I think until there’s some tool or system that helps collate all the information out here, fragmentation is detrimental to growth.
If the same story is posted in multiple communities, I’m only posting the first one I come across. Sometimes that becomes the next big discussion and other times it’s lost and another community takes over.
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.
In my mind, the fix is that all posts to the same link should just collect the discussion all in one place, regardless of which community spawned it.
There may be a ton of good reasons that isn’t happening, but until there’s some sort of fix, centralization ensures you find a discussion and can contribute meaningfully.
I agree with the fact that a story of post should only exist once, as you said. I guess the remaining question is what to do where there are two communities for the same topic.
I have a good example that I just stumbled upon: !map_enthusiasts is the most active community about maps, has usually one post per day every day for the last few months. Once in a while, someone posts on !mapporn, and they instantly get a lot more comments than the first community.
!games is also quite active, despite not being on LW.
Should we just give up with federation, and just aggregate all communities on LW?
I would prefer we didn’t give up on federation, but until the tools are in place to mechanically support it, I don’t see it as strictly beneficial.
A post a day in a community is a bot, more often than not, and trying to create discussion on bot posts often just falls on deaf ears.
I don’t see a reason to push for fragmentation at this time, but rather organically support active communities wherever they’re found.
I’d love for there to be a mechanical solution to fragmentation, so you don’t see so many duplicate posts in your feed and all those individual discussions are instead in one place.
organically support active communities wherever they’re found.
Makes sense
so you don’t see so many duplicate posts in your feed and all those individual discussions are instead in one place.
I guess at some points moderators of communities around a same topic will have to agree on where to host the community. The split between !android and !android still doesn't make sense to me today.
Sorry I didn’t mean to imply your specific example was a bot, rather my experience when I find a community with high post rates and low engagements it tends to be a bot.
Should we just give up with federation, and just aggregate all communities on LW?
Might it not be more beneficial for related communities to, in the way of the old web, highlight each other in pinned/featured posts and sidebars? The idea being that there's still some benefit to different moderation styles and community cultures/vibes.
Maybe also encouraging community moderators to communicate with each other more to figure out how they want their communities to be, how they might want to differ to create more distinct identities?
Might it not be more beneficial for related communities to, in the way of the old web, highlight each other in pinned/featured posts and sidebars?
I think this is an excellent idea, and I have tried to do this with subs like !spaceflight. It would be great if this became standard practice, or a sort of reciprocal courtesy between communities.
Should we just give up with federation, and just aggregate all communities on LW?
No. Half the point of federation is that not only communities (instances) can carry their own content but also their own culture. Posting or commenting about a soccer personality in, say, !spain is vastly different from doing it in, say, !soccerdrugs, even if the originating link to the discussion is the same.
I know, but this question is asked in the specific context where posters are mostly alone on a community for several weeks / months, where the LW equivalent has much more potential.
I am usually trying to encourage people to host communities on other instances (recently moved !casualconversation to !casualconversation, but sometimes it feels like fighting against the current.
I like this because people showing up to those communities might think that topic doesn't have activity on Lemmy, when it actually does. Assuming the moderators are still active, the abandoned community can stay open to new posts (in case there are issues with the active counterpart).
I personally subscribe to both, so that I can get all the posts, but I post to the community I consider the 'main' community
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.
For others alongside OP:
Have people tried outreach from both other fediverse stuff (e.g. Mastodon) and non-fediverse stuff?
Given Lemmy doesn't interface super well with microblogging (yet), it seems like it may help a little to mention there's options for independent/federated forum/group discussions via Lemmy/K~Mbin/Piefed, etc. apart from a.gup.pe or Friendica.
I know I have (and still do from time to time), but most of the people don't really bother when they look at the numbers in communities. 50k as the whole of Lemmy is nice, but not enough to invite people to add Lemmy communities to their posts.
Also, microblogging and link aggregators populations don't mesh well from my experience, there is a reason why they are on one type of platform and not the other
I think there's a pressure to come up with good and thought provoking questions to end our posts with, but in many cases, I don't think this is necessary.
Don't set the bar high. Especially if you're doing something niche. If we want people to interact, give them something simple, since they may not know much about your topic. Many of my subs say they don't feel they have anything to add since they don't have the knowledge of the topic I do. Not that I'm an experts, I'm just a few months of personal research ahead of them.
I can tell them more in one post than they know about the whole topic and that can be intimidating. My regulars will interact with that stuff, and some new people may be impressed, but the simple ones where it's just a neat pic and I say "hey, what do you like about this?" or "you prefer the one on the right or left?" are typically more popular because anyone can say something, and that first comment is the critical one because it gets other people to comment as the ice has been broken.
Also, not sure if it helps, but I'll often add my question as a comment so it will look like someone already engaged while they're scrolling and hopefully be more inclined to click through and maybe comment.
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