelonmusketeersOPMEnglish
      3·
      1 month ago

      Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

      posting with my alt since there are some federation issues with this post right now

      As the post doesn’t seem to have federated with lemmy.ca, how did you find out about it? Tag in comments? Direct message?

      What is the likely source of the federation issue? My instance (SJW), your instance (ca), or the community instance (lemmee)?

      • OtterEnglish
        3·
        1 month ago

        It was your direct message actually! I also replied to the message from my lemmy.ca account, but maybe that didn’t federate either?

        We didn’t find any explanation for the federation issue just yet, but if messages aren’t going through consistently then it might be between our instances rather than lemm.ee

        I’ll copy my message and send it with this acocunt

        • threelonmusketeersOPMEnglish
          3·
          1 month ago

          I also replied to the message from my lemmy.ca account, but maybe that didn’t federate either?

          Nope, that one federated just fine, and I’ve recently replied to it. If you receive it, that would suggest that federation (or at least direct messages) are working between SJW and ca.