Redundant communities across instances (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 years ago by bfr0@lemmy.world to c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world

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As a new reddit exile, I may be misunderstanding this.

In theory something like a !gaming community could crop up on multiple large instances, especially during the mass exodus while instances are getting hammered with spikes in volume.

If that's the case, we'll have fragmented communities across instances. Is there any way besides subscribing to each of them to combine them into a sort of multi-reddit type aggregation? Or is this considered a temporary (albeit important to adoption) problem during the crazy stages?

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[-] possibleHipster@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Yeah I this is my biggest problem, and there's always like 30 people saying "it's not a problem, it's a feature!"

Either they are in denial or I'm just completely incompatible with federation.

Why would I want 100 fragmented communities for the exact same thing? If I wanted to consume content from all of them sure, I could follow all 100 but that is so tedious. Plus what if I wanted to interact with them? I'd have to ask the same question 100 times!

[-] cuck4mai@lemmynsfw.com 3 points 2 years ago

I think it's just a problem that will work itself out over time with more users. There are redundant subreddits as well, but as the overall userbase grew only one or two subs maintained the subscriber growth to continue showing up on r/all. And in cases where redundant subs both grew together, they evolved to be very different atmospheres. For example, r/games vs r/gaming; one is focused on news and discussion while the other is mostly memes. Both great subs, but started out nearly identical until they found their identity.

[-] Whisdeer@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Why would I want 100 fragmented communities for the exact same thing?

I believe over time it'll sort out and one community will be dominant. But the reason you want this is so whoever got c/canada won't be dominant. If the mod of c/canada was a QAnon lizardpeople nut, you wouldn't need to make c/RealCanada because there's not a single real c/canada. You would make c/canada@lemmy.ml

But also, many communities were spread out even in reddit. Like r/traa and r/egg_irl.

[-] Gray@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I don't think it's a problem or a feature. It's exactly what we saw on Reddit before it grew. It's not like Reddit had a limit on the number of subreddits a topic could have. As far as I'm concerned it'll eventually sort itself out just like it did on Reddit. It'll just take time to establish which communities are the largest. Eventually people will stop posting/subscribing to the communities that don't have as many people, and the largest one(s) will win out, just like they did on Reddit. This is an issue that requires patience. In the meantime, subscribe to them all and post to the one that has the most subscribers just like you would on Reddit if there wasn't a clear central community.

[-] Balthazar@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 years ago

The reason you want a 100 communities over one is what is happening over on Reddit. Make one big thing, and greed will take over. Make many smaller ones? Is significantly less likely to happen.

[-] foggenbooty@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

The communities are also significantly less likely to grow. It's a double edged sword.

I think both sides have a point here, there are clear positives to federation and clear negatives. I hope a lot of the negatives can be overcome by streamlining the user interface and better apps.

[-] killerbees@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Tbh this isn't even unique to Lemmy. Even on reddit, creating a new subreddit is free. If you don't like the moderation or the general vibe of a subreddit, create a new one and build the community that you like. with the ethos that you see fit. That's how there's r/gaming, r/truegaming, r/games, r/pcgaming, r/gamernews, etc.

Reddit also only allowed comments in 2008, and Digg v4 was released in 2010. Therefore much of the reddit "canon" was developed after the Digg migration (e.g. today you tomorrow me, cumbox, forthewolfx, swamps of Dagobah, discoball, jolly ranchers, double dick dude, taco show, broken arms). Digg didn't have custom communities. Reddit did. And now Lemmy has custom communities in infinite instances. If there's going to be a Quit Reddit Day (maybe July 1st?) like Quit Digg Day, we're in the forefront of shaping Lemmy.