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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] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I don't think this is an issue tbh.

The full name of a community includes the instance is running on. For this community here the instance is [email protected] . If you are referring to community you should include the instance to avoid confusion.

To the issue of duplicate communities: That issue existed on reddit too. Communities with slight variations in the name always existed. Sometimes the owners of some variation of the community just decided to forward their users to a "main community". Sometimes multiple communities coexist. I believe that in most cases a certain "main community" will establish itself as the one that the majority just accepts as the "real deal" because it has the most activity and the best moderation policies.

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

A lot of duplicate communities arose organically though, to fulfill a new niche. Sometimes it was stuff like actual lesbians finding that /r/lesbians was a porn sub, so they made /r/actuallesbians.

I can't think of any examples right now, but there are also definitely cases I've seen there the offshoot variations arose organically, diverging from the main community.

I'm not disagreeing with you, just wanted to highlight that many of the variations on Reddit weren't the same, but smaller, but subtly different and thus catering to different communities (which may have overlap with the original). I worry that this kind of "speciation" won't happen if the fragmentation remains too great.

A key aspect is that you could generally tell the difference between the offshoot subs by the name, which is harder with this instance model. For example, I don't know what the deal is with /r/AITAH, but it's fairly clear that it's an offshoot from the main Am I The Asshole (AITA), so I can assume there was some beef. There's also cases where a mass exodus from a sub is justified and the "primary" sub (most active users) is not the "original" sub. It's just harder to tell these things from the name on Lemmy

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

I think you've got it. It's only a problem that exists when communities are first starting. The best version will win out eventually, or a balance will emerge. Sometimes one will end up as a meme- or image-heavy forum, while the other one becomes primarily discussion focused.