this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2023
36 points (100.0% liked)

Chat

7499 readers
82 users here now

Relaxed section for discussion and debate that doesn't fit anywhere else. Whether it's advice, how your week is going, a link that's at the back of your mind, or something like that, it can likely go here.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
alyaza@beehaw.org
remington@beehaw.org
36
I like that this is a general instance. (beehaw.org)
submitted 1 year ago by SkepticElliptic@beehaw.org to c/chat@beehaw.org
21 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

see a lot of discussion about adding more specific communities on this instance and I feel as if it will dilute the community too much.

I personally see Lemmy instances as somewhat similar to old forums, many of those did so well because the community came together under a shared experience.

Lemmy is decentralized after all and instances based around interests will get created and discussion will get focused on certain instances for certain topics. Those instances will be moderated by the people who have passion and understanding for those topics.

Of course the great thing about Lemmy is that we're (mostly) free to visit other instances and if there are redundant communities it is not difficult to participate in them.

I do think it's nice to have a place to call home, a "hive" if you will. Where users can discuss their shared experience on the fediverse.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] setsneedtofeed@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree. I did mention that a tabletop gaming community would be nice, but I didn’t feel the need to push for one right at this moment.

I think more communities on this instance make some sense, but people are asking for hyper specific ones. I saw a post today asking for like 5 different niche technology/computer communities that are direct Reddit ports. It makes more sense to keep everything under a single community and only split once the userbase of that community has developed enough.

[–] realChem@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

and only split once the userbase of that community has developed enough.

I think that's the key thing. I do quite like the idea of more specific communities (which I've expressed a couple times), but only once there are enough people participating that they won't just sit dormant. Like I agree, tabletop gaming is something I'd very much like to have a dedicated community for, but not right now.

My perspective is that the main value in more niche communities is that they help people find posts related to a specific internet amongst a sea of unrelated posts. E.g. if I want to chat about specifically Citizen Sleeper, but the main gaming is flooded by posts about Elden Ring, other people interested in chatting about Citizen Sleeper might not see my posts.

(On that note... Anyone want to chat about Citizen Sleeper?)

At this point, that's just not an issue Lemmy has. Keeping things more general for now is definitely the right strategy.

And like several people have mentioned, Lemmy is federated! So if someone wants to go ahead and spin out some more niche communities, they are free to do that on their own instance and we'll all still be able to join in!