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 your own community!” (with or without blackjack and hookers)
However, this is 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: (click to expand)
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.
Credits to @Ashyr@sh.itjust.works, @otter@lemmy.ca, and @Blaze@lemmy.blahaj.zone
How consolidate communities?
While consolidating communities can counteract userbase fragmentation, it is not an easy process for users to do, and so I thought I’d write up and share this guide.
Taking inspiration from @popcar2@programming.dev’s excellent blogpost, let’s imagine a hypothetical scenario where the pancake userbase on Lemmy is heavily fragmented, could benefit from consolidation.
Step 1: Identify duplicates
Search lemmyverse.net/communities for ‘pancakes’, as well as common synonyms (hotcake, griddlecake, flapjack). In our hypothetical scenario, we get the following search results:
!pancakes@lemmya.net(active)!pancakes@lemmyb.net(inactive)!pancakes@lemmy.food(active)!flapjacks@lemmya.net(inactive)
Open each community on its home instance, note the frequency of posts, and check whether the moderators are active. From this, you will often get a hunch for what might be the best community to consolidate to, but you should still keep an open mind as you proceed to the next step.
Edit1: To avoid centralization on large instances, I typically prefer consolidating towards smaller instances, provided that they are well managed.
Step 2: Solicit input
Create a post on !fedigrow@lemm.ee. The post should contain the following:
- A brief reminder on the detriments of userbase fragmentation and the advantages of consolidation.
- The list of duplicate communities you’ve identified for a given topic.
- An invitation for discussion and, optionally, your recommendation of a community to consolidate to.
Example post here (electric vehicles).
Once you have posted, create a top-level comment for each community in which you reach out to the moderators, administrators, and contributors for their opinions.
Example comments: (click to expand)
Paging
!pancakes@lemmya.netactive moderator@buckwheat_forever@lemmya.netWould you be open to consolidating this community with one on another instance, perhaps
!pancakes@lemmy.food?Also paging active contributor
@maple_syrup_or_die@lemmy.cafor their thoughts.
!pancakes@b.netmoderator@spez_ruins_pancakes@lemmyb.netis inactive.Paging admin
@the_boss@lemmyb.net. Would you be open to consolidating this community with one on another instance, perhaps!pancakes@lemmy.food?
Paging
!pancakes@lemmy.foodmoderator@cast_iron_queen@lemmy.foodHow would you feel about a potential influx of posters and commenters from other instances? Would you be open to adding additional moderators, perhaps those who were active contributors or moderators in pancake communities on other instances?
These comments will hopefully spark discussion among the pancake enthusiasts on Lemmy.
Edit2: There will often be users advocating for consolidation to whichever community currently has the most subscribers/activity. When this community is on of the larger instances, feel free to gently remind people of the risks of centralization.
If any two communities agree to consolidate, you can move onto step 3.
Step 3: Consolidate communities
When a decision is reached between any two communities, one community can then be closed, and redirect users to the other. You should recommend that the moderator take the following actions:
Example comment: (click to expand)
Would you be able to do the following?
- Lock
!pancakes@b.netby checking “Only moderators can post to this community”- Create one final post on
!pancakes@b.netannouncing the consolidation to!pancakes@lemmy.food- Rename the community to “[Dormant] moved to
!pancakes@lemmy.food”
Changing the community display name is particularly helpful for users when they are searching for communities.
When to NOT consolidate communities?
If there exist two active communities on the same topic, and they have a different significant difference in geographical focus, political leanings, or moderation style, these communities should not be consolidated. This would be an example of the advantages of parallel communities in the Fediverse.
TL;DR:
- Find all the communities on a given topic (easy)
- Convince people that consolidation is a good idea (medium)
- Get people, many of whom may be reluctant to see a community on their home instance locked, to decide on a which community to switch to (challenging)
- Contact the moderators (or the admins, if the mods are inactive) of each of the
n-1communities and get them to lock each community, with appropriate links to the decided upon community (simple, but tedious)
It can be a bit of a pain-in-the-ass to do properly, and I’ve seen many more failures than successes, but given the potential benefit for the Fediverse as a whole, I thought I’d write up and share this guide. Feedback is welcome :)
It is only 1-5 posts per day. That would not overwhelm a larger community like a maker space that included CAD, CNC, machining, woodworking, laser cutting, metal casting, optics, electronics, PCB etching and assembly, repair, hacking, upcycling, Arduino, and SBC hardware. All of these overlap in interests to various degrees. If they were a composite, the community would likely feel much more active and engaging where the user is more motivated to share their little projects and interests more actively, especially when their interests overlap spaces where the interest is not specifically in one niche. Plus you get cross pollination of methods and ideas.
I’m interested in 3D printing and CAD, but not the other topics. While 5 posts per day wouldn’t overwhelm a maker space community, the other topics would certainly overwhelm my feed, if c/3D_printing were to consolidate with a general c/maker_space.
It all crosses in various levels of abstraction though. I use it all. That is the major Maker skill that underpins it all. You don’t have to like it all. At our tiny size on Lemmy, all of these categories might have a dozen or two posts tops per day. We need real community like this, not mods posting just to be posting. I want to see real people doing real projects. I want the depth that does not exist with typical content creators on a schedule. I want people that are comfortable posting about long projects that are works in progress or failures and challenges. I do not care about developing good little paid subscription consumers with a monolithic corporate exploitable hobby. 3d printing is just a tool in an enormous arsenal. It can open up a lot of possibilities, but most of those are totally unexplored by most people. I try to post when I do something novel, but I’m not monolithic in interests, and neither are you or anyone else here.
For example, I would love to have a place to start talking about methods of tracking a rocket with a small telescope, picking optics from surplus to match a tiny streaming camera, and trying to track west coast rocket launches from my house. Stage separation happens almost right over my house. I have no clue how to do something that complicated. I do however have a small Meade telescope with a motorized remote, and a separate ESP-32 based system that connects to an app that can control the thing. I’m in social isolation, very slow, pretty dumb, and I have no interaction with anyone that knows anything about computers or programming.
I think this is a rather common experience just at different depths of context and resolution. So much of the way we are doing micro niches here amounts to someone performing like a clown for an audience. I think it fills a need to some extent, but I need substance, and a lot more of it.
This is me talking, not as a mod. As a mod, I do not matter. I am but one person in the community. Right now I’m hacking around with a MSP430 microcontroller, GoodFET 42, Doom emacs, and No FORTH. I need to design and print an enclosure for a couple of boards, but without the greater context, that isn’t even something worth sharing in 3d printing as a hyper niche.
Have you considered posting about your project on !imadethis@lemm.ee ?
I have nothing to show like that in most cases. The last post on there is from 7 days ago. That is exactly the problem I have been talking about. We need consolidation. We are building branches in the air on a tree with no trunk.
A lot of other people are probably in the same situation as you: they have ideas for a project, but don’t want to share before they have “something to share”
Maybe if you create a post about your ideas with that project that could inspire other people to do the same? In a way, a makers community would still be a niche. !imadethis@lemm.ee is even more general
The response is poor to partial, and functional, or interactive posts in hyper niche communities. The issues I’m talking about are both organizational and cultural. It shapes expectations of users in complex ways. The reluctance is born from the experience of posting and getting no engagement. The most engagement here comes from performative posts. Intelligence and complexity are largely neglected. The intelligence and complexity are not about showing off some result. The real substance comes from the journey and growth born from a project. This journey and relating the experiential nuances have no home here. You cannot make a niche community that is tailored to such a thing. The only way to coax this kind of depth is from a collective culture of togetherness acceptance and sharing. People need to feel like they are part of a vibrant social tribe. Not some performing clown, or this week’s/month’s tribe of one posting in a dead hyper niche. The broadly classed community creates the needed momentum to feel like a person is a part of something; like their little victory or nugget of truth is with sharing. And where a couple of dozen people are checking in on their own posts and then cross pollinating to engage with others too. That kind of interchange builds motivation and momentum.
Is this what prevents you from posting about your project ideas on !imadethis@lemm.ee ?
I can make a meta post there about “planned or ongoing projects” and see how it goes
Maybe you can create a meta post on the 3d community and !woodworking@lemmy.ca ?
It would not go over well if I were to do such a thing on my own. I’m not broadly popular or liked by many. I need to be myself here in a less filtered and openly human messy kind of way, but in terms of the unspoken reputation driven hierarchy of a place like this, I have a low rank for performative popularity. The same is true with me in a business. I’m no people manager, but I am very good at telling you (like the owner) about meta data and business moves to make that no one else has brought up or considered. I’m not afraid to be wrong, but given all the variables I’m aware of, I’m often encompassing a larger scope than most; I enjoy the details. These ideas come peripheral to my genuine curiosity and not some sense of authority or arrogant superiority. I’m actually very insecure and nearly hyper aware of my limitations in understanding.
So when I say these things, like about consolidating communities, I am presenting the idea from the same meta role I naturally take up in real life. I do not want to lead or be popular, I want to be curious even if it is unpopular, violates norms, or some find it offensive. I don’t want to hurt anyone directly or indirectly. I simply will not fall in line with cultural norms that have obvious (to me) contradictions. I am a rogue.
I will follow through and take the necessary actions, but only if there is a broad consensus and a coalition of the most active users supporting the change, along with someone taking the position of leader that has the social clout for others to fall in line with the coalition.
Who are the most popular posters in the 3d printing community? Could you please ping them here so that we can get their feedback?
I mean all of Lemmy in general. I don’t own 3d printing and I do not support the idea of mod ownership of communities that users post within. If most of Lemmy users and mods are onboard with broad scope consolidated communities, I will play my part in that consolidation.
I believe you will find that most mods are narcissistic to various degrees. These will fiercely oppose consolidation and this will cause a massive divide that leads to major problems unless someone with the unspoken hierarchical rank is able to lead in such a way that can defeat the polarization. I am not that figure. Simply by stating bluntly that “consolidation is the path to progress” places me at the farthest polar opposition to all narcissists on this issue. Many of these narcissists are quite popular, far more than myself.
Like I say, I am just the janitor, a servant of the community, and that includes all of Lemmy. If a majority are onboard with consolidation and taking action, I will do what is needed.
I had a look and it seems like the mods on !3dprinting@lemmy.world aren’t the main posters on the community.
I might suggest your proposition there at some point. That way it won’t come from a mod
Yep, I lost count already of how many mods of small communities I contacted, asking them if they were willing to cooperate and work together on a topic-specific instance. They’d rather be talking to themselves on “their” community than working together with others to build something with a chance of success.