this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2023
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sh.itjust.works Main Community

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Advice on Creating a Community (self.main)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Barbarian to c/main
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Imma preface this by saying that I'm not an admin or mod here, these are just my thoughts & advice on the matter.

You've noticed that a community doesn't exist on Lemmy. I'm going to assume you've checked the community browser, and seen that that specific community doesn't exist. So, you've gone to communities, typed in the name, and are about to hit create.

Well, hold up a second. There's an INSANE amount of community spam going on in lemmy.ml, and it looks like it's starting here to a much lesser degree.

Some questions you should ask:

  1. Are you creating this community just to create it? By that I mean, are you willing to put in the work as the moderator if it does take off?

  2. Is it a niche community of a larger subset that has a thriving community or a completely new category?

  3. Are you willing to regularly post stuff to start seeding comments & advertise it in the relevant places?

If the answer to any of these is no, get your cursor off that create button and go join the bigger communities. It just makes it harder to find communities that aren't 100% dead when half of them are dead-ends created just because 'they exist on Reddit'. Once there are enough people are visiting [email protected], they spill over into [email protected] if they want more focused TTRPG stuff. Once there are enough people on [email protected], they'll spill over to my Shadowrun group. Lots of communities are fractal in nature, and people are skipping a few steps. The userbase needs time to grow and mature.

Please think before you make a community.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Very insightful post

[–] Furball 6 points 1 year ago

Absolutely, we should only be making communities that we actually want to browse and post in.

[–] manifex 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree. I limited myself to creating one community. I'll stick to it and see if it grows.

[–] Barbarian 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Your one definitely ticks all the boxes :)

  1. You're actively moderating
  2. Techy stuff is really big on Lemmy already, I guess mainly because first movers to an open source platform under heavy development is a techy thing to do. Networking is absolutely a great niche within that category
  3. You're actively posting there and trying to build it
[–] manifex 5 points 1 year ago

Awww, thanks. I ran r/Trackballs and r/PDXKBC... The keyboard club happened away from keyboard prior to creating it... I inherited Trackballs from the one and only Ripster55. I believe he has since passed away. I've already passed PDXKBC on and will do so with Trackballs today.

[–] imaqtpie 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Really smart post. I was just about to create an Always Sunny in Philadelphia community but I'm gonna wait.

I'm assuming that the server admin (AKA theDude) can also delete dead/spam communities if it becomes necessary. Might make sense to nip our nfl community in the bud and direct people to [email protected]

[–] Barbarian 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

For something like that, I'd heavily recommend posting all your ASiP memes and shenanigans over in [email protected]. Whenever that community gets too noisy (not gonna happen in a while), you can split it off to your own community.

For the NFL stuff, it's actually ok to have a duplicate I think, but the moderator's gotta be actively cross-posting to the other one for visibility

[–] manifex 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What's your opinion of lemmy.ml and beehaw? I saw some beehaw admins pissing and moaning about costs with the new uptick of users and a bunch of gatekeeping behavior.

[–] Barbarian 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My experience with beehaw has been overall positive. They have a core vision of what they want out of their community. "Gatekeeping" is maybe a strong word, but they don't accept people unless they fit the general vibe of what they want to build. What they want to build is a little too specific and narrow for my tastes, but more power to them for trying. The users themselves tend to be positive and great conversationalists (not surprising considering the essay they have to write to get in :P )

lemmy.ml is really suffering though. They are massively overloaded with people who see developer-run and think "Main instance, this is where I should join". There's no unifying identity, or even much moderation. The devs are far too busy building software to do more than very basic moderation. Consequently, it's the inmates running the asylum.

This place feels like a nice balance between the extremes so far: it's a relatively techy place which suits me fine, but isn't overly strict. I don't know how it will develop in the future, but the little community-building done so far has felt more like suggestions and helping eachother out than the madness of lemmy.ml or the strict rules of beehaw.org

[–] manifex 6 points 1 year ago

Wow, great insight. I'm really happy to have joined sh.itjust.works... Seems like a well resourced and neutral place with a great balance so far. There's a bit of community creep, but the good ones will 'bubble up.' Thank you!

[–] imaqtpie 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

To be frank, I think we need many more neutral default instances, because both lemmy.ml and beehaw strike me as insular communities with strong opinions about certain topics. They have been here significantly longer than me, and I think the relative obscurity of the platform was something they valued to some degree. I think they are nice enough people, but they do not seem prepared or willing to absorb a massive reddit influx of people from all different walks of life.

[–] manifex 2 points 1 year ago

Thank you for your response!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Your opinion makes sense. Fortunately instances such as this one, Lemmy.one and Lemmy.world seem less opiniated

[–] AioftheStorm 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I created the https://sh.itjust.works/c/vtubers community just now.

  1. Are you creating this community just to create it? By that I mean, are you willing to put in the work as the moderator if it does take off?
  • I've already started the welcome post and created some basic, common-sense rules. I've never moderated a HUGE community before, but I imagine my skill will grow with the community. If nothing else, I know where to look for help if I need it!
  1. Is it a niche community of a larger subset that has a thriving community or a completely new category?
  • I couldn't find any communities related to streaming that already existed. While vtubing is a niche of the greater livestreaming phenomenon, it's growing in popularity on its own, and my expertise is within vtubing rather than general livestreaming.
  1. Are you willing to regularly post stuff to start seeding comments & advertise it in the relevant places?
  • Whether or not it takes off, I'm planning to post regularly. I'm hoping that it will grow organically rather than by brute force advertisement.

No matter what happens, I think it'll be fun. I'm not in this for power or for building THE BIGGEST community, I'm looking for a new place to spend my free time now that reddit is imploding. If things go sideways, the delete button exists.

[–] Barbarian 4 points 1 year ago

Awesome man, sounds great. I hope you get some subscribers and contributors :) And yeah, by "are you willing to post stuff" I didn't mean become a spammer. People (understandably) aren't going to be interested in posting the first post on someone else's community. There doesn't need to be pages of stuff, but at least SOMETHING.

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

I created a magazine, I think it was yesterday or the day before (you can see it in my profile, I think). So, here are my answers to those questions.

1. Are you creating this community just to create it? By that I mean, are you willing to put in the work as the moderator if it does take off?

I doubt it'll ever take off, because few people benefit from the theme my community is about. Even on Reddit it has fewer users compared to the big one called ADHD, and the posts created are like 5 or 6 everyday.

2. Is it a niche community of a larger subset that has a thriving community, or a completely new category?

It's a niche community of a larger subset that can potentially have a thriving community, as it's ADHD. My community is related to ADHD.

3. Are you willing to regularly post stuff to start seeding comments & advertise it in the relevant places?

My community doesn't rely on links or videos because the few useful links on the Internet are a bit old, usually from research documents and studies. Same thing with videos about their age and scarcity. The only thing my community could rely is text posts to give/ask for support, motivation, advice, vent...

[–] 0x4E4F 3 points 1 year ago

I just thought people will help out eventually... if they don't, fuck it, I'll just delete the community, no point in keeping it alive.

[–] sanpedropeddler 3 points 1 year ago

Thanks for posting this. I was considering creating a community but all of my ideas are likely too niche and would not do well.

[–] ZephyrsAir 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good points. I created a battlemaps community for TTRPG maps because I like the one on reddit to find stuff, in case anyone is interested: https://sh.itjust.works/c/battlemaps

[–] Barbarian 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Hell yeah! As a GM and TTRPG enthusiast, I'm totally in. I'm especially looking for scifi-ish Foundry-compatible maps.

I'll contribute some stuff I've found when I have time

[–] ZephyrsAir 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Question for you - I make maps, but I dont currently use foundry. What is involved in making my maps foundry compatible?

[–] Barbarian 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

At a basic level, nothing. A simple PNG, JPEG or similar is enough to get a simple map going.

However, with foundry you can do a lot more than that. You can define walls and lighting sources for fog of war and limited visibility.

I've not seen a map that implements this yet, but you can get even crazier with sound sources and radiuses. So if your character token is close to the pond you hear the water. If not, then not.

Easiest way to do this is to get foundry running yourself, build out all the details you want, and then export the maps into a module.

I'm currently at a wedding, will look for the documentation when I can :)

[–] ZephyrsAir 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No worries, enjoy the wedding! I'd love to make all my maps foundry modules then, I just can't justify buying it for that when I don't actually use foundry myself. Maybe if my patreon ever takes off. My current group mostly plays in person but for the few online sessions we do I just use roll20, since they all have computers that I don't think would run foundry very well, and some just use tablets. Foundry is definitely my favorite VTT I've used as a player though

[–] Barbarian 1 points 1 year ago

Foundry is server-side technology, meaning only the GM (or a server) needs to use it, and then everyone else connects via browser just like roll20.

Try out the demo here if you wanna get a feel for how light/heavy it is

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Replying here so I can find this post again. I was super confused on how to find larger communities. I think this breaks it down pretty well. Thank you.

[–] 0x4E4F 2 points 1 year ago

I was just thinking someone could pitch in helping maintain the community... if not, hell with it, I'll just delete it, no point in keeping it alive.

[–] nanoUFO 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There is only two active gaming communities one of them is lemmy.ml and I don't care for it and beehaw's has no downvotes and too much discussion. Midwest social also isn't what I would want from a games community. I just want mostly gaming news, with some very general discussions that don't specifically talk about a single game.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Interesting. Probably a gap that someone can fill in the near future

[–] nanoUFO 1 points 1 year ago

Hah I didn't specify but I was trying to fill it, but we will see how it progresses. Maybe one of the big ones will turn more news oriented over time.

[–] PCChipsM922U 1 points 1 year ago