Do you think they are actively trying to become moderators of those communities or is there a chance they're trying to recreate the subreddits they're accustomed to?
this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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there's no way to tell, but if past behavior is any indicator of future intent...
The way that the fediverse works should make it more challenging for someone to squat on communities. There are plenty of instances which means there is plenty of competition. Am I missing something?
I've seen at least one problematic individual I know from Reddit on here, creating and requesting communities en masse.
They even had the gall to enter the Instance Administrators Matrix chat and ask dessalines why community requests were taking so long.
I'm not sure if they've quite understood how the fediverse works.
That's not exactly how it works, FMA in communities and groups is usually that most users will likely consolidate towards single locations over time, lemmy.ml being one of the larger instances. Just because other communities can be created on other instances doesn't mean there is any actual competition (once late into the game), unless the communities themselves are so far broken or unusable or poorly moderated that a migration event does occur elsewhere.
It's the reason why subreddits like /r/pics have millions of subscribers and /r/pics2 is barren. Sure, it's not exactly the closest analogy, but lemmy.ml isn't going anywhere. Once adoption occurs, say in a few years time, do you think people are going to move communities?
Regardless, there isn't an argument for an individual user to be able to be moderator of several dozens to hundreds of communities.
I still don't get it. If a r/pics mod goes to lemmy.ml and makes c/pics, I can go to lemmy.ca and make c/pics, and you can go to kbin and make m/pics. You're right that probably one of those pics communities is going to end up being the favorite but that doesn't mean the others can't post good relevant content. Also no one needs to "move communities" you can subscribe to every version of pics that that exists. I'm subscribed to multiple different communities of the same topic because each of them are going to have their own slant or take on the topic. Over time the content and comments will be what determines my favorite of them, not which is the biggest.
On the fediverse I think content is king, much more than anywhere else, simply because there can be so many versions of the same topic. The one that rises to the top will be content based, not based on server or who the owner is. I can create 50 communities, but can I post 50 communities worth of good content and foster 50 communities worth of good comments? I mean, maybe. But probably not.
Once adoption occurs, say in a few years time, do you think people are going to move communities?
I don't know. This is all new to me (and thank you for engaging with me and helping to educate), so I don't know what will incentivize or discourage people from shifting between communities, but based on what little I know, I don't see why they wouldn't since there is very little friction to doing so.
Your subreddit analogy feels very apt, actually. r/pics2 might be a graveyard, but I can think of two instances where part or most of a community moved to an alternate version of the subreddit, largely because they didn't like the moderation.
Go to r/Cubs, created September of 2008. It's got a reasonably healthy 28k subs, but the posts and comments are pretty lackluster and gamethreads are graveyards. Contrasted to r/ChiCubs, which was created 7 years later and has nearly 3x as many subs and is a much more active community - essentially this is the subreddit for Cubs baseball fans on reddit.
Very similar story in r/publicFreakout and r/Actualpublicfreakouts, the latter of which splintered off from the former on largely idealogical grounds.
Many people move between them, some people participate in both, and perhaps one day one of them will "win" if the other withers away.
It seems to me a similar dynamic could play out across instances of the same subreddit name if some old reddit power mods come and squat on communities before they are fully formed. To use a fake example, [email protected] vs [email protected]
Yeah, I do think people will move communities. This happened all the time on reddit when a mod or mods were being terrible and it's even easier to do on Lemmy, so that is very likely to happen.
I just did the latter. Made every community I liked on reddit but couldn't find here. There is zero mod work needed so far but when there is I don't want to hold a monopoly. Though on some other federations I have seen the former happening.
@CorrodedCranium Well, some of these individuals are ones on Reddit that are moderators of 300+ subs, it's kinda telling, isn't it?
What needs to be done?
If c/technology on Lemmy.world gets squatted on by a power mod that wants to power trip, that doesnβt mean anything for c/technology on Lemmy.ml or any other instance. Thatβs the beauty of it.
Not only that, but I'd argue the "Power Mod" still may have done us a service by getting the (IRL) community rolling.
Exactly! That's the great thing about the whole concept of Federation; it means that if you don't like how a community is moderated you can make your own on a different instance. And if you don't like any of them or demand even more direct control, you can spin up your own instance.
Yeah and the instance admins can also step in as they'd like (which may drive traffic to/from their instance based on their decisions)
If you're concerned, just don't sub to them. Just creating communities in itself shouldn't really be a problem, I'd rather hope for the best than assume that every person making these is a power hungry basement slug.
That's fair but my assessment is rather than enabling that behavior, cut it off at the source by limiting the number of communities to be made per user. Sure, there'll be alt accounts, but it's better than just looking the other way and pulling another Reddit.
But that isn't the point of Lemmy.
The developers have no control over what communities get created by design.
Anyone can become an admin, so Reddit power mods can go to the friendliest servers or create their own.
The system is designed to not be able to enforce what your are describing.
Squatting and similar problems should be solved by the admins of an instance, not the whole "environment". And you can be fairly certain that someone squatting on 10+ communities won't be able to nurture them, they'll be eventually outcompeted by the others.
This is true. Even if there are 12 technologies and you sub to all of them, it hardly affects the end user. The true question is: which community will the users post and comment most on? Most likely the best and most reasonably moderated community.
I don't think anything needs to be done that isn't already possible. If someone on your instance is taking 50 communities as a mod and you think it's abuse/malicious/powermodding, report them to your admin and see what they think. Other than that, just don't sub to their communities.
What's the problem with this?
If they can moderate that many groups to the standard each community is happy with is it an issue?
Centralized power in the hands of a few is a bad thing. People have been complaining about power-tripping Reddit power mods for years.
Because what happens when they don't mod to the standard the community wants?
Then people leave and make a new community on a different instance.
Or even a new community on the same instance if they like that Lemmy.
Or the instance admin steps in and makes changes themselves
I'm not understanding your concern. If there's a powertripping moderator that's causing trouble there are options. The group can split and migrate elsewhere, just like the reddit migrants have who came here.
The fediverse is much harder to consolidate tightly. There are 5 New Zealand communities for example spread across the fediverse currently. One is large and the rest are tiny. If the mod/admin for the large one started being a dick the users would move elsewhere after a lot of whining. This was not as easy on reddit because there could only be one /r/newzealand. Currently there is [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], New [email protected].
If there was a powertripping moderator on a large group like [email protected] the site admins can remove that mod if it was causing trouble for the overall site.
More communities more fun!!
Yeh, you don't have to sub to those communities.
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