652

Addressing the Exponential Growth of Communities (lemmynsfw.com)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by OptimusPrime@lemmynsfw.com to c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world

214 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Over the past few days, I've witnessed a remarkable surge in the number of communities on browse.feddit.de. What started with 2k communities quickly grew to 4k, and now it has reached an astonishing 8k. While this exponential growth signifies a thriving platform, it also brings forth challenges such as increased fragmentation and the emergence of echo chambers. To tackle these issues, I propose the implementation of a Cross-Instance Automatic Multireddit feature within Lemmy. This feature aims to consolidate posts from communities with similar topics across all federated instances into a centralized location. By doing so, we can mitigate community fragmentation, counter the formation of echo chambers, and ultimately foster stronger community engagement. I welcome any insights or recommendations regarding the optimal implementation of this feature to ensure its effectiveness and success.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] Evil@lemmy.world 82 points 2 years ago

The underlying problem here is the lemmy community being spread out across many instances, and this solution doesn't really fix the underlying problem.

This is just speculation, but I think eventually 1-4 instances will grow much bigger than the rest. I think when this happens, communities will become much less fragmented and the problem will solve itself.

tl;dr while this is a good idea, I think if we just leave everything the way it is the problem will solve itself.

[-] sebovzeoueb@lemmy.world 55 points 2 years ago

Isn't a few large communities eating up the others like the opposite of what Lemmy is trying to do?

[-] manitcor@lemmy.intai.tech 52 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

i keep hearing people call for this like its going to happen and be the only way things will be. Look at reddit, look at the history of some of these subs.

there will always be multiple copies of various communities. what software gives us the ability to do is sort and filter and tag (we need to add this) to our hearts content so instance admins and users have control over what comes across thier feeds.

Joined communities will have many of the same centralization problems reddit has now. I've seen this call mostly from users who were on reddit long after it was large. It seems many have no idea that almost every topic on reddit has 4-6 subs around it usually.

[-] UsualMap@fedia.io 3 points 2 years ago

Indeed - what you describe is why I'm really not worried about fragmentation. Federation means you'll be able to see all of the relevant communities, and you can decide to subscribe to any or all of them.

[-] jerrimu@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

In a community with 5m+ members, everything moved too fast

[-] joelthelion@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago

If people are satisfied with them, I think that's OK, and more efficient than having a zillion.

Problems will happen if we go too low, and bigger instances start de-federating. Some might be tempted to start monetizing like Reddit.

[-] liontigerwings@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 years ago

I think it's only a problem if it congregates to 1 instead of 4 or so. If one of the 4 goes rogue or disappointing its users, people can easily just jump on a different one. Most servers will suck and that's ok. Good ones will attract users.

[-] derelict@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

The example of federation most people have experience with is email. There will almost certainly be gmails and yahoos emerging over time, but they will have limited control compared to reddit, because if you don't like the filtering/advertizing/whatever of one you're free to leave for another

[-] 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 years ago

The email analogy breaks down when you consider that most email servers are run by big tech and cost a lot of money to upkeep

Or you can run your own email server for yourself and a few of your family.

There's almost nothing in between gmail and some random person's self hosted email server.

In terms of the fediverse,who the heck is willing to host a lemmy server for 1 million complete strangers? Not many people i think

[-] derelict@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago

If Lemmy takes off I wouldn't be at all surprised if tech companies hosted instances that they monetize through advertising, and many people would be willing to have a home instance that showed them ads in exchange for high stability and potentially more user-friendly clients

[-] PCChipsM922U@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago

They'd still have to release the source for their modded versions with ads, thus, ads can be mitigated from the instance client/app side.

[-] Ajen@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 years ago

Not necessarily, there are several ways they could release a proprietary app: either code it from scratch so they own the copyright, use OSS code that has a commercial-friendly license (eg. MIT), use an OSS library that allows them to link with their proprietary code (eg. LGPL).

But even if they did release the source code, I think they could still be profitable. Their main customers would be people who want something that "just works", and a lot of those people would rather see a few ads than deal with downloading a modified version of the official client. People who hate ads and are willing to tinker are more likely to run their own insurance, IMO.

[-] PCChipsM922U@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

They'd still have to use the Lemmy API, thus, recognizing ads and/or reversing code should be fairly easy (when you actually know how everything communicates).

Just as a side note (am kinda curious to be honest) I always ran the official Reddit app (don't mod anything, so... didn't see the point in using 3rd party apps) and I never EVER saw a single ad in the app. Maybe it's because I don't live in the US, IDK, but would like to hear an explanation as to why ads weren't served on my client... not that it bothered me, lol 😂.

[-] Ajen@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

They would only need to use the API to communicate with other fediverse instances. They could make a proprietary API for their mobile client, which would display ads.

But that's beside my point, which is that no one will bother to reverse engineer their app if there are easier ways to avoid ads (like setting up your own instance). Their users will be people who want a turn-key solution. People who are allergic to ads (like me) will be better off setting up their own server or using a smaller server, or paying for "premium" access to a commercial server.

At least, that's how I see the fediverse evolving. I've only been here for about a week, though, so take my opinion with a big grain of salt. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

[-] PCChipsM922U@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

They would only need to use the API to communicate with other fediverse instances. They could make a proprietary API for their mobile client, which would display ads.

It's GPL licensed. If they mod the Lemmy source to comunicate with their app, they have to release the source.

Unless they write something from scratch (or take MIT/BSD licensed source, as you pointed out) and just implement the API to communicate with other instances, yes, in that case they don't have to release the source. But that is a very unlikely scenario to be honest, it's just too much work.

At least, that's how I see the fediverse evolving. I've only been here for about a week, though, so take my opinion with a big grain of salt. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Yeah, been around a week here as well, still learning the ropes, lol.

[-] Ergonomic_Keyboard@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

Yeah, but we are social animals. Everyone* want's to join the big group!

[-] odin@lemmy.world 20 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

see I'm not sure I see that as a problem. There are lots of reasons to spawn a new but similar community (bad community mods, bad server admins). There are lots of subreddits I avoided because they were just too big to get into any real info or discussion, just the same beginner questions asked over and over again.

[-] OptimusPrime@lemmynsfw.com 11 points 2 years ago

The proposal does not necessarily imply merging all small communities with others. The implementation can provide an optional choice to community moderators, allowing them to decide whether they want their community to be included in the multireddit. This approach respects the autonomy of individual communities and acknowledges the reasons why new but similar communities may emerge, such as issues with community mods or server admins. By offering this flexibility, the feature can cater to the diverse needs and preferences of different communities while still providing the benefits of consolidating posts from communities with similar topics.

[-] Mutelogic@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 years ago

Who would control the multi-community, and how could a potential bad actor/community be dealt with?

[-] OptimusPrime@lemmynsfw.com 19 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

The goal of implementing this feature is to leverage the benefits of federation. If we wait until there is only a few big communities, the purpose of having federation becomes irrelevant. When an instance hosting one of those large communities shuts down, the community would have to migrate to the next major community.

By proactively implementing this feature, Lemmy can harness the advantages of federation while actively mitigating the challenges posed by community fragmentation and echo chambers. It provides a centralized hub that encourages cross-pollination of ideas, fosters community engagement, and ensures that valuable content is accessible to all users, regardless of the size or popularity of individual communities.

[-] Mutelogic@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 years ago

I disagree on two points:

Fragmentation is a feature, not a bug. Echo chambers will always exist, but fragmentation is what keeps them contained to small pockets.
A centralized hub would not necessarily foster community engagement. Seeing hundreds of comments on a post is often enough of a barrier.

[-] adriaan@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 years ago

I don't think it'll ever be perfect either. The setup Lemmy has just means it'll be more resilient to breaking down entirely because there's no single point of failure. So yeah hopefully it stabilizes more over time.

[-] darkstar@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

I agree. Time will show which instance most people will go to. The smaller instances will slowly quiet down, while the larger ones will gain in popularity. The issue will definitely sort itself out over time. I'm not worried at all.