this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
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That is absolutely what you don't want.
Let's pretend you used to use Reddit. Let's say you wanted to talk/read news about the latest video games. Luckily "gaming" exists. It's a default subreddit (or it was at one point). That must be the best place to go.
Except... It wasn't really. Some folks thought they could do better and thus "games" was born. So now we have "gaming" and "games", two places to talk/read about video games.
Except... They weren't really. While those subs had nobel modding goals it wasn't long before they too had issues. No, only "truegaming" could really be the best community.
So now you have three communities, run by three different mod teams (or at least three different rule sets), "gaming", "games" and "truegaming". Which is the real community? Which is the best community? If you want to start a new community what word are you going to use? "RealGames"? "BestGaming"? "GamingGames"?
Look at this example. Android. I like the Android mods, but what if I didn't? Or what if I think I can do better? Should I make /c/Androids or /c/TrueAndroid?
The nice thing about the Fediverse is that we can all federate with one another but no one is overly in charge.
Like the former Reddit Android mod team? Go sub to them in their instance. Don't like the Android sub on this instance? Don't subscribe. Think the instance admins have made a horribly wrong decision? Move to a new instance. (For the record I'm fine with the decision they've all made.)
Unlike Reddit there isn't one big stupid CEO in charge. Instead there are a lot of small stupid admins in charge (and I do appreciate their work).
Now, as for solutions, yes discoverabilty for Lemmy should be improved. If I find one Android community it should be easy to find others, and not just communities named "Android", but anything related across the Fediverse.
This isn't all going to be solved in a day. Communities will fragment. Instances will fall over. New instances will rise. It's a little messy, but we'll figure it out.
I don't see a problem with the example you presented. The three gaming-oriented communities you listed all have their own cultures that have essentially become tied with their branding, each with their own appeal. It would be more confusing to have three gaming communities all using the same name but with different approaches on how they manage their communities. At that point, you'll have to create a guide on which instances would have the type of community that aligns more with your preferences.
I guess I'd say, without looking it up or visiting them, what is the difference between the Reddit communities gaming, games and truegaming?
If you have to look it up or visit them that's fine, but if you have to look it up then there is no real harm in asking folks to do the same on Lemmy.
We don't need a guide. Each has a sidebar, read it if you want. Each has content. Sub to the ones that look good, unsub from those that don't.
The branding/naming convention alone would at least imply that there are differences in the communities (or there would be no reason why they were there in the first place). Each had their own philosophies on what type of gaming-related content they want to talk about. You don't even have to read the sidebar of each sub to judge the type of community as the content association alone can be easily spotted even with a cursory look at /r/all.
But what happens when each gaming community in each Lemmy instance is largely similar, resulting to just the same type of content discussed ad naseum? People would just eventually converge on where the majority goes. The only reason why I would personally subscribe to similarly-named communities is if each community has a unique take that I both find to my taste.