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 year ago
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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

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 @[email protected], @[email protected], and @[email protected]

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 @[email protected]'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:

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, but you should still keep an open mind as you proceed to the next step.

Edit1: To avoid centralization on large instances, I typically prefer consolidating towards smaller instances, provided that they are well managed.

Step 2: Solicit input

Create a post on [email protected]. 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 [[email protected]](/c/[email protected]) active moderator @[email protected]

Would you be open to consolidating this community with one on another instance, perhaps [[email protected]](/c/[email protected])?

Also paging active contributor @[email protected] for their thoughts.


[[email protected]](/c/[email protected]) moderator @[email protected] is inactive.

Paging admin @[email protected]. Would you be open to consolidating this community with one on another instance, perhaps [[email protected]](/c/[email protected])?


Paging [[email protected]](/c/[email protected]) moderator @[email protected]

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.

Edit2: 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 [[email protected]](/c/[email protected]) by checking "Only moderators can post to this community"
  2. Create one final post on [[email protected]](/c/[email protected]) announcing the consolidation to [[email protected]](/c/[email protected])
  3. Rename the community to "[Dormant] moved to [[email protected]](/c/[email protected])"

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 a 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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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

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 thought I'd create a thread to collect as many as possible.

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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Doing my part (lemmy.zip)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

I'm a writer/animator/YouTuber/content creator.

For a little while now I've been consistently putting only fediverse links in the description of my videos. Every video includes my mastodon and a link to the Lemmy post in my community about the video.

So far I don't think this has had literally any tangible effect in growing Lemmy or Mastodon (my mastodon continues to sit at 0 followers), however, I'm hoping that by continuing to include these links and simply having Lemmy be a presence that people see... That will make people more likely to sign up in the future.

My channel and my content are rather small but hopefully just existing in a space where non-fedi users hang out is enough to get people to accept the fediverse more easily.

To me, this feels like an easy way to grow the fediverse... I don't need to explain what it is or how it works... I just provide a link and it opens how people would expect.

I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts on this practice or other ways that I could include the fediverse into stuff without actively scaring away people that don't like big words.

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It might be nice if lemmy clients (voyager, default client, etc) would make a suggestive pop-up:

Would you like to block this community? Your downvote ratio is 100% over the last X days/Y posts.

This is good for lemmy because it will let users have a more positive experience, its helping guide people to get better use of the user interface.

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Luckily I haven't really had people post rule-breaking content in my communities. Nobody posting bitcoin spam, being nasty towards other users, or breaking a rule that you cannot just assume exists (I'd assume "do not be mean, do not spam/post on-topic things" to be universal) and would have to actually read the sidebar for (like no posts about humans in bunny suits in [email protected]). I was wondering if this is most mods' experience on Lemmy.

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I remember seeing at least one other community related to this, which had regular math problems.

What I'm thinking is having a general community for any of the following:

  • joke style riddles
  • more complex riddles (ex. missing dollar riddle)
  • math problems (geometry, infinite doors, monty hall)
  • optical illusions
  • those physics 'what would happen' questions (ex. which bucket would fill first, which way would the balloon move)

Keeping it open would allow for more content, and it will also keep things fresh, since having the same type of question every day might get boring for users.

What should the community be called? Some ideas so far:

  • riddler: might be too specific to the character, or the concept or riddles
  • ???: I thought this was fun, but it might cause issues with other fediverse platforms
  • what: Not as fun, but solves the issue above

What instance should the community be on?

Any best practices? We could have tags for the approximate difficulty of the question. [easy] for mobile game ad type questions, [average] for common riddles, and [advanced] for the complex math questions? + [meme] for joke posts

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Perhaps some instances or some add-ons do this. I think it should be native.

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I realise this could have its problems with abusive mods (although Lemmy records when people edit posts), but to me, it has a lot of benefits. Some communities have rules around how posts should look for clarity and/or aesthetic purposes. Sometimes as a mod I see posts that I think are fine, but could just be slightly adjusted to look a bit different or match up with the standards of the community - and I don't want to be anal and remove it over something small like that - but I would quietly edit it.

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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

Is there an instance specific to outdoor/nature communities?

Edit: Sorry I didn't specify it enough. I thought more about backpacking, camping, outdoor gear, ultralight, and so on. I really miss something like r/ultralight or r/CampingAndHiking on the fediverse.

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Hear me out: Had these ideas to ensure lemmy doesn't derail into a short video/meme spiral like every other social platform

  • Additional (more specific) up/downvote buttons.

Like "original vs generic", "low effort vs detailed"

Not only can we ensure the engagement doesn't derail into an X-like anarchy or Instagram meme fest, but we can also then sort comments by parameters (ie. you've seen 20 pun comments about the headline and broad topic at hand but want to see actual thoughts about a linked article)

Another idea:

  • Instances are commonly offering donation buttons since they need to fund the servers. What if we tied cosmetic "superlike" awards to donations.

Thoughts? Very interested in your inputs/adaptations to my ideas or other cool concepts you have to ensure lemmy staying solid while growing

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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

cross-posted from: https://50501.chat/post/146959

We are looking for admin/mod especifically from Lemmy community itself. We are in serious need of moderators or admin with Lemmy knowledge. Please let us know if you would like to be a part of the movement and this Lemmy instance. If you would like to be a part please understand there would be significant time commitment needed as we are a growing community here at Lemmy.

Application <— Fill This To Apply

Scope: 50501.chat Sitewide

About the movement

Thank you!

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I mod the [email protected] community, I've managed to grow the number of subscribers from 360 to 800.

I'm thinking of moving it to programming.dev. Is this a good idea? I made a post asking this and I'm looking for feedback there.

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We can do better (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 
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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

There's [email protected] and [email protected]. The lemmy.world version has a more recently active mod, @[email protected] / @[email protected], while the lemmy.sdf.org one @[email protected] hasn't been seen in 2 years. There appears to be a lot more recent activity on [email protected] especially thanks to @[email protected] and overall a bit more activity there. However, lemmy.world is the biggest instance and consolidating towards smaller but still active instances tends to be a better move for keeping the Fediverse decentralized and diverse instead of centralized all on one huge instance.

Either way, it would probably help to consolidate so we can have one active fox community instead of people trying to independently contribute to two communities that seem to have no difference in content. Was wondering what people think about which community to consolidate to, if at all, or if there is some difference I haven't yet detected and they should just coexist.

Also, I followed this guide in the sidebar and am wondering why it says to page relevant users in a top-level comment. Do user mentions just not work in a post so it has to be a comment?

EDIT: You know what, I can test that myself since I have alts. @[email protected], @[email protected], hi! An hour after the self-ping, both in post and in comment, neither account received a notification

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I mod/curate [email protected] and we have a solid icon:

I tried to replicate the style for [email protected]:

But IMO it didn't work out that well, the styling of the 3 elements (helm, sword, spell book) doesn't align with the Lemmy mascot style. The tycoon icon is "hand-drawn" and the cRPG icon is the best I could find on google images.

It's somewhat fine as people see it at a lower resolution, but my OCD doesn't let me let go.

If someone has time/interest to build out a more coherent version where the 3 elements (helm, sword, spell book) align with the Lemmy mouse flat/comic style, I would appreciate it. If not, that's fine too.

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submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

Hi all,

Does anyone have the source png images for the lemmy mascot?

I am trying to replicate the community icon in [email protected]:

but for [email protected].

I need the main mascot and I can add RPG related stuff on top.

Edit: I just noticed the Tycoon icon was sort of incomplete with part of the money bag's border missing. 😆

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https://piefed.social/f/lemmycategories

Here is the outcome from the brief chat I had here.

This is not finished - not in categories, not in organisation, not in communities, but I'm getting exhausted currently. Many communities on here are old, dead, tired. Some are new. Many categories are barren, some are overfilled and need more segmentation. I'm just sharing what I've built as I think this could be very helpful to community advertisement and exploration.

I'd like anyone who runs or knows of communities to let me know here, so I can add them.

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I've been looking into some federation issues, and the lemmy-federate tool is great. Especially the errors, check the errored instances to find out why they are erroring.

I've found two instances where one of my communities wasn't federating because it was misconfigured and the community was blocked.

I've found two instances where the federation was working, but because I as a user was banned, the communities were empty.

And I found one instance that WAS federated by a user, then the user left the instance, and now the community is just dangling without updates.

https://lemmy-federate.com/

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Strategy games have a ton of communities, one which has been poked recently into living ([email protected]) and many which are dead.

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submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

Come join us at Cooking with fire!

Pictured in the thumbnail is an 'Over The Top Chilli' in its latter stages, an indirect cook, also here:

We also just slap meat on the grill:

but it's not just about meat. Veggies on the grill rule too:

If you or anyone you love deeply, with all your tastebuds, likes to cook over fire then come and join us. We are a small, but welcoming community for people who love to cook over a live flame.

HT to @[email protected] for pointing me here!

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