We have received numerous reports from users about the closure of the c/android community. While we fully support the original community owners’ decision to move to another instance, it will eventually be necessary to open up the community on Lemmy.world. The beauty of the fediverse is that multiple communities on the same subject can exist in different instances. However, if you can no longer moderate a community on Lemmy for any reason, it is important to pass it on to individuals who are willing and able to do so.
To ensure the best interests of our instance members, it is necessary to establish boundaries. Holding onto a community name cannot be a permanent arrangement. It’s important to consider our users’ ongoing interest in the community if they wish it to continue. While we acknowledge the objective of consolidating communities, current community members ultimately decide whether they wish to join the new community at lemdro.id.
To ensure a smooth transition, we will keep the community locked for another week, providing ample time to inform the active user base about the move to the new instance at https://lemmy.world/c/[email protected].
I don’t see a problem with the example you presented. The three gaming-oriented communities you listed all have their own cultures that have essentially become tied with their branding, each with their own appeal. It would be more confusing to have three gaming communities all using the same name but with different approaches on how they manage their communities. At that point, you’ll have to create a guide on which instances would have the type of community that aligns more with your preferences.
I guess I’d say, without looking it up or visiting them, what is the difference between the Reddit communities gaming, games and truegaming?
If you have to look it up or visit them that’s fine, but if you have to look it up then there is no real harm in asking folks to do the same on Lemmy.
We don’t need a guide. Each has a sidebar, read it if you want. Each has content. Sub to the ones that look good, unsub from those that don’t.
The branding/naming convention alone would at least imply that there are differences in the communities (or there would be no reason why they were there in the first place). Each had their own philosophies on what type of gaming-related content they want to talk about. You don’t even have to read the sidebar of each sub to judge the type of community as the content association alone can be easily spotted even with a cursory look at /r/all.
But what happens when each gaming community in each Lemmy instance is largely similar, resulting to just the same type of content discussed ad naseum? People would just eventually converge on where the majority goes. The only reason why I would personally subscribe to similarly-named communities is if each community has a unique take that I both find to my taste.
I think having a guide or map to help navigate the different versions of each community is probably the most essential part to do this successfully. Now that I think of it, it might have even been one of the main causes of frustration at Reddit. It would have contributed to mod vs user tension when a user joined the wrong version of a community, like if they wanted to joke around more in a community that wanted serious discussion or vice versa.
I think a place with such a guide, plus the ability to discuss/evaluate/review mod teams and instances themselves (admins and all) would be helpful for the fediverse. Especially if admins pay attention and act on the mod team reviews because ultimately, I think communities should be about the communities themselves and not the person who happened to first register that community.
Having distinct branding through the community name would also help. Otherwise, you’d have to create a guide where the instance would be the main branding indicator for the type of community:
Ex.
Note that the actual instances can’t even be relied upon to be a good indicator on what type of community is hosted there.
Most of the time I see it as the user’s fault. People like to think of mods as mere janitors. But they’re also ultimately the one with power to steer the conversation to maintain the culture they want to foster (see the excellent /r/AskHistorians who are often vilified by the people who don’t follow their standards). Otherwise you’d have have multiple communities that are essentially just the same thing.
I’m not sure if I’m in complete agreement. I for one don’t like how a community can be owned by just one person. But I also don’t believe the community itself can be trusted to uphold a culture as the subscribers grow and change over the years. An admin can’t always be in the know to make the right decision for the community and may even make it worse.