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:
- !harrypotter@lemmy.world
- !harrypotter@literature.cafe
- !harrypotter@lemm.ee
- !harrypotter@feddit.nl
- !harry_potter@diagonlemmy.social
There are also some other miscellaneous HP related communities:
- !hpfanfiction@lemmy.world
- !harry_potter_fanfic@diagonlemmy.social
- !harry_potter_memes@diagonlemmy.social
- !leaky_cauldron@diagonlemmy.social
- !dramione@lemmy.world (ew, but you do you, I suppose)
- !hp_magicawakened@lemm.ee
- !harry_potter_languages@lemmy.world
- !hufflepuff@lemmy.world
- !slytherin@lemmy.world
- !slytherin@sopuli.xyz
- !slytherin@lemmy.ml
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 @Ashyr@sh.itjust.works and @otter@lemmy.ca)
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?"
- !harrypotter@lemmy.world 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.
- !harrypotter@literature.cafe seems appropriate, given that Harry Potter is, well, a book. Large sub on a small instance.
- !harrypotter@lemm.ee is a small sub on a large instance.
- !harrypotter@feddit.nl is very small, but European. (Might feddit.uk be an option?)
- !harry_potter@diagonlemmy.social 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.
It's up to debate, but to me if the mod isn't active for the community (e.g. posting regularly), they should ask for someone else to take up that role. And if nobody wants the role, and there is another active community to redirect too, it could be nice to lock the inactive community down and redirect to the active one.
I mod a few inactive communities (such as !harrypotter@literature.cafe ). If someone came to me and said "hey, we've been trying to get our own HP community active, you already have some people on yours, would you mind locking yours down as you don't seem to actively mod it, and redirect to ours?" I would definitely do it.
They are not, but at the same time the LW rules still allow them to namesquat that community.
For the instance, as long as you take the big ones (LW, lemm.ee, SJW, dbzer0, lemmy.ca, etc.), your experience will indeed be the same. To know which community to post too, this is a different story, and I've seen a lot of people telling me "I stay on Reddit because when I when to post about a topic, there's a clear community where to. On Lemmy, there are two or three active communities competing for the same topic, and it's just confusing". Of course we should keep different communities for different folks (no one would consider merging lemmy.ml communities with LW's), but we can also reduce the confusion for a few core topics that can help new joiners to get settled
They are not, but as I said earlier, LW is so large than they have to be extra cautious with their updates. If they would be 20% of the total Lemmy population, and 30 of the top 100 communities compared to now, they would probably be more at ease with "me can mess up a bit, it's okay". Having them as a cornerstone of the whole platform puts them constantly under the spotlight.