Over the past few days, I've witnessed a remarkable surge in the number of communities on browse.feddit.de. What started with 2k communities quickly grew to 4k, and now it has reached an astonishing 8k. While this exponential growth signifies a thriving platform, it also brings forth challenges such as increased fragmentation and the emergence of echo chambers. To tackle these issues, I propose the implementation of a Cross-Instance Automatic Multireddit feature within Lemmy. This feature aims to consolidate posts from communities with similar topics across all federated instances into a centralized location. By doing so, we can mitigate community fragmentation, counter the formation of echo chambers, and ultimately foster stronger community engagement. I welcome any insights or recommendations regarding the optimal implementation of this feature to ensure its effectiveness and success.

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[–] Weerdo@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hmm, I don't disagree with the fragmentation but that's the nature of any new social platform. It's also been proven out that eventually one or two communities for a topic will become the dominant one with the others falling into disuse.

Attempting to merge communities early or artificially will cause moderator strife as minor disagreements balloon. Especially in a multireddit community where no one mod(team) has absolute control.

I don't have a reason from a technical point of view, but from a social one. Forcing communities and instances together early will only cause strife. After a few years where two communities have a track record and proven 'behavior' would the multireddit not cause issue.

[–] OptimusPrime@lemmynsfw.com 4 points 1 year ago

Every moderator would have control only over the content displayed on their instances, and not on everyone else, as it should be. The argument about having one or two large communities is a recurring one. There is no reason to have federation if we are going to centralize communities in a couple of instances. Then, if one of those instances shuts down, everyone in those communities would have to migrate. The main benefit of federation is decentralization.