I'm splitting this into two parts. First identifying the issue. And second my personal idea for a solution. I'm hoping for a lot of discussion so please be clear which part you are responding to.
Part 1: The problem
Reddit as a platform has many flaws. Obviously being a corporation means they're terrible no matter what. But their platform is also flawed. Even if Reddit was 100% community owned the platform would still be flawed. The number one thing that is ruining Reddit are the tyrannical mods.
Each community on Reddit is a dictatorship. Whoever is arbitrarily in charge of a community has full unrestricted power to do whatever they want. The people who are actually creating the content and sharing it are totally at their whim. I understand that modding is a difficult and thankless job, but toxic mods ruined Reddit and Lemmy will do the same if it's not addressed.
Lemmy's answer is to allow people to create their own instances. Don't like the mods at World? Go make your own Lemmy, with blackjack and hookers. But that's not sufficient. It takes years to build up a community to have enough people for meaningful discussion to happen, and nearly all communities or instances fail. We absolutely need a way for mods to answer to the users.
Part 2: My solution
My solution is simple. Lemmy is built on the community. Everyone helps run it. Therefore mods are elected by the users who generate the highest upvoted content in a community.
Elections should happen on a schedule and, if a community is particularly upset with a mod, a vote of no confidence can be taken.
I understand that this will be a huge undertaking. But I truly believe that we need to fix this issue for Lemmy to thrive long term. Or else we'll just end up with another Reddit.
How do you choose without losing the community?
If other people choose differently than you, then yea obviously you're not going to be in the same place. That's everyone's own choice. Live with it or choose the same as the community you want.
But how can I have things my way, and also ensure that you have things my way, too, if we're in different places?? Huh? Didja ever even think about that?
Who says the community won't choose the same as you? And if they don't, are you really sure you want or need that community? Move forward with the people who agree with you, don't covet the ones who don't. If your ideas and differences which are driving you to fragment the community are not aligned with the community as it stands, yes they might end up lonely and unpopular, and that might just be because they're not compelling ideas or they're not offering anything that most people want or are interested in. Inertia is not necessarily a bad thing, it's just how the laws of physics work.