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  • Duplicates are a minor issue. That said, solution #2 (multi-comms) is considerably better than #3 (comms following comms).

    The problems with #3 are:

    • Topics are almost never as discrete as the author pretends them to be. Often they overlap, but only partially.
    • Different comms have different rules, and in this situation rule enforcement becomes a mess.

    There's no good solution for that. On the other hand, the problems the author associates with #2 are easy to solve, if users are allowed to share their multi-comms with each other as links:

    • a new user might not know which comms to follow, but they can simply copy a multi-comm from someone who does
    • good multi-comms are organically shared by users back and forth

    Additionally, multi-comms address the root issue. The root issue is not that you got duplicate communities; it's that communities in general, even without duplicates, are hard to discover. Also note that the root issue is not exclusive to federated platforms, it pops up in Reddit too; it's a consequence of users being able to create comms by themselves.

    About #1 (merging communities): to a certain extent users already do this. Nothing stops you from locking !pancakes@a.com with a pinned thread like "go to !pancakes@b.com".

    This is a minor part of the text, but I feel in the mood to address it:

    I post once to gauge interest then never post again because I got choice paralysis

    The same users who get "choice paralysis" from deciding where to post are, typically, the ones who: can't be arsed to check rules before posting, can't be arsed to understand what someone else said before screeching, comment idiotic single-liners that add nothing but noise, whine "wah, TL;DR!" at anything with 100+ chars... because all those things backtrack to the same mindset: "thinking is too hard lol. I'm entitled to speak my empty mind, without thinking if I'm contributing or not lmao."

    Is this really the sort of new user that we old users want to welcome here? Growth is important, but unrestricted growth regardless of cost is cancer.

  • This was already touched on earlier, but I wanted to add on a bit:

    The idea comes from how Reddit handles it (MultiReddits) but from my experience it's a feature not many people made use of, and it sounds like a pain to have to constantly create and manage new multi-communities to group together duplicate communities. This shouldn't be a task that users have to manually do.

    This is a pretty bad or maybe just naive take that IMO doesn't sum things in a productive way upon Multi-Reddits. That is-- 1) it arguably doesn't matter a bit how many people make use of it, as each person's MR is going to be a custom affair, and it works at the individual user level anyway, 2) on the contrary, it's no trouble at all to build your MR's either quickly or painstakingly, and you can spread that effort across weeks, months and even years. In the end, I find MR's fantastically useful as super-custom feeds that you can use to stay focused on a tight range of topics.

    Unfortunately, these kinds of half-baked conclusions tend to suggest to me that OP doesn't have a whole lot of familiarity with either platform at this time. That said, there's a lot of interesting ideas in the article, it's just a little disappointing in various places.

  • I was actually thinking of something similar a few days ago. The conclusion I came to is "comms as users."

    Communities being able to follow other communities is part of that. I think it'd be great.

  • I quite agree with the issue described and I 100% agree it's a critical one but, because none of the proposed solution seem to be ideal, I'm also wondering if this doesn't end up saying the right model, right in the sense that it will work with/feel much more simpler to most users, is a centralized system and not a federated one?

    • is a centralized system

      So... Reddit? With the cancelled third-party apps, the visible ads, the ads hiding as posts, the powertripping mods (but unpaid as well), the algorithm trying to get the most "engagement" by showing hateful content?

      • So… Reddit?

        I don't know, I just shared agut feeling while reading the OP. And I'm not saying it's what we should thrive for, just sharing that gut feeling about what, like I said, I consider a critical issue on Lemmy.

        With the cancelled third-party apps, the visible ads, the ads hiding as posts, the powertripping mods (but unpaid as well), the algorithm trying to get the most “engagement” by showing hateful content?

        That's a whole other discussion imho. But if you want to discuss about that:

        • I only talked about a centralized system (aka, a unified one) and, once again, I did not say it was the solution only that it felt like that while I was reading the post. As far as I know, centralization does not imply the obligation to rely on algorithm (and ads, paywalls, or nothing dirty like that).
        • As far as mods abusing their power is an issue (it is), I think we do have a few on Lemmy too. Isn't there a community dedicated to that issue?
        • Ditto for the 'hateful content' (and I would add the extremely low effort posts too), it was a pain on Reddit, it's a pain on Lemmy too there is just of it on Lemmy because there are less of us posting ;)
          I consider the Reddit default home page an insult to any half-working brain but I would not be much more sympathetic to Lemmy's default feed either. I remember we briefly discussed that already: I'd rather see an empty feed by default, with only a short-ish selection of very broad categories the user would pick from to start seeing content that they're interested in. And only that content, not all the crap. They would then be able to start fine tuning their selection. Something like that.
        • Reducing Reddit to what you listed here would be... unfair to the great content and great discussion one can easily find over there. As an ex-Reddit user, after an adaptation time (learning how to get rid of the default crap feed and how to remove the crap ads, learning what subs were better ignored) I had a great time using Reddit (and that is despite its poor UI). I did not quit using it because of the flow of hate or the flow of moronic content, nor because of abusive mods (quite the opposite, I appreciated their work... thx to fine selection of the few subs I was subscribed to). I did not quit reddit for that, no more than I would quit Lemmy for those flaws either. I left because I hated how Reddit, the corporation, took hold of our content and started restricting access to our content in order to negotiate deals with partners. And started talking about paywalling some of it. I briefly explained it as a last post on my Reddit profile and I close the door behind me. But I do miss those interesting discussions I had, and I miss a few subs too (r/Simpleliving, would be the first one I would mention).
          If I was not admitting I miss that I would be a liar.
        • I also find it difficult to motivate/encourage more people to join and participate here on Lemmy because I'm myself constantly faced with the 'messy' aspects of Lemmy. I'm stubborn and I decided I could live with them (happily) but I also know many people are not ok with that and it's unlikely they ever will.

        Hence me agreeing with the OP: Lemmy being as fragmented as it is is a critical issue.
        Hence, the second part of my comment: it feels to me that the only easy/obvious solution is to rely on a centralized system. I'm not saying it's what should be done (I would not be part of the fediverse if I had no desire to see an alternative to that centralization). I may be wrong in that, most probably I'm (I have no technical expertise) but it still is what I felt while reading the post. Nothing more.

        And for the rest, let the downvoters enjoy their very own moment of power ;)

    • the right model, right in the sense that it will work with/feel much more simpler to most users, is a centralized system and not a federated one?

      How is Proposal 3 not a federated model? Communities would choose to mutually share posts with each other.

      • Well, merging communities means trying to reduce the number of alternative communities on the same topic, or did I miss something?

        But, like I said, I'm not saying it is not doable. I'm only sharing how I felt reading the OP post.

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