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 @Ashyr@sh.itjust.works, @otter@lemmy.ca, and @Blaze@lemmy.blahaj.zone)
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:
- !electric_vehicles@lemmy.ml (active)
- !electricvehicles@lemmy.ml (active)
- !evs@lemmy.world (active)
- !electricvehicles@lemmy.world (inactive)
- !electriccars@lemmy.ca (inactive)
- !electricvehicles@slrpnk.net (active)
- !electricvehicles@lemm.ee (inactive)
- !electricvehicles@reddthat.com (inactive)
- !evs@notdigg.com (inactive)
Location-specific:
- !evs@feddit.uk (active) (UK-specific, European welcome)
- !evs_ireland@lemmy.ml (inactive) (Ireland-specific)
- !electricvehicles@midwest.social (inactive) (US-specific)
Other:
- !electricvehicles@gearhead.town (active)
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, @Blaze@lemmy.cafe 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 !electricvehicles@slrpnk.net. I think the SolarPunk instance is a nice match for an EV community, but I am interested to hear what others think.
Just join them all.
They serve the purpose of redundancy. Power-tripping moderators and administrators are less able to silence reasonable dissent when dissenters can just run to other instances. When various instances fail, the others pick up automatically.
The stats show that the majority of users don't do that. And even if they did, it still wouldn't solve the problem that multiple communities on the same topic fragments the userbase, leading to very sparsely populated communities. When all the discussion occurs in a single community, the discussion is much more vibrant, instead of users shouting into a bunch of separate voids.
Having too many communities prevent potential posters from knowing where to post. They usually are not going to crosspost their content to a dozen different communities, and will just not post at all.
Power tripping mods can be reported on !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Post in any of them, or any combination of them.
When I find a good community, I tend to join the communities they recommend. I would suggest Sidebar links to related communities for others to join.
What is the purpose of such a report? Seems like pointless drama in a decentralized environment.
The internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it.
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.
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)
Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
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)?
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
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.
You only seem to have two posts, is there another account where you post more?
Calling out power tripping mods, which allows people to switch to communities with better mods