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Is there a way to create Super Communities? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've noticed in the explosion that we are getting duplicate communities in multiple instances. This is ultimately gonna hinder community growth as eventually communities like 'cats' will exist in hundreds of places all with their own micro groups, and some users will end up subscribing to duplicates in their list.

A: could we figure out a system to let our communities know about the duplicates as a sticky so that users can better find each other?

B: I think this is the best solution, could a 'super community' method be developed under which communities can join or be parented to under that umbrella and allow us to subscribe to the super community under which the smaller ones nest as subs? This would allow the communities to stay somewhat fractured across multiple instances which can in turn protect a community from going dark if a server dies, while still keeping the broader audience together withing a syndicated feed?

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

While I am on board with the idea, I don’t think it should be a programmatic solution at the community level. Rather, either the third party app or the server (let’s say Beehaw for an example) should allow for the option to create collections based on community identifiers. It would be more of a display function.

The reason I think this needs to be done at the user level is because everyone has their own organization models. At one point, I had all my subreddits aggregated by Library of Congress Categories (since may home library is organized that way). Some people may want to put c/Beatles in a Music category, while others may want Bands or even others by genre.

What would be nice is if the communities had tags to identify their subject matter. For instance, c/Beatles could be #britishinvasion #music #beatles #band #60srock etc. That way people could look by tag and aggregate that way (plus it would make it easier to find c/GeorgeHarrison c/PaulMcCartney c/JohnLennon c/RingoStarr ;-) )

The way I would see this play out is that the user would have to option to create a “Super Community” and give it a name. Then there would be a search by name, tag, subject etc. and the results would have a toggle that would add, or subscribe and add, that community to the super community.

A solution like this would preserve the sovereignty and integrity of each of the servers. All the servers are offering are possible some more discrete identifiers (should they choose) to make themselves more findable. The control is placed on the user to organize and curate their selections.

I don’t mind responding to different communities with similar subjects. I did it all the time on Reddit. But it would be nice to, say, focus on my “Apple” super community or my “Worldbuilding” super community. When you have eclectic interests that span a vast array of topics, being able to aggregate “like topics” is a boon.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

I agree with this post 100%. Super Communities need to be able to be shared too - I’m sure there are some folk who will just want a quick start and would love to just subscribe to a premade “top 10 /c/technology communities” or something. And then it could be expanded later etc.

Honestly the multi Reddit model works really well. When I see a multi that I like, I can clone it and change it how I need. It basically acts like a fork.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yes, this. It allows decentralization to still exist protecting users from future reddit overlords, while still allowing each user to customize their experience by aggregating what matters to them personally. It also makes it super easy to remove one specific instance of a Beatles "sub" when it gets too raunchy, racy or just not what you personally want to see anymore.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It needs to work both ways to have real utility for advanced user topics. Having a distributed community limits the chances of accessing useful specialization for fringe topics. This is the main reason I started using reddit.

Like I start asking questions on reddit about optimising the Linux CPU scheduler and most people haven't got a clue what I'm talking about. Within 12 hours I get a post with someone's 59 page thesis covering the exact subject in more detail than I would ever find on my own. The more divided the group is, the less likely one is to encounter specialization, and therefore the less utility of the platform. Bridging users can't fill the information gap.