this post was submitted on 22 May 2024
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Potential benefits of consolidating communities? (Harry Potter example) (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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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:

There are also some other miscellaneous HP related communities:

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 @[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://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?"

  • [email protected] 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.
  • [email protected] seems appropriate, given that Harry Potter is, well, a book. Large sub on a small instance.
  • [email protected] is a small sub on a large instance.
  • [email protected] is very small, but European. (Might feddit.uk be an option?)
  • [email protected] 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.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

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.

I'm not intrinsically adverse to multiple communities on the same topic because they can approach a subject from different angles and eventually we'll have sub-communities (either as a core feature or in the apps). However, they do have to be active and none of the HP ones are. That is the key issue here. An active community tends to draw in more posters as people know which one to post in and they gain momentum. If none are active then no-one knows which to post in.

Looking over the communities (and bearing in mind that federation issues might mean I am not seeing all activity), it seems that no Mod has been active in the last month and some have been MIA for a long time.

So I'd suggest the solution is to get some active Mods in place. It would make sense to focus on the l.w and literature.cafe ones for now.

This might require a but of a change in thinking about communities and Mods - quite a few people seem them as the territory of the Mods and are hands-off (I tend to leave content decisions to Mods) but that can lead to them not being replaced when they have been gone so long it's clear they aren't coming back. My take is that the instance isn't "mine" I am help to run it for the members and that extends to Mods - they are caretakers of the communities not their overlords (the kind of thinking that can lead to abuse). After all, if Lemmy is a success, they could easily outlive the Mods and Admins. So, because of inactivity, we've replaced Mod teams on communities like [email protected] and [email protected] and that has given them a new lease of life.

So sort the Modding out, get the communities active again and they'll develop their own gravity as people will know where to post. You don't really need to shut down the smaller communities (although the Admins of those instances could look into it) they'll just stay parked and inactive.

I suspect that many of these were created during the 2023 Rexxit

Yes, it's something I've seen while going through the feddit.uk communities - there seems to have been a wave of enthusiasm with people starting communities and then posting once or twice (if at all) and then going inactive 8-10 months ago. I suspect there will need to be

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This is a good idea I theory so that these small communities gain more activity by being merged into a larger one. But the question is how to actually do it in practice. Many of these small communities are essentially abandoned, with mods that havent posted in months (or never posted at all). The only option is then to have admins of each community instance help with the migration.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Yeah, if we do this, we'll probably have to contact the admins, as I haven't heard from most of the moderators. In some cases (like diagonlemmy.social), the admin seems to be AWOL as well...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

Ah yes let's blow up the very foundations of what makes a decentralised network good and give you all the moderation power over anyone remotely interested in a topic. ✨What could go wrong?✨

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

[email protected] is very small, but European. (Might feddit.uk be an option?)

As we can't move or merge communities, I don't think starting another HP community somewhere like feddit.uk will help.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, good point. Creating another sub could exacerbate the problem.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Worth keeping in mind for the future though when you might be able to move or consolidate communities.

The most important thing though is getting some active Mods involved. The most active communities will then be able to thrive and they others can be quietly forgotten about.

[–] stoy 4 points 6 months ago

This seems to be a question for the Lemmy devs and instance admins rather than community mods.

I could absolutely see a case for federated communities spanning multiple instances.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Consolidation would defeat the purpose of decentralized fediverse instances. Instead, I would like to see a method for allowing the automation of cross posting between related communities on different instances. There would not be dependency on a single instance; each mod would retain control of their community; and the segmented communities can connect with one another with ease.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

a method for allowing the automation of cross posting between related communities on different instances

Yeah, that would probably be the ideal solution, provided that comments are also automatically cross-posted as well. Perhaps @[email protected] can chime in on whether this feature would be feasible, and what the timeline might be to implement it? Until then, manual consolidation is something which could be done with the current version of Lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

That doesn't sound like a real solution because comments would still be spread between these different posts.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (4 children)

Yeah, that's why I stipulated "provided that comments are automatically cross-posted as well". Would it be feasible to federate comments between cross-posts within a "multi-community"? Or would that be a logistical nightmare?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Just wondering, if comments are cross posted across communities, why not merge them in the first place?

Seems more difficult to moderate, too (can all mods moderate all the comments? If not, there will be issues, if yes then that's the same as having one community)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Excellent points. Multi-communities seem like they might be more trouble than they are worth.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Missed that part. Then there will be lots of duplicate posts and comments, which increases server load and confuses users. Better to merge the communities in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Makes sense. Thanks for your perspective!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Paging moderators and/or admins (main subs):

Paging moderators and/or admins (niche subs):

Paging recent/active contributors:

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Hey,

Thanks for posting this!

There could definitely be some consolidation. I mod [email protected], the community hasn't been that active recently, mostly I think because the Lemmy demographic may have moved on from that universe.

The diagonlemmy seem to have gotten some traction with their memes, that's nice to see

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

mostly I think because the Lemmy demographic may have moved on from that universe.

Also I doubt JK Rowling is helping, especially in the Fediverse which leans left and LGBTQ+ friendly.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Definitely

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Regarding literature.cafe as an instance

https://literature.cafe/post/7623713

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yes, I'm well aware of this too.

I don't mind if the instance moves to Piefed or Sublinks in the future, the communities would still be accessible from Lemmy

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Oh I completely misread the earlier comment

mostly I think because the Lemmy demographic may have moved on from that universe.

I read it as "from that instance" being literature.cafe, rather than "universe" being the Harry Potter universe

My bad, and yes agreed

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

No worries!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Ah, I hadn't seen that post. Should we consider the instance as abandoned/fragile? Or just biding its time until Sublinks is ready? (not necessarily a bad thing, given that Sublinks should still federate)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Should we consider the instance as abandoned/fragile? Or just biding its time until Sublinks is ready?

Unless the Admin gets fed up in the meantime, I lean towards the second interpretation - they are tired of Lemmy, not the Fediverse.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Makes sense. I am somewhat concerned with their inactivity on Lemmy, but I suppose we shouldn't consider the instance abandoned just yet.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

I am somewhat concerned with their inactivity on Lemmy

Yeah, that's not good but there are three Admins for the instance so, even if they were sick of running it, the instance should carry on.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Thanks. Great issue to try to tackle, will give it thought myself!

Wish we had a consolidator tool that suggested multisubs for us to browse as perhaps the default / most obvious behavior for new users too.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I've gone on before on how the idea of "consolidating" can be a problem because it leads to centralization. We already have a problem with instances like lemmy.world being too centralizing and taking people off a community and tossing them into another one with a different culture, or even worse into one where they are defederated from their instance, is not going to solve the issue.

And I want to emphasize the point about culture. All those HP communities "might" be the same but they have every right to be different, and to conduct themselves differently, in various ways. [email protected] has one focus but [email protected] could have different focus or even be able to discuss subjects that literature.cafe can't because of jurisdiction. We could even have [email protected] (for example) and certainly that can't be clearly merged with either of the above.

So, IMO, any "solution" for the idea of consolidation has to allow instances and communities to exist as they are, and does not have to norm that content that can be posted to one community has to be valid for all communities. Else, we're returning to the Reddit and the Facebook that we left.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Hello,

We indeed have a problem with LW centralization (that's the topic of another post in this community), but we also have a problem of abandoned communities.

There is no issue if all of those three Harry Potter communities you mentioned were active, but that's clearly not the case.

Consolidating communities in one community gets more activity, which Lemmy needs especially on niche topics.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

This is just a call to centralize power. Authoritarian thought.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It is more about keeping a few communities alive rather than having dozens of ghost towns giving new joiners the impression that Lemmy is empty

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The post rate per unit time would be unchanged, and you can subscribe to as many channels as you want.

All this does is conglomerate who is in control.

I would say sharing the "partner" or "sibling" communities in the sidebar would be great.

I'd also say letting users make custom macro/multi communities, at the per user level is totally fine too, as that's just aggregating your feed.

But separate but equal instance moderation is a key feature of Lemmy, imo. The more the better.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

The post rate per unit time would be unchanged

Instead of having 1 post per month on 3 communities, you would have 3 posts on 1 community

you can subscribe to as many channels as you want.

New joiners just want to subscribe to one community per topic. New posters want to post to the one active community.

But separate but equal instance moderation is a key feature of Lemmy, imo. The more the better.

There is probably a balance to find between decentralization and activity. Having 50 users of one topic spread across 50 communities is maximum decentralization, but probably the worst for activity

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The post rate per unit time would be unchanged, and you can subscribe to as many channels as you want.

Not everyone does subscribe to every duplicate community on all instances though, and this affects the number of comments each post gets.

Unless some way to federate comments between multi-communities is implemented, having multiple communities on the same topic on different instances contributes to Lemmy seeming more dead than it is.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Skill issue