Fedigrow

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

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  2. No bigotry

founded 1 month ago
MODERATORS
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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 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](/c/pancakes@lemmya.net) (active)
  • [!pancakes@lemmyb.net](/c/pancakes@lemmyb.net) (inactive)
  • [!pancakes@lemmy.food](/c/pancakes@lemmy.food) (active)
  • [!flapjacks@lemmya.net](/c/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. To avoid centralization on large instances, it is typically recommended to consolidate 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:

  1. A brief reminder on the detriments of userbase fragmentation and the advantages of consolidation.
  2. The list of duplicate communities you've identified for a given topic.
  3. 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.net](/c/pancakes@lemmya.net) active moderator @buckwheat_forever@lemmya.net

Would you be open to consolidating this community with one on another instance, perhaps [!pancakes@lemmy.food](/c/pancakes@lemmy.food)?

Also paging active contributor @maple_syrup_or_die@lemmy.ca for their thoughts.


[!pancakes@b.net](/c/pancakes@b.net) moderator @spez_ruins_pancakes@lemmyb.net is inactive.

Paging admin @the_boss@lemmyb.net. Would you be open to consolidating this community with one on another instance, perhaps [!pancakes@lemmy.food](/c/pancakes@lemmy.food)?


Paging [!pancakes@lemmy.food](/c/pancakes@lemmy.food) moderator @cast_iron_queen@lemmy.food

How 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.

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?

  1. Lock [!pancakes@b.net](/c/pancakes@b.net) by checking "Only moderators can post to this community"
  2. Create one final post on [!pancakes@b.net](/c/pancakes@b.net) announcing the consolidation to [!pancakes@lemmy.food](/c/pancakes@lemmy.food)
  3. Rename the community to "[Dormant] moved to [!pancakes@lemmy.food](/c/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 which community to switch to (challenging)
  • Contact the moderators (or the admins, if the mods are inactive) of each of the n-1 communities 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 :)

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Most instances have a community where users can request the moderator role for inactive or unmoderated communities.

As each instance names these slightly differently, I have created a thread to collect as many as possible.

Lemmy

Mbin

  • fedia.io
  • kbin.earth
  • kbin.melroy.org
  • moist.catsweat.com
  • feddit.xyz

PieFed

Please comment below with equivalent communities and I'll add them to the list.

Note: When requesting the moderator role for a community, it is best to do so from a local account (same instance as the community) rather than a remote account. Many people (myself included) have encountered federation issues with some moderation actions when using a remote account.

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When you want to share a image you found on PieFed, don't download and share the image, just share the PieFed link.
This way the people or person you're sharing it with might discover PieFed without you pushing it.

It also works great like this https://www.reddit.com/r/AskTheWorld/comments/1md2npo/what_is_the_best_power_outlet_and_why
(does not work with old.reddit )

This will also improve SEO, and PieFed etc. might start popping up on search engine results more, and people will start to see and trust the Fediverse more.

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Hey!

I would like to spread flyers and hang posters to promote fedi on my Uni campus around late August when the academic year starts in Sweden.

I searched for it, but I found so-and-so options. Does anybody have good recommendations?

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!iran@piefed.social (piefed.social)
submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by artiman@piefed.social to c/fedigrow@lemmy.zip
 
 

!iran@Piefed.social is a new community to discuss everything about iran since im a iranian and there is no active community for iranians on lemmy or piefed i have decided to make this

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I'm considering closing and redirecting !askmen@lemmy.ca and !askwomen@lemmy.ca. They haven't seen much activity in months/years. Usually, people just post in the ask/asklemmy communities and indicate which group of people they want answers from.

Here is a draft for the pinned post so far:

There currently isn't a one to one match for the topic of this community. If you want answers from a specific group (ex. men/women), you could instead start your question with a phrase like "A question for men:". Here are some alternative communities:

"Ask" communities (for starting a discussion):

For questions that are more specific to your situation:

Group specific communities:

Broader in topic (not necessarily questions):

If you would like to take over this community, please reach out to @admin@lemmy.ca

Do you have any thoughts? Are there other communities that should be included in the list?

!askbeehaw@beehaw.org but

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A community is a group of people gathering for some shared interest, the community is not relevant for people who do not share that interest.

The goal of a community is to create a space for people who share that interest to have a place to interact freely and openly. Shielding members of a community from external forces that would diminish or prevent free expression in that community is one of the major responsibilities of a community runner.

  1. A community means EXCLUDING people who don't share a interest.

This is just the same statement as 'A community is for people sharing a interest', but expressed differently. It is important to be explicit about this logical consequence, as it drives the responsibilities of a community maintainer.

Lemmy currently does not have a way for communities to be opt-in, all content is visible to everyone in ALL. Individuals needs to opt-out of a community by blocking it. This current model isn't ideal - the 1.0 road map does have the opt-in as a feature that is coming.

This does mean for niche communities they can get overwhelmed by incidental negativity by people browsing ALL who don't specifically intend to target the community.

In addition to normal moderation practices (being objective, hands off, ensuring conversations don't go into hostile territory, keeping this on topic), the niche moderators need to keep a eye on participation chilling events.

Example: If a new community member makes a post and gets met by lots of negativity they are unlikely to keep participating (the chilling effect).

What does this look like in practice?

  1. People who come to a community with hostile posts or comments are removed (normal moderation)
  2. People who spread negative votes on every post in a community are removed (normal moderation)
  3. People who only spread negativity when they see the community in the ALL feed are removed (niche moderation)
  4. Lurking accounts with no post or comment history who spread negativity are removed (niche moderation)
  5. Sockpuppet accounts who only vote in small bursts and don't demonstrate organic activity are removed (niche moderation)

FAQ:

Why have I been removed? I only down voted things I don't like

Unfortunately you don't like the niche community, but to protect the members of that community you have been removed from the community.

I dislike the niche community, and I don't think it should exist

Your welcome to voice your concerns across lemmy, but your negative view of the community by point 0 means your not a good fit for the community and your removal makes sense.

I was removed from the community even though I participated

This gets tricky. The guiding principle is what helps the community be a safe space for community members. Your participation with questions could be a net positive, but if you also downvote everything and everyone in the community while raising your concerns a judgement call will have to be made. The first duty is to keep the community cohesive for community members, if third parties want to participate it should be done with mutual respect.

I actually have things I want to say, and I'd like to be unbanned

Sure, just let the moderators know you have read the community rules, and your ready to participate without breaking the rules and being polite to your fellow community members.

It's unfair I can't vote on things I don't like in ALL

I actually agree with you, that sucks. Lemmy needs to mature and have opt-in for ALL, or opt-in for communities. Until then please feel free to express yourself in any of the other communities on lemmy, or make a post about the thing you don't like and vent about it!

Original Post Here - https://hackertalks.com/post/13655318

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There’s a new conservative community, so looks like some more conservatives are being represented on Lemmy: !conservative2@lemmy.today

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Hello everyone,

I raised the point recently already, but to make it short

I tried to reach out to the active poster, who posted to the lemmy.dbzer0 community in the past before switching back to programming.dev, and I guess they disagree with some of the stances of dbzer0 (probably the pro AI one)

Programming.dev has a few hiccups from time to time, but for a few months it has been stable

What do people think?

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Any other good ideas?

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Update !dundermifflin@piefed.jeena.net

Original post

Creating this post here as I've been banned from the other community (as well as the instance) https://dubvee.org/modlog?page=1&community=111105 , while I was the only mod there.

  • Lemmy.zip could be a good option
  • I don't have a very strong opinion, I haven't been very active with that community to be honest, I'm not sure how relevant it is as the show has ended for a while now, and most content seems to be reposts
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Hey all! Me and Lemmy superstar @Blaze@piefed.zip have revitalised !wholesome@reddthat.com We have a mix of wholesome comics, memes and chat topics. Drop in for some good old fashioned wholesome fun 😇

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Hope this relates enough to the growing of the threadiverse and is not too technical for this comm. After the closure of .ee I was wondering if there is/was some movement to be able to migrate whole communities off an instance including all its posts. Having a great resource of human made information is the main reason to be using lemmy but the possibility of it vanishing is scary.

To my understanding the posts that are hosted on the op's instance and not the one closing down can be migrated by the actor of the community "boosting" (or whatever the activity pub term is) the posts again. And for the posts hosted on the instance closing down they could have a process similar to mastodon migration, of course on their own decision.

Was this discussed elsewhere?

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Dog-piling is when someone expresses an opinion and people swarm in the comments telling the OC how wrong they are and how right they are. Typically the person getting dogpiled is downvoted into oblivion in the process. Note that I'm not talking about anything controversial in their opinion or the comment being trolling in any way; just any general disagreement with the groupthink.

Brief example:

User 1:  There are lots of factors at play here, not just money.  There's X, Y, Z, and those are all independent from money.
  |____> User 2: No, it's money.  It's always money
  |______>  User 4: Right?  How can anyone think it's anything *but* money?  Some people!
  |____> User 3: Yes, well, X, Y, and Z wouldn't be a problem if not for capitalism, so it's definitely money, and you're wrong.
  |____> User 5: It all boils down to money; always does.
  |____> User 6: Of course it's money.  Only a capitalist bootlicker would think otherwise.
  |____> User 7: Go back to Reddit, troll.
  |____> User 8: You're so close, but it's money.  
  ...
  |____> User 999: (Same as the last 998 comments; contributes nothing except attacking the opinion for being different)

None of that adds anything to the discussion; they're not engaging on the subject, just attacking the opinion because it differs.

That behavior does not seem healthy to me and seems like it's almost designed to discourage anyone from expressing any opinion that's not part of the established group think. Again, I am not talking about trolls here, just any kind of differing opinions.

Should that kind of behavior be discouraged? If so, as a mod, what would be the best way to address it? After the 2nd or 3rd dogpile comment, start removing subsequent ones that are just piling on?

It's definitely a people problem, so I'm curious what would be a gentle but firm way to deal with it.

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!goodnewseveryone@piefed.social:

  • 692 users / month
  • 878 subscribers
  • active mods

!positive_news@lemmy.ca:

  • 445 users / month
  • 196 subscribers
  • inactive mod

I would suggest to consolidate to the first one, open for discussion.

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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by jet@hackertalks.com to c/fedigrow@lemmy.zip
 
 

Content jacking and top posting other people's content is really bad for Lemmy. It's also just being a dick to other people making content on the platform.

  • feed is spammy
  • divides conversation
  • chills engagement
  • makes Lemmy less friendly to posters

This pattern is very common on lemmy, and needs to stop.

This is often used to attack or force migrate conversations from a instance someone doesn't like to another instance they do like. It's offensive by its very nature.

If you want to make a better community, great, do it but not at the expense of other Lemmy posters.

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Post mostly spawned because whenever I see games that fit various video game genre communities, I try to post it there, and when I hit a strategy game I end up crossposting to lots of different places.

There are two general strategy communities, and some for more specific subgenres. I think it'd be nice to fold the subgenres into a bigger community for now just due to the smaller size of Lemmy so all the strategy fans can talk and see each others' posts instead of sectioned-off isolated folks screaming into the void, but I'm also not a big strategy game buff and I'd rather the people who play them more have a bigger say, hence this post. Besides, if subgenre fans tend to stick to that subgenre and don't bother too much with other things in the overall strategy genre, there is probably a good reason to keep them separate.

We have the big !strategy@lemmy.world, allowing what seems to be anything in the strategy genre, with the last two pages of posts being mostly from @AgentKaryo@lemmy.world and a couple from me. Mod is still active on Lemmy at !sparky@lemmy.federate.cc. However, lemmy.world is the big giant and moving off there might be nice.

Next is !strategygames@sopuli.xyz. Seems to be a similar moderation philosophy. The last time the mod @profilename1@sopuli.xyz posted was 2 months ago. A lot less recent activity, though I think @zagorath@aussie.zone might be interested as well given how often I have seen them around the Fediverse. There are several other posters but from months ago. However, sopuli.xyz is smaller than lemmy.world and moving everyone there might be nice.

Now we get into more specific communities. !rts@reddthat.com, for Real-Time Strategy, a subgenre of strategy games. Mod, @reddthat@reddthat.com was active in the past month, and primary poster is @zagorath@aussie.zone, active in past few days which is great! Seems to be just them though and it would be nice for them to get visibility from other groups and other posters. Smaller instance, which is nice.

Finally, !realtimestrategy@lemmy.world, yet again presenting the problem of being on lemmy.world. Mod @frostwolf@lemmy.world not seen for 2 years. Variety of posters, not much activity here though.

!turnbasedstrategy@lemmy.world again presents the problem of being on lemmy.world. Primary poster @AgentKaryo@lemmy.world again, seems to be just them. Mod @SteelBeard@lemmy.world has not been seen for 2 years.

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