As a new reddit exile, I may be misunderstanding this.
In theory something like a !gaming community could crop up on multiple large instances, especially during the mass exodus while instances are getting hammered with spikes in volume.
If that’s the case, we’ll have fragmented communities across instances. Is there any way besides subscribing to each of them to combine them into a sort of multi-reddit type aggregation? Or is this considered a temporary (albeit important to adoption) problem during the crazy stages?
Honestly i thought the point of decentralization was purely from a resoures perspective, the idea of it being a bunch of seperate semi isolated communities seems pointless. The strength of link aggregation is in having a breadth of content while allowing content people want to see to rise to the top for ease of access. I’ve mainly been trying to just see top for the day for all and it seems a bit inconsistent in what it displayed.
Nah, it’s more than that. It’s a way of decentralizing power and becoming resistant to control.
It doesn’t start or end with Lemmy - you could build Remmy, join it to the network, and somehow group up these communities and present them to the users as a single group. You could build Kenny because you’re suspicious of the Lemmy devs, and help users migrate away from them (taking their content with them). You could make the server ad supported, make one for your students to speak amongst themselves semi privately, you could make one dedicated to LLMs
Hell, Reddit could decide to join the network and try to take it over, and each server owner could decide if they want to let them try or limit communication with them.
At the end of the day, you can only get so much control. Because while there are benefits to being on a specific server, ultimately anyone can spin up a new one and their users get access to a social network that includes all its members, and if instead of one animemes most users sub to 4 smaller ones, you again have less power in any one place
There’s also the moderation aspect - no matter how good your tools, mods can only manage so much. Push past a certain point, and even with large teams you’re going to get inconsistent moderation and a lot of resentment from it. But with smaller groups, mods can be closer to their members, and groups who don’t want any moderation can have it their way - they just might be blocked from a server if the admin thinks they’re going to ruin things
I mean, there’s also already instances being blacklisted from the bigger Lemmy servers - they’re not cut off from the network, but the instances don’t talk directly to each other anymore.
And while we’re very likely to see some consolidation, I think a lot of us would resist if the groups grew to rival front page subreddits.
I’d like to see science and technology go in that direction because I’ll deal with flat earthers if it means I can see all the best takes from subject matter experts (and it’s easy to tell the difference), but current events? Already I was on r/animetitties instead of the main news subs, because they have a very strong tendency towards polarization
It’s not pointless, it’s just…not Reddit. Decentralization offers a different approach than they do. All the Reddit exiles come seeking a central authority but lemmy exists explicitly to remove that from the equation, that’s the entire point of the project. There are people working on single server Reddit clone-ish alternatives that may be more your speed, and that’s perfectly fine. Also, for the record, if you want ALL of the c/aww (or whatever) you can just follow every c/aww you come across from 6 different instances, you don’t have to pick one and forsake all others.
In regards to your other point, It’s also important to remember that the developers of Lemmy consider it to be in alpha IIRC, and the system is currently facing loads they wouldn’t have dreamed of a few weeks ago. It’s a learning curve for literally everyone involved but the smart techy people behind it all are working hard to flesh out a stable system for everybody to enjoy as they see fit with no central authority.
That’s one of the cons of decentralization. You take the good and the bad.
One of the pros, on that exact same hand, is if you don’t like a particular c/aww on a particular instance, you can create your own c/aww on a separate instance and give it the rules you’d like to see in a community where people post cute pictures.
I think the mistake a lot of other newbies are making is believing that this is going to be exactly like Reddit and nothing needs changing ever if we merely build it. No, it’s like Reddit, but there are key differences. And you either live with those differences and stick it out until you figure out how it works, you go find another alternative, or you go back to Reddit.
No choice is wrong. Do what works for you.
Coming back to this to say one of the major pros of federation/decentralization is the redundancy will mean you can still get content on Lemmy, even if a particular server goes down. If Reddit goes down, you have to go outside and touch grass. If a Lemmy server goes down, the grass can remain untouched. You’ll get content from other instances.
I think one point they’re trying to make is that it would be nice to have “supercommunities”, for example a kind of community that is the aggregated sum of all the individual communities it subscribes to, so for example super/aww that contains c/aww@1, c/aww@2, etc.
A possible better solution might be to allow the user to create their own group (or super community if you prefer that name) where they can group multiple communities together in a way they see fit (not just necessarily clones of the same community. Examples could be a sports group that allows you to group together communities for all the teams you follow).
This would be beneficial I feel for most users, doesn’t affect decentralization, doesn’t require a central authority and would be only relevant to each individual user and not applied to anyone else
I can’t reply to the other comment,(my first block maybe?) but I wouldn’t hold out hope that Reddit exiles will force the devs to say fuck it and make Lemmy a Reddit clone.
Those are in the works if you want to support those, that’s not what Lemmy is for. Don’t go to a decentralized platform and demand a central authority. 🤷
EDIT: Downvote harder Reddit stans lmao
It’s not a reddit clone just because you can aggregate content, that seems like a rather narrow view. The instances could still host their own communities and the supercommunities could exist alongside one another and choose which communities would be part of them, it would just be a functionality that perhaps some users would find helpful. Wouldn’t even have to be on Lemmy but for example on kbin or another alternative.
Why is that necessarily a bad thing? Wouldn’t it increase the usefulness of federation since it distributes the data but allows for the communities to remain connected to each other? Couldn’t you just not partake of that feature if you’re opposed to it?
Did you not read my comment at all? I’m saying it is NOT a Reddit clone, and shouldn’t give into pressure to become one. The entire point of federation is that instances and communities exist independently of each other, but half of the comments and posts I’ve seen are just bitching there’s no central authority running the show on the system that explicitly touts it’s lack of central authority. It’s going to KFC and throwing a bitch fit they won’t serve you lasagna.
It’s a bad thing (and also not really possible) because it would require a central authority to organize that through. If you want to follow three communities…Just follow three communities. It’s not that hard.
You left Reddit because of the actions of a central authority, went to an alternative that advertises the lack thereof, then cried that there’s no central authority. It’s fine if you want that, but GO TO ONE OF THOSE OPTIONS instead of demanding devs toss their vision out the window for your comfort.
You should stop making statements about what other people want and what they think, it’s usually just reductive and incorrect.
The supercommunity would be a central authority in the same sense that a regular community is a central authority, in the same sense that an instance is a central authority. The supercommunity wouldn’t own all the content, it wouldn’t have to be an exclusive provider, I don’t know what idea you have in your mind that you’re raging against.
Instead of having to follow fifteen /c/aww communities and scroll through all the other communities that you might want to subscribe to for the content you want, it could be nice to just have to subscribe to one that gathers the content of those fifteen communities and keeps it contained in one location for the end-user.
What is your issue with that? That it’s too “like reddit”? If that’s the case, are you really promoting an idea or just a reactionary response?
Then why don’t you just…subscribe to those communities instead of demanding it work like Reddit?
You’re attacking me for explaining how Lemmy works under the implication of “like Reddit or not” while in the same breath screeching that it isn’t like Reddit. If you want a Reddit clone go to a Reddit clone, what’s so hard about that? Giving up the chance to bitch about devs with stated goals contrary to yours not doing the things you want?
I’m not talking about a central authority, im talking about an accumulation of content and voting