hello folks! some additional suggestions have been made to round out Beehaw’s current set of communities, so we’ve gone ahead and done that. we have four new communities accordingly, which are:

Disability and Accessibility! i think this one is pretty self-explanatory, but for anyone ambiguous on its intent, @xuxxun@beehaw.org puts it like this:

Feel free to post anything health, chronic illness, disability or accessibility related. If you need a space for support or sharing your experiences regarding all of the above topics, this is the right place as well :)

People of Color! this is a community specifically devoted to ethnic minority groups and their issues, and for discussions and connections relating to those minority groups. we’re also hopeful it’ll be a good space for minorities who are migrating to Lemmy, since i’m not aware of very many communities on here to this point like that. there’s an already existing introduction thread in the community by @kalanggam@beehaw.org if you’d like to drop by.

Betterment and Praxis! i’ll let @Wigglet@beehaw.org speak for the idea behind this one, because i think it really gets at some of the stuff we’re trying to help build here:

Even if it’s just growing a little bit extra in the garden for the local food bank, picking up rubbish on the side of the road, or just making an effort to use the bus, having a supportive community encouraging you makes those little choices a bit easier. Maybe you’ve always wanted to do a little bit more for your community but don’t know where to start. Maybe you already do some of these things and want to help others get started. Maybe you’re just really proud of how something is done in your community. We might not be able to solve all the problems but we can at least try to make a few small things a little bit nicer.

and, finally: Socialism! there’s no shortage of communities like this on Lemmy but a commonality many people have experienced is they’re… not very welcoming, in general. luckily, a left-wing subreddit got in touch with us about moving (pre-boom, even) and we think their community on Reddit fit the ethos of the site pretty well, so we’ve helped move them over here. as the sidebar states, this community is:

A place for all leftist and labor news and discussion, as long as you’re nice about it. […] Non-socialists are welcome to come to learn, though it’s hard to get to in-depth discussions if the community is constantly fighting over the basics. We ask that non-socialists please be respectful and try not to turn this into a “left vs right” debate forum by asking leading questions or by trying to draw others into a fight.

we hope you’ll find each of these four new communities a useful space to discuss in.

now, as for the subject of new community creations: we’re definitely slowing down on batches of communities after this set. this isn’t a total stop–as our existing communities grow, we’ll split off new ones as needed–but we’re going to try and keep additions to a minimum until the Reddit wave crests. tentatively, our next batch of community creations will probably be after July 1, and any we create before then will be on an individual as-needed basis.

we think the current set of communities covers most things adequately enough for our purposes right now. some imperfections exist but to reiterate: we aren’t trying to be Reddit, so some overlap and imperfection in coverage is fine with us.

this also doesn’t mean we’re done taking public opinion checks. we’re not sure when this will be sent out yet (it’s being worked on today), but we’re drafting a community survey where among other things we’ll gauge interest in the suggestions i’ve seen that haven’t already been added. be on the lookout for that.

thanks folks!