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Addressing the Exponential Growth of Communities (lemmynsfw.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by OptimusPrime@lemmynsfw.com to c/lemmyworld@lemmy.world

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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.

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[-] OptimusPrime@lemmynsfw.com 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't know why you are bitching about rules and frustration.

I believe the best approach would be to have these multireddits automatically created for convenience. However, users should have the option to choose whether they want to see only the content from their instance's community or from any number of communities, instead of being forced to view all of them.

[-] imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

I think that approach is needlessly complicated and would confuse people more than help them. There should be a way for individual users to merge the feeds from multiple communities in a multilemmy if they specifically choose to.

But I don't see any way to create such multireddits/multilemmys automatically because there is no objective categorization. Everyone is going to have a different opinion about which communities fit together and which ones are similar but different enough to keep separate. Instead of forcing a generalist solution that makes everyone unhappy, just give people the tools to build their own solution that works best for them.

[-] OptimusPrime@lemmynsfw.com 5 points 1 year ago

I would prefer something pre-made for convenience but that can be modified by each user to adjust to their preference. I'd rather have a generalist solution forced on me than have to spend countless hours grouping communities from hundreds of instances.

[-] imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

I think you're vastly overestimating how many communities actually matter. At least 90% of communities will be ghost towns. It's just too early to tell right now because the platform is basically in its first week of existence. You're planning a solution to a problem that won't exist.

I get it, some of the first comments I made when I joined were about how to combine communities across multiple instances. As I've spent more time here, I've begun to understand that it's not actually a problem. The easy solution is to subscribe to the biggest community and/or one on your home instance.

Besides that, I don't see much of a difference between manually going through hundreds of communities to add the ones you want, or going through hundreds of communities on a pre made list to remove the ones you don't want.