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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

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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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[-] g0nz0li0@lemmy.world 18 points 2 years ago

I'm new too, but here's what I've learned in the last week:

You're a user of and logged into @beehaw.org. This post (and the community it was posted to) exists on the @lemmy.world instance. You can see and post to it from your beehaw.org instance, because @lemmy.world also exists in the Fediverse.

My instance is @lemmy.world, so this community/post is "local" to my instance, but in practice that's not super important. All that tells you is where I enter the fediverse, from there we're able to see and post in communities from across instances. For example, I can see communities/posts from @beehaw.org, where you are. I am subbed to a few communities there.

It's possible that a community like /c/games exists on @beehaw.org and on @lemmy.world. You would see them as games@beehaw.org and games@lemmy.world, and they are separate communities (despite having the same community name) so you can sub to one or both. OP is basically suggesting a feature to group (for example) games@beehaw.org and games@lemmy.world so that it just looks like one big community.

More experienced Lemmy and Fediversers, please correct any errors I may have made it this post!

[-] nickpeirson@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

My instance is @lemmy.world, so this community/post is "local" to my instance, but in practice that's not super important.

I think that's generally true, however it's worth noting that what you can see from other (non-local) instances is dependent on the admin of your instance. They choose with other instances to federate (exchange data, e.g. communities, posts, comments, etc) with. If they choose not to federate with a specific instance, you won't see content from that instance.

There are already examples of this, but I don't know the details well enough to be confident in expanding on it.

[-] g0nz0li0@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Excellent point!

[-] nickpeirson@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

And as if to illustrate my point, Beehaw is no longer federated with Lemmy.world, so @mountainmycelium@beehaw.org won't be getting updates to this thread any more.

[-] g0nz0li0@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Yeah I just read that news and thought of this comment trail! My description did not age well.

Hopefully this is just due to sudden and rapid uptake of users to the fediverse and not something that happens regular once things have settled down a little.

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

Yeah, it's not immediately obvious what the implications of an account on a particular instance are. I think over time it should become more obvious, for example meta data about instances on lemmy instance directory sites, so users know what they're signing up for. I also think things will settle down as communities find an instance that works for them, and tools improve for more granular control over federation.