I’m a fairly new users, but I feel that navigating around the fediverse is a bit cumbersome, maybe the wrong word for it. But there is a lack of overview in a way. I enjoy being on this server, but I also like to follow other communities. Lots of different topics, everything from cars to Linux to architecture.
Right now there are 10 (that I could find on browse.feddit.de) instances named Linux on different server. So the small number of Linux users using some fediverse instance is spread around over many servers. Coming from reddit, things were far from perfect over there, but there is only r/Linux. It’s a shame users are spread so thin all over the place.
I used Linux as an example, I’ve seen the same “problem” for other topics as well. Anyways, just my perspective as a new users. Hope this wasn’t too much of a rant, maybe we can look at this as an issue where the fediverse can improve.
Easy solution to this would be introducing a feature similar to multireddit where you can group smaller communities together as one. It could be on a global basis where everyone gets the same communities or on a local basis where users can add or remove communities as they see fit. I really don’t think it’s ultimately going to be as much of an issue as Reddit users think. The alternative is doing it the way Reddit does and then you just have…Reddit again. I keep seeing people who left Reddit because they don’t like the way things are being done complaining because Lemmy doesn’t do things the way Reddit does. That’s bizarre to me. You don’t solve the problem of a few people holding all the power over a platform by moving to a new platform but keeping the same architecture that caused the problem in the first place.
Yes, I don’t wont it exactly like reddit. We are over 12k people here on this server so there are plenty of people so talk to to have a general discussion. The small issue is the more niche a hobbie/community is there more of a problem it. Instead of 100 Linux users on one server there is 10 people on 10 servers (just imaginary numbers to get my point across).
The point is to connect with people with similar interests. If one “sub” does go bad, we can just make a new one on a different instance.
I do agree that no one wants power-hungry mods ruining a sub.
If all the linux users subscribe to all the Linux communities it won’t be a problem, right?
Yes this is true. I guess there’s also nothing in the way to subscribe to all 10. Except for a bloated personal subscription list.
It’s worth remembering that this is a bit of a goldrush scenario on creating new communities. I strongly suspect communities will to start to consolidate over time.
Hopefully that doesn’t happen.
For some topics, there are already existing, very active, communities before the subreddits with the same topic migrated over. Who should merge with whom? The existing large communities with subreddit migrators? Or, the subreddit migrators merging with th existing large communities … and conforming to the rules and culture in those existing large communities?
As mentioned, there are different cultures and rules that develops per community. There is no such thing as one-size-fits-all.
Even if communities “consolidate over time”, it will still split up no matter what. That’s how it has always been sincee the beginning of online communities.
IF communities indeed consolidate over time, if that server/instance goes down, the entire consolidated communities will be gone overnight, and all the content they collected together. We’ve already seen this happen just this year, forget about the previous years.
In short, don’t expect it. In fact, it should be supported to ensure that:
a. we don’t return to a centralise system
b. we don’t put all our eggs in one basket
c. we build redundancy, continuation, and resiliency.
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In my experience I find niche community are very well “centralized”, like there is only one gnome community.
However larger community are speard between servers like tech etc. That really is not a problem for me, as any of these larger community can give me the news I need. Also sub to all 3 of them is not a big deal either.
Like everyone on reddit sub to at least 3 art communities, 5 dank meme communities, and 10 music communities.