I suppose this may make sense in the case of something like Mastodon. But something as versatile and customizable as lemmy, which allows for the existence of separate topic-based communities, makes topic-based instances of lemmy not necessary.
Instead of making a new instance for a certain topic, it is usually a much better approach to just create a new community on my current lemmy instance. At least from my perspective as a user.
I find the only exception to this is censorship and moderation. If I, for any reason am unhappy with an instance’s moderation and censorship, then that is the only potential reason I can see to change and make my own.
What does everyone else think of this?
The thing I’m struggling the most with getting into Fediverse is that I have to create an account on a specific instance. I don’t identify myself as part of a single community. I’m interested in several different topics and active in different communities. I guess it doesn’t matter that much which instance I select, but somehow I have to select one instance.
On lemmy it generally doesn’t matter as much, given the ALL tab. But you have to still consider which instances your local might be blocking…
Yep, one example was gtio.io, which occasionally had a decent topic or two, but about a third of the userbase was from lemmy.ml and another third from wolfballs.com (the former instance which attracted a political ‘right-wing’ userbase). Since lemmy.ml defederated from wolfballs.com, you wouldn’t even see most of the replies from a lemmy.ml account and have to get an extra account somewhere to reply.
Of course, those replies were almost always low-quality garbage, but I did want to see and reply to them!
haha, the paradoxical answer is to make your own personal instance for you to federate and post on all the other communities freely.
(yes, I know ‘just make ur own instance’ isn’t helpful advice because not everyone has the time/money/tech-familiarity to do so, I’m more just pointing out that’s how some people approach the issue of having to pick a community)
It’s not too difficult to be active on other instances. For example, I am very active on mander.xyz, despite my instance being lemmy.ml. It’s even easier on Mastodon. Peertube can be a bit of a struggle with subscriptions or notifications not always updating properly though.
Communities (like subreddits) typically get better with more active users. This promotes at least per-topic centralization.
I don’t think there’s a great deal of value in having 10 instances each hosting a “Retro Gaming” community. Users will naturally cluster to 1 or 2 of these. But I see no problem with the main Retro Gaming community being on instance A while the Halo Games community is on instance B.
@anji @cyclohexane I agree that it would be better to have one or two instances hosting a retro games community and all other instances encouraging their users to post on those instances.
Ideally, popular communities on other instances should appear on the main communities page/list of each instance.
@cyclohexane@lemmy.ml @fediverse@lemmy.ml IMO Topical #lemmy instances work best, it helps provide an identity and focus. Visitors to the instance see a local timeline of like minded posts, like minded communities e.g https://mander.xyz/ (Nature/Sci).
There’s simply not the same tension with feeling the need to post relevant content to a local timeline as there is with Mastodon, because you are sharing directly to communities on connected instances as well.
And because of the connected nature, instances can be small e.g. a knitting instance with only 10 users, connecting to a motorsport instance connected to lemmy main.
I agree. A knitting group, or a group dedicated to a TV show, would really benefit from having a lemmy server, with their own collection of communities. Having a small number of people, who you know well and actually want to interact with, can be one of the benefits over reddit, and hearkens back to the days of smaller, more focused forums.
I’ve seen a lot of websites (not so much in the Fediverse, but small forums and spin-off forums) and the kinds of basis they have does affect whether people want to post there, and how the place grows. (I’ll just call them instances, because they technically are but I’m not just talking about Fediverse instances, so the dynamics of cross-visibility between sites aren’t really being considered)
Topic-based instances and goal-oriented instances seems like the best bet for a high-quality discussion community. I mean broad topics as well, consider mander.xyz or the former gtio.io, not just more specific ones like slrpnk.net. It can be limiting, but so long as you’re secure enough with your ego that you don’t need to chase high numbers to know you’re stable and active, then I’d recommend it. The tough part is that you may not get as much casual exposure to start off with, by being on the same site as larger communities, you might need to be active (without being annoying) in crossposting good topics to make people aware your community exists.
National-based instances are also popular, probably because of shared language, cultural elements and local issues. But they are otherwise pretty compatible to general instances. They do have a place, I’ve enjoyed a couple on occasion, they have a place, but I do prefer the topic-based communities. There’s no point limiting every topic arbitrarily by nation or state.
General instances (either topicless copy-cats or freely user-defined communities) are hit-or-miss, I personally don’t like them in a federated space unless they are specifically solving an issue.
lemmy.ml is somewhere between topic-based and general. It is explicitly “A community of privacy and FOSS enthusiasts, run by Lemmy’s developers” (I notice that broadened a bit, surprising although no complaints), and you can see that bias in the communities list, but the mods aren’t aggressive with enforcing the topic. There are random sports, country and interest communities here. Whether that’s out of inactivity (volunteer time and effort is limited!) or lax policy (the more the merrier!), it makes this feel more like a general site despite the tagline. I remember last time I checked (admittedly a year ago) the staff were explicit and purposeful that this is not an official instance and was not trying to cater to everyone as a general instance, encouraging people to make more granular instances for things which weren’t meant to go here.
If that is the case (again, policy could be different) then maybe some extra messaging on the Create Community and Register pages could help prevent the regular issue we had when someone fundamentally against the community (like someone kicked from reddit because of racist comments) would show up and be surprised when they were herded out of here too.
I honestly have no real idea how this site works. I just treat it as if I would another forum
@cyclohexane@lemmy.ml I don’t think there is one right answer to this. IMO - anyone can start an instance for whatever reason they want, which could be to have a topic specific instance.
This may have an advantage. For example of someone wanted to start a gaming instance of could bring all the existing forms into one place, and then add a bunch that aren’t on the other instances. This could make for a convenient one-stop location for gamers to find all the topics they are interested in.
Of course nothing is stopping a use from subscribing from a different instance of they so choose.
Of course nothing is stopping…
Except when your account exists on a server which blocks countless servers. A user can’t see which servers are on your home server’s ban list.
You can see who is blocked, click instances in the very bottom, there is the list.
Ah. Very nice! I didn’t know. Lemmy rocks :)
I agree. Lemmy Hoste multiple communities on a single instance. This gives room for interaction with people thinking different than you. That’s i.m.o. positive.
I learned In fediverse there’s much ignore lists and exclusion of servers happening. I’d much rather have users personally choose which communities/users not to see than whole servers being excommunicated for them(unless it’s spam servers ofcourse). Excluded Servers clusters(islands) are a breeding ground for mindset that the whole world thinks likewise(because there’s no notion of other servers). In my opinion cancel-culture is detrimental to society. Documentary “The social dilemma” has shown that; eg Facebook which, for add revenue, targets info only to users who are already interested. This breeds anti social/extreme mindsets.
I don’t think that there are islands on the fediverse. Yes, some servers block very liberally, but If their admins choose it this way, aren’t they free to do so?
Most servers only block a few troll, Nazi and pedo servers and that’s it.
I think that it’s only fair that the people providing the service are those who get to shape the content that their server provides.
Who is unfairly blocked in your opinion? Do you have an example?
Hi. Thx for the heads up. Indeed server hosters are free to do what they wish. I don’t have examples. I saw a video quite a while back, explaining quite some difficulties with moderation on fediverse. I’ll search for it.
Moderation is pretty difficult, since theoretically everyone can spin up a troll server within minutes :)
Definitely, especially last year where some persistent obsessed kiddo would keep finding each federated instance with open registration and making low-tier troll accounts on them.
@roho @cyclohexane My understanding about instances blocking a lot and isolating is that these are marginalized communities who just want a space where they can be themselves. The whole world is already telling them loudly that there are different opinions. They just want a moment of peace.
The focused, exclusive communities and the open, chaotic communities both have their place. Those ones blocking the majority of instances to get rid of junk and harassment are perfectly valid, although I personally would definitely need accounts elsewhere.
@comfy Yeah for sure! I think people are ok with having 2 accounts in these context.
thx
Implimenting a voting system to kick out poor quality moderaters would be nice.
I do think it’s important for a site to be willing and able to kick moderators who are abusive, especially in a major community. But as for a formal system for reclaiming a community, it would be up to in individual instance’s staff.
There are struggles with a voting system in a pseudonymous environment like this site: how do you enforce identity? How can you detect if 5 accounts are actually just me and my sockpuppets? And how can you do that without making life horrible for people who want to stay private with tools like proxies and anti-trackers? It’s possible to mitigate some of these problems but it’s not an easy task once a community grows, and can involve compromise.
In a smaller site like this, raising complaints to the instance staff or on a /c/meta like community is a good first step and can be very effective if the case is strong.
In that case you can contact instance admins to remove the mod.
As a newbie, having some way for a community to democratically replace a moderator definitely sounds like it would be an improvement over most (all?) non-federated social media services, but I think there needs to be some kind of election framework for community leadership positions in general, and that would be how bad moderators get replaced. At the very least, I hope any voting would use the STAR method.
@Onihikage @Jake_Farm What is the STAR method?
Sorry for the late reply. STAR stands for Score Then Automatic Runoff. The idea is every option is scored by voters from 0-5 stars, and the scores are added up from each voter to get the top two scoring options. Then those two options are ranked according to which was preferred (scored higher than the other) by the greatest number of voters. There’s a website about it, along with entries on Wikipedia and Ballotpedia.
@cyclohexane Today Instances also work as identity providers, but in the future identities are likely to become portable, and the only service provided by instances will be moderation.