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Weekly Thread – Ideas for New Communities

a month ago by Vicinus to c/fedigrow

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  • Do you have an idea for a new community? (It would be helpful if you provide some detail about what the community would be focused on and what sort of posts it would contain)
  • Do you have a suggested name for the community? (not required, but if you have an idea, feel free to share)
  • Do you have a suggested instance/server for the community? (some servers have significantly different views on different topics)
  • Are you willing to be a mod of this community? (not to pressure you, just to provide support, if indicated)

Also, let us know if you have any suggestions about this community or post.

Thanks to @stuartml@piefed.social for starting the ball rolling on these types of posts.

JohnnyEnzyme 11 points a month ago

Do you have an idea for a new community?

Not to sound too cynical, but IME the issue isn't with starting a community, it's in finding ways to make it work successfully and to last. A vastly, vastly harder task, and one which I'd argue needs all the input, discussion and help that it can get.

The Fediverse is already littered with hundreds, or thousands of abandoned communities. But a big, collective guide on ways to make them work could be something of huge value to the project.

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CombatWombat 9 points a month ago

I wholeheartedly agree. Having a good idea for a community is very easy, but putting in the legwork over the years to draw an audience is very hard. There isn't some brilliant idea you can have to jumpstart participation with a good name and sidebar, you actually have to show up every day and put in the effort.

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Vicinus 7 points a month ago

I'm definitely with you on that.

One of the points of these posts, I hope, will be that we will find people with the same interests. So that instead of doing everything themselves, they can have a partner(s) to help carry the load.

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CombatWombat 6 points a month ago

Oh yeah, for sure. I'm a bit of the belief that the 1-9-90 rule means that as we expand the 1% that are actively posting, the commenters and lurkers will follow, so I think these efforts to empower new folks to create and run a community are a great idea and effort, and getting folks to feel like they're not alone is a good way to make that more accessible.

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Vicinus 7 points a month ago

Agreed.

In my view, this post and this community is about getting together people that are interested in a topic so that any new communities do have the support they need to last.

We have promotion/federation links in the sidebar, but improvements and suggestions are always welcome. Do you have any that could go into a guide like you suggest or additions to the sidebar?

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JohnnyEnzyme 6 points a month ago

improvements and suggestions are always welcome. Do you have any that could go into a guide like you suggest or additions to the sidebar?

Yes. I'm thinking they should go in to a working guide, and that should be linked in the sidebar. And of course we'd need a dedicated maintainer(s) of such a guide.

As for suggestions, a good place to start might be in understanding just who the Fediverse audience is. Demographics, peak activity times, device used (like desktop vs. mobile), browser vs app, browsing style, and whatever else relevant.

As for browsing style, I'm thinking most users are of the dopamine-based surfing style, and therefore a certain amount of content is best dribbled to them, not collected in to posts over-much. (I used to have that problem / character in my postings, and sometimes still do, for example in the past I probably would have spent way more time on this one)

Loads of people also love to offer their opinions or jump in to correct or answer something, and those make for popular posts, too. IMO any community would be well-served to design much of their posting style to best-fit their audience with these kinds of considerations... something pretty obvious, but still not always followed through on.

One last thing-- I've come to really dislike the word "community" in the FV sense. I'm sure it sounded very social and noble to whoever came up with it, but I think these SubLemmys and SubPies are better understood as a collection of subscribers primarily, many of whom disappear over time. Back when I used WebForums (and even BBS's) there were indeed many places that developed something of a 'community' feel, but things I might expect in those places (the usual avatars, usual talking heads, mutual help) I rarely find here. Now that's not terrible or anything, but I suspect that some FV community starters begin things with false expectations, and that's something that a guide might help temper.

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Vicinus 5 points a month ago

I recall some communities have their own wiki. I don't recall if its a feature for one of the threadiverse software or an add on that specific community made (something to look into).

I believe a few instances do demographic surveys. Given the wide dispersion of people on different instances I'm not sure how reflective that will be to the threadiverse as a whole, but I think, worth investigating regardless. Thanks for the suggestion.

Can you expand on "a certain amount of content is best dribbled to them"? I'm having trouble following what you mean.

Loads of people also love to offer their opinions or jump in to correct or answer something, and those make for popular posts, too.

I think that's a great suggestion for communities to have regular posts in that style.

I don't have any attachment to "community", beyond it already being the standard. That being said I think any replacement would need to be universal and not software dependent (Lemmy/sublemmy, piefed/subpie). I think software dependent terms would just be needless confusing for new people and an added burden to learn the difference(s).

I never used web forums much, can you expand on "but things I might expect in those places (the usual avatars, usual talking heads, mutual help) I rarely find here"? What are talking heads and mutual help in regards to forums?

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JohnnyEnzyme 4 points a month ago

Can you expand on “a certain amount of content is best dribbled to them”? I’m having trouble following what you mean.

Oh, I mean that simply an interesting picture, thought or link can be enough for a post. For example, if I have a dozen post-worthy images along the same theme, they don't need to all be uploaded to Imgur or PixelFed, then collected in to a single post. Instead, they can be dribbled in to twelve different posts over time. Because it's primarily a casual, doom-scrolling audience, so it's probably better for one's sanity to err on the side of casualness when posting. Also, it helps prevent burnout.

That being said I think any replacement would need to be universal and not software dependent...

I don't think that's practical. Just a frank, warts-'n-all description of the standard FV community in the theoretical guide to help community-starters avoid possible delusions.

What are talking heads and mutual help in regards to forums?

My experience with forums is that you tend to bump in to the same people a lot, making it more of a true community experience. People who are friendly in those situations often wind up learning about each other and helping each other out when possible.

With the Reddit model, it's more like strangers dropping in and dropping out all day long, day after day, so it seems much rarer to see the same people, learn about them, and build much sense of community in that sense. It's more of a hive mind IME. Even a single conversion is commonly a chain of multiple people keeping the conversation going, even though at first glance it just seems like two people chatting. I found that pretty weird at first, but it eventually became normal for me.

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Kierunkowy74 3 points a month ago

I don’t have any attachment to “community”, beyond it already being the standard. That being said I think any replacement would need to be universal and not software dependent (Lemmy/sublemmy, piefed/subpie). I think software dependent terms would just be needless confusing for new people and an added burden to learn the difference(s).

/kbin has always called them "magazines" (and MBin retains the name as its fork).

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Blaze 2 points a month ago

Piefed has per-community wiki

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Die4Ever 4 points a month ago

I agree, I actually feel like it would've been better if the creation of communities was limited only to admins for the first couple of years of Lemmy. I believe that's how Reddit started out, with very few communities. Lots of Reddit Alternatives start like this too.

I wish there was a good way to clean up the old dead communities and migrate their posts and subscribers to alternative communities.

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JohnnyEnzyme 3 points a month ago

I actually feel like it would’ve been better if the creation of communities was limited only to admins for the first couple of years of Lemmy. I believe that’s how Reddit started out, with very few communities.

Ah wow, I did not know that. Yeah, I imagine that would have been very helpful on the bigger instances. Maybe allow for a certain amount of communities to be created each month, with people needing to petition for those slots, showing the admins how invested and how much work they were willing to put in. Something like that.

Only problem, that's easier said than done when anyone at all can start up an instance, and they've all been kind of jockeying for position since the beginning. And they all have their individual philosophies, too. Reddit being a unified thing really had an advantage there, I think.

I wish there was a good way to clean up the old dead communities and migrate their posts and subscribers to alternative communities.

When Lemm.ee died, that's exactly why I switched to PieFed. Because PieFed did just that with my own community.

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Die4Ever 2 points a month ago

Only problem, that's easier said than done when anyone at all can start up an instance

Maybe lemmy.world would have been less dominant if people had to use/start other instances to create communities.

Yeah that PieFed feature is good, maybe if Lemmy supports it then people could start deleting old communities. Just gotta make sure the moves federate properly.

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JohnnyEnzyme 0 points a month ago

Maybe lemmy.world would have been less dominant if people had to use/start other instances to create communities.

AFAIK the dev-site Lemmy.ML came first, with the message that 'anyone can run their own Lemmy instance, and run it as they like!' and that got the ball rolling, with the consequences to follow. The genie was out of the bottle at that point, and PieFed's later approach is arguably the most practical way to deal with the fallout (in terms of dead communities).

maybe if Lemmy supports it then people could start deleting old communities.

I dunno about that. I can see an argument that the dead community is worth keeping if it has useful content. Who knows if the migrated sub won't go dead itself, or its instance eventually goes dead, meaning that it's better to hold the material somewhere.

To me this kinda gets back to the idea that there's no guarantee that any individual sub or site will last indefinitely across the FV. It's mostly all user-supported hobbyism, and individuals will always be dropping in and dropping out. Reddit again has a huge advantage in permanency there, since it's profit-driven and became huge.

So the FV tools to migrate are especially important as I see it. To hop from one lily pad to another as old leaves inevitably sink...

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Vicinus 7 points a month ago

I'll start by adding a suggestion from @psion1369@lemmy.world earlier this week: communities for small business owners.

Specifically they are looking for "small business owners who can give help and advice for new business owners like me who don’t have the knowledge to RUN the business."

They were looking to "start a small media and streaming service", but in the same post @Gaspard@sh.itjust.works mentioned farming in the Philippines.

A bit wide of types of businesses, but as psion1369 said they are looking for knowledge to run the [back-end of the] business not the technical aspects for their specific industry.

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psion1369 2 points a month ago

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Vicinus 2 points a month ago

Awesome, subscribed :)

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missingno 7 points a month ago

Been thinking about trying to start up a new Mahjong community. There used to be one, but it was abandoned and the instance it was on died. Just dunno if there'd be enough interest here to sustain it, or if my hyperfixations are too niche for this platform.

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Vicinus 4 points a month ago

You can try it out and post regularly (weekly or a few times a week) with cross-posts to a larger community to see if it gains the traction you are looking for.

!tabletop@beehaw.org seems a bit dead, but !gaming@beehaw.org seems to welcome all types of gaming, so could be a good option. I'd suggest only 1 cross-post per post so it doesn't come across as spammy. Also, the !fedigrow@lemmy.zip sidebar has some links to help federate and grow your community that you may want to check out.

I've made a community (!fedilytics@piefed.zip) that was just my interest (fediverse analytics) and I was the only one who posted in it for the first few months, but usually people would stop by and comment. I found/find those conversations worth the effort of posting. The community has grown a bit and now there is another regular poster and potentially a couple irregular posters.

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Auster 2 points a month ago

There was a community on the defunct lemm.ee (RIP) for deer images, similar to how there are communities for foxes, raccoons and bats. Maybe worth making a new one?

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Vicinus 1 point a month ago

Appreciate the suggestion. I'll add it to the list :)

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