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Is Lemmy's growth good and what federation will look like? (self.asklemmy)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by caephi to c/[email protected]

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i've seen the sentiment that most of the growth being on lemmy with .world taking on the large share of users isn't necessarily positive. other than the fact that the point of federation is decentralizing, what kind of issues arise from congregating heavily in a single instance?

i know even in just .world there a few redundant communities and i imagine that this is compounded in other instances. i don't suppose i should expect or even want monolithic communities at the whim of just a few moderators or admins, but i don't want to miss out on discussion and content for communities i'm interested in.

i guess i'm just curious what the development of communities and their interaction should look like with federation, and how browsing and engaging with these disparate but related spaces is going to work for the average user.

apologies if my questions about federation are basic or these questions are well known and understood for those who have been a part of communities like this for longer than i have.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I think it's fine for now, personally. More important to have the overall population on the threadiverse grow and stabilize than hemming and hawing about user distribution.

What the development "should" look like is going to be different depending on who you ask. There's naturally going to be lots of people disagreeing with me here, but here's how I hope things shake out when things calm down and we have a more consistent long-term userbase:

What I hope is that we have a good mix of communal, regional and special interest instances, and a slow decline of "generalist" instances that try and be everything to everyone.

My definitions of those 4 types are as follows:

Communal: an instance where the users predominantly share a worldview and/or social tendencies, so communication and decision-making is easier. Communities on these instances would be focused on these shared ideas.
Regional: an instance for those from the same geographic area and that speak the same language. Communities on these instances are language-specific and region-specific versions of communities from other instances and local news.
Special interest: an instance for those with the same profession, hobby and/or interests. Communities on these instances are all about the specific topic (whether programming, star trek or woodworking)
Generalist: an instance with no real identity or direction outside of being an easy place to sign up.

I think the first 3 are important to the long-term health of the threadiverse, and should be emphasized.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

Here's my spin on your model: Generalist instances will also be important to the overall health precisely because they will be the catch-all where the masses flock, keeping the other types of instances relatively clean and on topic.

Generalists will bring in traffic and be very busy, but people who just want to troll or don't care much will remain in these types of instances, whereas those who have a need to flock as in 1, 2, 3 will jump ship accordingly. Whenever any given generalist instance becomes too overwhelming for other instances, they will be defederated, making them rise and fall at a higher rate than other instances.

[–] caephi 3 points 2 years ago

this makes sense to me. this lines up with my concept of federation as a congregation of distinct forums/websites where they maintain control of their own identity but interaction between them would be relatively seamless. i suppose the direction everything goes in is largely in the hands of users/instance owners so there is a lot that still has to play out.