this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2024
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Fedigrow

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To discuss how to grow and manage communities / magazines on Lemmy, Mbin, Piefed and Sublinks

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Consolidation of electric vehicle communities on Lemmy? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 2 weeks ago by threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works to c/fedigrow@lemm.ee
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Why consolidate communities?

One of the advantages of a decentralized platform like Lemmy is the ability to create parallel communities on the same topic. "You don't like how a community is being moderated? Go to another instance and start a new community!" (with or without blackjack and hookers)

However, this is also a double-edged sword. The creation of multiple communities on the same (or similar) topics can also fragment the userbase, leading to very sparsely populated communities.

A few perspectives in favour of consolidation: (credits to @Ashyr@sh.itjust.works, @otter@lemmy.ca, and @Blaze@lemmy.blahaj.zone)

https://sh.itjust.works/comment/11171955

I think until there’s some tool or system that helps collate all the information out here, fragmentation is detrimental to growth.

I’m not going to copy and paste the same comment with every mirrored post.

So sometimes commenting feels like a waste of time.

Centralizing helps ensure that there’s vibrant, consistent discussion which is what Lemmy should be about.

https://lemmy.ca/comment/8823953

I like this because people showing up to those communities might think that topic doesn’t have activity on Lemmy, when it actually does.

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/8370860

I sometimes think that unmoderated communities should be closed, and just be left and locked with a pointer to the active one. In case an issue arises with the active one, they can still be unlocked and used as back up.

Consolidating electric vehicle communities

Applying these principles to the EV communities on Lemmy, let's take an overview of what currently exists:

General-purpose:

Location-specific:

Other:

Do all of these communities serve a distinct purpose? If not, could we consolidate some of them?

While Lemmy does not currently have a built-in way of moving or merging communities, @Blaze@lemmy.cafe has had some success with pinning an explanation post directing users to the new community and locking the old one. Is this something which could be applied to the EV communities on Lemmy?

The next question is, of course "Which communities should we consolidate to?"

Given the general sentiment to move off of ML (for ideological reasons) and off of World (to avoid centralization of instances), my proposal would be !electricvehicles@slrpnk.net. I think the SolarPunk instance is a nice match for an EV community, but I am interested to hear what others think.

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[–] Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

That's a ton of EV communities. Considering the threadiverse has a mere ~50K MAU, that's definitely going to be detrimental to growth.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Yeah, I think community fragmentation can stifle growth, especially if the different communities don't have any clear distinctions.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm in favor of your idea, both for the reasons you stated, and for an additional one.

Due to some instances defederating from each other, the choice of instance for a community becomes more important if its to become a one stop shop for everyone. As an example, Beehaw, which is quite an active community, cannot access any .world communities, making .world a poor choice just on grounds of overall reach alone.

!electricvehicles@slrpnk.net as the core community is a good choice, as it is only defederated from a small handful of extreme instances, so its reach should be pretty decent.

I have been considering moving mealtimevideos and documentaries away from .world for similar reasons, as it sucks that all of the content I post there isn't available to beehaw users.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago

!electricvehicles@slrpnk.net as the core community is a good choice, as it is only defederated from a small handful of extreme instances, so its reach should be pretty decent

This is a good point I had not addressed. Thanks for making it.

[–] Blaze 5 points 2 weeks ago

Great initiative, thank you for this

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 4 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Just join them all.

Do all of these communities serve a distinct purpose?

They serve the purpose of redundancy. Power-tripping moderators and administrators are less able to silence reasonable dissent when dissenters can just run to other instances. When various instances fail, the others pick up automatically.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Just join them all.

The stats show that the majority of users don't do that. And even if they did, it still wouldn't solve the problem that multiple communities on the same topic fragments the userbase, leading to very sparsely populated communities. When all the discussion occurs in a single community, the discussion is much more vibrant, instead of users shouting into a bunch of separate voids.

[–] Blaze 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

Having too many communities prevent potential posters from knowing where to post. They usually are not going to crosspost their content to a dozen different communities, and will just not post at all.

Power tripping mods can be reported on !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Having too many communities prevent potential posters from knowing where to post.

Post in any of them, or any combination of them.

When I find a good community, I tend to join the communities they recommend. I would suggest Sidebar links to related communities for others to join.

Power tripping mods can be reported

What is the purpose of such a report? Seems like pointless drama in a decentralized environment.

The internet interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it.

[–] otter@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Having one community helps a lot with growth; a few people posting to a few small communities vs. all of them posting to the same larger community.

Once a community has momentum (ex. world news, technology), this is less important and having multiple communities all open at once isn't a big deal.

In this case, I think all the people from those communities want to see more content and discussion. If any of the communities listed above want to stay open for whatever reason, I'm sure people here will respect that choice too.

What is the purpose of such a report?

I don't like the drama or fights in the comments, but I find that communities like that serve as a way to start discussion about moving. Same as on centralized platforms (reddit), if mods are power tripping or making poor decisions, posts like that help with an organized move to a new space. The same place can be used if an instance goes down, a mod disappears, etc. The advantage of the Fediverse is that it's really easy to move to new communities if/when there are problems with a community/instance.

(posting with my alt since there are some federation issues with this post right now)

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

posting with my alt since there are some federation issues with this post right now

As the post doesn't seem to have federated with lemmy.ca, how did you find out about it? Tag in comments? Direct message?

What is the likely source of the federation issue? My instance (SJW), your instance (ca), or the community instance (lemmee)?

[–] otter@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

It was your direct message actually! I also replied to the message from my lemmy.ca account, but maybe that didn't federate either?

We didn't find any explanation for the federation issue just yet, but if messages aren't going through consistently then it might be between our instances rather than lemm.ee

I'll copy my message and send it with this acocunt

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

I also replied to the message from my lemmy.ca account, but maybe that didn’t federate either?

Nope, that one federated just fine, and I've recently replied to it. If you receive it, that would suggest that federation (or at least direct messages) are working between SJW and ca.

[–] Blaze 3 points 2 weeks ago

Post in any of them, or any combination of them.

You only seem to have two posts, is there another account where you post more?

What is the purpose of such a report? Seems like pointless drama in a decentralized environment.

Calling out power tripping mods, which allows people to switch to communities with better mods

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago (11 children)

Paging moderators, admins, and prolific EV contributors for their input:

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago

!electricvehicles@lemm.ee

Moderator @littlejoe@lemm.ee is inactive. Former contributer @PanArab@lemm.ee is active. Paging admin @sunaurus@lemm.ee.

Could this be merged with another instance, perhaps !electricvehicles@slrpnk.net?

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago

!electric_vehicles@lemmy.ml

Moderator @hrjet@lemmy.ml made a single post and disappeared. Contributor @schizoidman@lemm.ee is active. Paging admin @nutomic@lemmy.ml.

!electricvehicles@lemmy.ml

Moderator @Archit@lemmy.ml moved to kbin (@TheArstaInventor@kbin.social), which has shut down. Maybe @TheArstaInventor@lemmy.world is the same person?

Could these be merged with another instance, perhaps !electricvehicles@slrpnk.net?

!evs_ireland@lemmy.ml

Moderator and contributor @FlanFlinger@lemmy.ml is inactive. Paging admin @nutomic@lemmy.ml.

Could this be merged with !evs@feddit.uk? Seems like this might be more appropriate instance.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

!electricvehicles@gearhead.town

Looks like an @rglullis@communick.news project. You do you. Any thoughts you'd like to add?

[–] rglullis@communick.news 3 points 2 weeks ago

It's well known that I'd rather have communities separated from users, so I'm biased to have all car-related communities on an instance like gearhead.town.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

!electricvehicles@slrpnk.net

Moderator and contributor @sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al is active.

How would you feel about a potential influx of posters and commenters from other instances?

[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 6 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

More is always better. I would love to see it officially become the go-to community for EV talk in the Fediverse

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

How would you feel about adding additional moderators, perhaps those who were active contributors or moderators in EV communities on other instances?

I feel like additional mods could be good for redundancy, but the decision would ultimately be up to you and the slrpnk admins.

[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 4 points 2 weeks ago

As long as they're active, they're welcome to join the moderation team. You've seen the community grow to become what it is. When I created the community it was with the goal to decentralise, so additional moderators were always going to be needed eventually.

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[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

!evs@feddit.uk

Moderator and contributor @i_am_not_a_robot@feddit.uk is active.

Would you welcome the types of posts which were on !evs_ireland@lemmy.ml?

[–] i_am_not_a_robot@feddit.uk 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yes, happy to expand it to Ireland. I'm not excluding general European content anyway, so it will fit nicely here.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

!electricvehicles@midwest.social

Moderator and contributor @KingStrafeIV@midwest.social is inactive. Paging admin @seahorse@midwest.social.

Could this be merged with a more active one (perhaps !electricvehicles@slrpnk.net), or is keeping the US focus important?

[–] seahorse@midwest.social 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It could be on another instance. I see no problem with that.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks for your quick response! I think the next steps would be as follows:

Is this something you would be comfortable doing? Let me know if I can assist in any way.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

!evs@lemmy.world

Moderator and contributor @Sunshine@lemmy.ca is active.

Could this be merged with another instance, perhaps !electricvehicles@slrpnk.net?

@MyOpinion@lemm.ee, you seem to be one of the most prolific contributors who is not also a mod. What are your thoughts?

[–] MyOpinion@lemm.ee 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I like supporting !evs@lemmy.world. If others want to start posting there that would be great. We seem to finally have about three consistent posters now there.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

Are there any specific reasons you prefer the world community over the slrpnk one? The general sentiment seems to be that moving communities off of the largest instances will strengthen the threadiverse overall.

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[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

!electricvehicles@reddthat.com

Moderator @TheArstaInventor@reddthat.com is inactive. Maybe @TheArstaInventor@lemmy.world is the same person? Former contributer @MrPhibb@reddthat is active. Paging admin @ticoombs@reddthat.com.

Could this be merged with another instance, perhaps !electricvehicles@slrpnk.net?

[–] ticoombs@reddthat.com 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Having a list of all alternatives in the sidebar of alternative places to find people is my recommendation. Thus if people wish to keep a backup community on Reddthat I'm sure to let them.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago

Not everyone reads the sidebar before posting.

How would you feel about locking (not deleting) the community until it is needed? The community would still exist as a backup, and could be reopened if the need arose.

This could be done in conjunction with a link in the sidebar or a pinned post.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

!electricvehicles@lemmy.world

Moderator and contributor @ang3c0@lemmy.world is inactive. Paging admin @kersploosh@lemmy.world.

Could this be merged with another instance, perhaps !electricvehicles@slrpnk.net?

[–] kersploosh@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I locked the community and pinned an explanatory post. Best of luck to the slrpnk community!

As an aside, these situations always make me a little nervous that I'm going to step on a user's toes. The mod account having no visible post/comment/vote activity does not confirm that they are truly gone from Lemmy. They may have become a lurker.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thanks for your assistance!

these situations always make me a little nervous that I’m going to step on a user’s toes.

Yeah, that is a risk. I think we've done what we can though. We each tagged them in our respective posts/comments, and haven't heard from them.

They may have become a lurker.

It's possible, but my hunch is that this is not the case. They were active only between 2023-06-14 and 2023-07-25, and there is a user with the same name in The Other Place who is active in EV subs. I suspect they may be one of the people who tried out Lemmy briefly after the APIcalypse, and found that it didn't suit them.

If they ever become active on Lemmy again, they should be welcome to reopen the community, or join the moderation team of !electricvehicles@slrpnk.net.

Would you consider editing the display name of the community to include '[Dormant community]'? It would make the status clearer in apps and other tools like lemmyverse.net.

[–] kersploosh@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Would you consider editing the display name of the community to include ‘[Dormant community]’?

Done.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

!evs@notdigg.com

Moderator @hardbriefs@notdigg.com is inactive. Paging admin @dan@notdigg.com.

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[–] rollinghills@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Looks !electricvehicles@slrpnk.net is 3rd place in subscriber count!

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Definitely encouraging! Although I think active users/week and users/month is a more meaningful metric than total subscribers. Many of the subscribers on the larger instances are remnants of the 2023 APIcalypse, and not active accounts.

[–] rollinghills@lemm.ee 3 points 1 week ago

True we're at 2.1k/6.3k. Thats 33.33% of the mau over 6 months.

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