Not sure if that counts but I decided to spend some time posting and encouraging people to participate in the very inactive Lemmy Journaling community.

Hey there!

I felt compelled to chime in and add that you may want to consider creating a new community that you're able to moderate rather than trying to revive an existing one that never made it out of infancy.

@downtide@sh.itjust.works is the sole mod of the community you linked and (from my account/instance anyway) doesn't appear to have been active for around a year. Maybe that isn't a problem now but if the community takes off I'm sure you'll wish you were able to deal with spam posts and trolls.

Have you considered creating a new community? Lemmy also has some weird stuff about how reports are sent that makes it more reliable to moderate communities from the same instance the community is hosted on, so there's a benefit to keeping it hosted where your Lemmy account is based. You may want to check if you can create communities on your home instance.

No matter what you decide to do you may also find it beneficial to announce you've started/revived a community at !newcommunities@lemmy.world since a lot of people seem to watch it. Good luck!

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Thx a lot for the insight! I had not thought about any of those points. My only idea was, a bit naively I am afraid, to not create a new community since there was one existing already. But everything you said is very true.

As a downside, creating a new community would imply even less members participating, a lot less, at least to begin with but it may still be preferable if it means being able to shunt any troll.

Here is what I will do: I will ask the question on the existing community, ask members what they think would be best. If I get no answer, well, I'll fell less... wasteful by creating a new community from scratch. I will also ask the admins on my instance if that would be OK to host it as we're mostly speaking French, but I think they should be OK to host an English speaking community, at least I can ask.

Whatever I decide to do, I will also ping !newcommunities@lemmy.world.

Thx a lot, again :)

[–] FrostyTrichs@walledgarden.xyz 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

If it makes you feel better about the original community being orphaned you can always leave a post there with a link to wherever the new home is if you make one. That way someone who used to subscribe will eventually find the new home, and new people who stumble in won't be disappointed the community they were excited for is dead.

Maybe you could even cross post your OC from the new community back to the old one for a bit so people have a chance to find the new one.

There are lots of ways to go about things, the hard part is finding and keeping the motivation!

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Those are good ideas, thx.

I don't know how cross posting works (really not an expert in any way, here), I will have to do some reading :p

There are lots of ways to go about things, the hard part is finding and keeping the motivation!

Indeed, and I must say that it never was my intention to create/moderate a community. I just wanted to revive it by regularly posting stuff in it. But I would also not want to help it get some activities going on without anyone able to keep trolls at large.

I have just posted the question in the Journaling community, will see how it goes... if it goes anywhere ;)

[–] FrostyTrichs@walledgarden.xyz 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I don't know how cross posting works (really not an expert in any way, here), I will have to do some reading :p

~~AFAIK the webui doesn't have a convenient way of doing this~~ but apps have a way of doing it within a couple clicks. I use Boost, I'm sure others offer similar functionality. Edited to add: you actually can cross post on the webui. Click the double-square logo after making the post and you'll get the UI for posting again, but with the details from the OP filled in already. All you have to do is select the community to crosspost to at the bottom.

Click this icon for cross posting

Indeed, and I must say that it never was my intention to create/moderate a community. I just wanted to revive it by regularly posting stuff in it. But I would also not want to help it get some activities going on without anyone able to keep trolls at large.

I understand. On reddit I was a lurker, on Lemmy I've become far more active in ways I never imagined. If we want the communities we enjoy to pop up and flourish somebody has to get things going. We don't have the luxury of a massive userbase or a corporate botnet like some other places, but we can make our space something special with a little effort and some communication.

EDIT: added more info and a pic about cross posting

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

AFAIK the webui doesn’t have a convenient way of doing this but apps have a way of doing it within a couple clicks. I use Boost, I’m sure others offer similar functionality.

I will check those. I am using both Linux and macOS, I never use my phone to write anything. Hopefully there will be such an app with Crossposting on one or the other.

I understand. On reddit I was a lurker, on Lemmy I’ve become far more active in ways I never imagined. If we want the communities we enjoy to pop up and flourish somebody has to get things going.

Something I am slowly realizing too. I commented quite a lot on reddit, like I have started doing on Lemmy, but starting a conversation? Well, I rarely think any of my questions/ideas are worth discussing and I normally don't bother. But I'm learning ;)

[–] FrostyTrichs@walledgarden.xyz 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I will check those. I am using both Linux and macOS, I never use my phone to write anything. Hopefully there will be such an app with Crossposting on one or the other.

There actually is a way, I updated my last reply as you were replying.

Something I am slowly realizing too. I commented quite a lot on reddit, like I have started doing on Lemmy, but starting a conversation? Well, I rarely think any of my questions/ideas are worth discussing and I normally don't bother. But I'm learning ;)

I think people have to get used to the idea of it being ok to make a space for themselves in the fediverse. I think a lot of people probably feel like they are using someone else's resources and don't want to cause trouble, ask a silly thing, be a burden, or maybe don't even understand that they're allowed to make communities. They only engage with what's already there but compared to reddit where so much was already going by the time a lot of people made it there, the fediverse can feel rather empty.

The sad truth is that many of these communities will take months of effort by a single or small group of individuals before more people will join in. It means you really need to be into the topic or the community will end up like the one you are trying to revive. Some people find that discouraging but it's time that can be used to fine tune the community and its content. With a little luck and a lot of effort you'll find more people interested in the same thing to keep things going when you're lacking in motivation or content.

It can be frustrating and arduous but when you start seeing the votes, posts, and comments come in it's all worth it.

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

There actually is a way, I updated my last reply as you were replying.

Thx so much! I will keep a note for that :)

I think people have to get used to the idea of it being ok to make a space for themselves in the fediverse.

That is indeed hard to realize.

As an average user (50+ year-old and not obsessed with computer stuff), I can tell you that one of the most intimidating things to me was/is the fragmented nature of said 'fediverse'. Between mastodon, lemmy, the video whose name I constantly forget and the other stuff going on... it's hard to keep track of what is what. It's even harder with the supposed portability/compatibility between various services (I have yet to understand how I am supposed to follow a discussion on lemmy using my mastodon account and vice-versa. Don't get me wrong, I'm fine admitting that's a me issue but still... it doesn't help me being more active and, to tell you the whole truth, I quit using my mastodon at all because I could not figure out out to use it hand in hand with the Lemmy one or even if it was possibility or I simply understood it wrong :p)

And that's not even mentioning people like myself who also blog: can it be done inbside lemmy? Is it considered good practice or not to link back to one's blog? Since I can't tell, I refrain to share any link to my personal blog ;)

The sad truth is that many of these communities will take months of effort by a single or small group of individuals before more people will join in.

That I'm fine with as I'm in no hurry. I would just not split our already small user base into smaller ones by creating one more community where it's not needed. Let's hope the admin of the Journaling community chimes in... but maybe I'm a bit too optimistic?

[–] FrostyTrichs@walledgarden.xyz 2 points 3 days ago

I can tell you that one of the most intimidating things to me was/is the fragmented nature of said 'fediverse'. Between mastodon, lemmy, the video whose name I constantly forget and the other stuff going on... it's hard to keep track of what is what. It's even harder with the supposed portability/compatibility between various services (I have yet to understand how I am supposed to follow a discussion on lemmy using my mastodon account and vice-versa. Don't get me wrong, I'm fine admitting that's a me issue but still... it doesn't help me being more active and, to tell you the whole truth, I quit using my mastodon at all because I could not figure out out to use it hand in hand with the Lemmy one or even if it was possibility or I simply understood it wrong

I haven't felt the need to broaden my footprint in the fediverse beyond Lemmy. You are definitely correct that the interaction of the various services could be improved. Time will tell if they grow together or further apart.

And that's not even mentioning people like myself who also blog: can it be done inbside lemmy? Is it considered good practice or not to link back to one's blog? Since I can't tell, I refrain to share any link to my personal blog ;)

There are some using Lemmy itself as blogging software. It can be as simple as a community with posts restricted to moderators (you) or as much as an entire instance dedicated to a blog. The sky is really the limit and users are coming up with (I think) some use cases that even the devs didn't see coming.