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.

  • @[email protected]English
    1•7 months ago

    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]English
      2•7 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

    • threelonmusketeersOPMEnglish
      1•7 months ago

      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.