Back with newsgroups the general rule was to go from general to specific. You start with a general discussion group and when discussions about video games get annoying you create a games group. If then there are too many Baldur’s Gate discussions you create BG. If they are dominated by Baldur’s Gate 3 you create a Baldur’s Gate 3 group. If everyone is fawning over Withers you create a Withers group which of course will be flooded with discussion about the Withers’ tits mod, which shall get its own group.
Meaning you should create a group when demand is there and not the other way around.
The generalist advice only works for topics that are not controversial. If there is any outrage in the discussion talking in the general area will be very negative and never get into the core issue you want to discuss
As someone who runs multiple niche health and diet communities I can literally feel the burn everytime the topic comes up in a general discussion.
Here is a community promo post for a diet community https://hackertalks.com/post/8398344 50% downvotes and 31 comments all negative
Here is the first introduction post for the community https://hackertalks.com/post/5677435 75% downvotrs, and 40ish all negative comments
I’m just trying to illustrate how anything controversial needs to be protected and sheltered for meaningful growth. All the negativity that can be delivered has a real chilling effect on new user participation
My general rule is to not generalize in general.
I think both ways work. Obviously if there is a demand not being filled, filling it would be good.
But also, sometimes people don’t even know they want a thing until they are presented with it. Example: Funhole.
I agree, this is why I launched only a single community on my new instance called !generalbullshit@lemmitor.com - on instance !generalbullshit@lemmitor.com - federated for all your general bullshiting needs. Post whatever is on your mind, helps if you’re funny.
Absolutely. It’s just that redditors are used to the existing order and want to see it replicated in lemmy immediately, jumping over the underlying steps of community growing.
Agree. Most of them weren’t there when reddit started and just think their niche communities were always there. Before everything there was just /r/technology. Then that splintered. And again, and again. I think same thing happens here. When communities get big enough they splinter.
When communities get big enough they splinter.
The issue is that community don’t get big enough because people want to replicate the niche communities from the get-go, without ensuring a sufficient user base for the niche
I don’t know, this kind of reasoning seems to create too much empty “content” and not enough real communities. Yeah, creating a bunch of generalist coms will get traffic and engagement, but the people there don’t actually share anything in common, it’s just a time waster.
I don’t want Lemmy to be a time wasting app, I want it to have genuine communities with valuable content instead of endless AskReddit, AITA, AIO, etc etc etc. Therefore, I’m of the opinion that people should create communities about their hobbies and create high quality content there, which will drive demand. If the community ends up too specific, they can always just cross post to a more generic one as well.Hello,
I see you commented on !movies@lemm.ee. Would you qualify it as a community with discussion, or just a time waster?
I guess movies would be a specific enough topic for me, but what I mean is people with a passion for, say, film noir shouldn’t wait for film noir fans to show up on a thread, they should just create the content and hope the others find it.
I want to be clear that I’m not judging any “time waster” type of communities. It’s fun to discuss random questions during downtime at work, it’s just not where a strong community is formed. Reddit lives on through everything precisely because of the niche communities, not because of r/pics or somethingI suppose part of the problem with many nicher community concepts is that on here, for many, it is often screaming into the abyss. You can’t keep a flow of content going in many cases. Meaning it just sits there quietly. And if someone down the line happens to join lemmy and be interested, it’s conceivable they’ll see the small community you made, think its dead, and then make their own. I think niche communities can work, but there needs to be a way for the owner to post new content every day without just seeming to talk to themselves. My ObscureMusic community works in that sense because I have a large amount of obscure music that (if anyone’s noticed) I’m going down alphabetically lol.
I actually think the answer to this is that lemmy needs some kind of built-in categorisation system.
There are some people I have noticed just screaming into the void and I somehow stumbled on their community by chance. If I have any interest I follow and try to post too, and even if I don’t have interest I at least toss them a quick “I see you, community building is hard, good luck!” message. I cannot lift up every community by myself, but I can at least try to help a bit with anything I fall into that I have at least a mild interest in.
That’s what the weekly fedigrow post is for too, feel free to redirect them there, it might help them
Yeah, I was holding off because I’m still compiling the list lol, that is why I only ever popped it in that comment and not in a new thread yet. Want to find gaming genre communities that aren’t just my personal Subscribed list to add, that feels selfish otherwise
Piefed has topics: https://piefed.social/topic/tv-movies
Oh, I forgot about this site. I certainly can use it to do proof-of-concept for ideas here, but I’m thinking more of beyond me. A wider-used tool (and imo with more/better categories)
with more/better categories
Users can create feeds too: https://piefed.social/feeds
Who adds to them?
Instance admins
Yeah television@lemm.ee isn’t there so its a bit outdated (as is television@lemmy.world still there) so its very outdated. I get the concept tho.
The problem is that trying to talk about very specific things in a general community will just result in silence if no one in the general community knows/cares about the very specific thing.
On Reddit, you can type /r/nameofanygame and find a sub populated by people who also found it that way. This obviously cannot work on Lemmy, not outside of a few very very very popular games. But for games that are too niche to have fandom spaces here, directing the niche fandom elements to !games@sh.itjust.works isn’t likely to fit there either. Some of my favorite games are titles that I might just literally be the only person on Lemmy who plays them, so I just don’t think there’s any kind of space for them, general or specific.
I play a lot of Riichi Mahjong, and I saw that !mahjong@lemmy.nerdcore.social already exists, so when I see some interesting content I try tossing it over there in the hopes that if I keep doing so, maybe at some point more people will eventually join me. Would I be better off posting to !boardgames@sopuli.xyz because generalist good, specific bad? Probably not, I doubt anyone there is interested in deep technical What Would You Discard? analysis. Maybe the most surface level casual/beginner content might fit in, I could crosspost a basic How to Play tutorial there, but content that is too specific doesn’t make sense in that kind of community.
Some of my favorite games are titles that I might just literally be the only person on Lemmy who plays them, so I just don’t think there’s any kind of space for them, general or specific.
What genre are those games? There is
- !jrpg@lemmy.zip
- !citybuilders@sh.itjust.works
- !tycoon@lemmy.world
- !strategy@lemmy.world
- !soulslike@lemmy.zip
- !arcaderacing@lemm.ee
So maybe there is a genre category that your game could belong to?
lol I have been trying to compile a list of all active video game genre communities to release here at some point, thanks for helping me with some I did not know of, here’s what I had so far
- !adventuregames@lemm.ee (also has puzzle and interactive fiction)
- !automationgames@lemmy.zip (replaces dead feddit.de community)
- !citybuilders@sh.itjust.works
- !cozygames@lemmy.world (replaces dead feddit.de community)
- !crpg@lemmy.world
- !dailygames@lemmy.zip (for quick once-a-day web games like Wordle)
- !incremental_games@incremental.social
- !jrpg@lemmy.zip and !jrpg@lemmy.world
- !lifesimulation@lemmy.world
- !otomegames@ani.socialo
- !rhythmgames@lemm.ee
- !shmups@lemmus.org
- !soulslike@lemmy.zip
- !tycoon@lemmy.world
- !visualnovels@ani.social
I play a fair amount of stuff, some mainstream enough to post here, some not. But genre-wise I’d say my biggest favorites are fighting games and versus puzzle games.
!fgc@lemmy.world exists, and I do post there occasionally. But the games I play (Skullgirls, Them’s Fightin’ Herds, Under Night In-Birth) are the niche-within-a-niche, I’ve drifted off from the wider mainstream FGC.
Versus puzzle games… I’m the guy who been very disgruntled over the fact that the genre as a whole is dead and buried. There’s just not much of a community for these games anywhere anymore.
Last year I published a video essay about how Sega’s mismanagement slowly killed Puyo Puyo. I did post that one to a few communities here, because “In-depth video essay about a game you’ve never played but will still find interesting by the end of this video” is a genre that can fit into a general space.
But that kind of video essay is the only type of content that I think I could post here. I don’t expect anyone to take an interest in competitive highlights, coaching, analysis, etc. Last week we got some more news about Sega screwing up again, but that’s still not something I’d expect to generate discussion here.
It’s not just how niche the games themselves are, but the distinction between the type of content that fits a general space versus content only hardcore fans will even understand, let alone take an interest in.
Somehow !adventuregames@lemm.ee has also absorbed puzzle games there. Not where I’d think to look but okay.
If you made a puzzle game community I’d totally follow and post whenever I see one.
Sadly I do not really engage with video essays because… ugh, video, I’d rather read an article. Shame, because I wish I could say “I’ll engage with this high quality content!” but truth is I have some I reject on personal tastes too. But I promise there are people who will, even if it is only a few. Speaking as someone trucking on with some communities of like… one other person, and I am lucky to have even gotten them because I was screaming at the void for awhile now.
Depends. Communities can create demand. Like !outofcontextcomics@lemmy.world .
It got launched by one poster, took off, and it’s awesome. It wouldn’t have fit into a more general comics community.
Indeed, but I feel in this case the topic is still broad enough that enough people saw the appeal and wanted to contribute
For some groups there is no visible demand because they are too niche for general discussions.
Do you have any examples in mind?
A good example would be !formula1@lemmy.world. I don’t remember seeing anything about Formula 1 outside of this community, yet it exists, and people have some discussions.
I was also thinking about !flightsim@lemmyfly.org and !xplane@lemmy.world. Theoretically, the chain should look like this: general discussion -> gaming -> flightsim -> xplane. In practice, the last two are so small that it’s hard to imagine them manifesting in a general discussion about games. The example of Baldur’s Gate 3 is way too simplistic given how enormously popular that game is.
Both flightsim communities are practically dead. Does that mean they shouldn’t exist and that they can’t grow without notable demand elsewhere? I don’t know. I want to try and test that hypothesis by adding content. I just know from my experience that when I’m searching for a niche community and see it’s dead, I drop it. But if there’s even minimal activity, I might subscribe and participate.
I think what needs to be tacked on is you need the generalized communities to point to the niches. Sure, you can start the formula1 or flightsim community immediately - that group already exists outside the fediverse and you just need to give them a new location. Sure.
But for your niche communities, you need the general community to be a launching off point for the others. You need the gamer who’s interested in different controllers to see the other flightsim community exists and decide to follow it too. You need to give the average person a way to discover the community without already knowing explicitly that it exists.
Otherwise, you’ll only attract people who are migrating from one service to another(and doing a 1:1 swap of their communities) and not reach the general audience. A lot of hobbies or communities I’ve joined were because of someone else mentioning it in a different but related community.
Think about people in general: no one starts by saying they want to program data tables in Python. They start with a general interest in computers and move on from there.
Otherwise, you’ll only attract people who are migrating from one service to another(and doing a 1:1 swap of their communities) and not reach the general audience. A lot of hobbies or communities I’ve joined were because of someone else mentioning it in a different but related community.
I don’t see how we contradict each other. I didn’t say we shouldn’t create general communities. My point was that we don’t necessarily need to wait for a visible demand in a general community because it might never manifest itself for smaller things, although people might be silently looking for them.
We don’t really disagree. I think you should make the communities. But I also think they won’t grow until they’re being mentioned on the general community.
FYI, lemmyfly.org is on sale, the instance doesn’t exist anymore
If you want to keep !xplane@lemmy.world active, you can promote it on !communitypromo@lemmy.ca, and probably other flight communities like !aviation@lemmy.zip
on sale
I’d probably use “for sale” in this context. “On sale” colloquially means “available at reduced price”, and GoDaddy’s price for lemmyfly (4.9k$) seems pretty high for a .org.
On Reddit there’s a couple (animal) trapping subreddits, one of which I run. While very active they typically have less than 100 people in them.
I could see a something like a generalist Hobbies communities leading to the creating of a more niche Trapping one
I don’t think “hobbies” makes sense as a generalist community. No one is interested in “hobbies” as a general concept, they’re interested in their own specific hobby. Trying to consolidate completely unrelated hobbies into one space in the hopes that more people will subscribe won’t work if those people have no common ground to discuss together in that space.
I think something you’re missing is that “we create communities as needed” has an inverse as well. “We delete communities as needed”. Sometimes you create the general topic and it’s so general that all of the niches overtake it. When that happens and the general just isn’t needed, you prune it. No community has to exist forever and sometimes it’s only purpose will be as a reference point to others. And sometimes even that isn’t needed anymore and it vanishes too.
It’s a constantly changing, dynamic system. The point is that it should cater to what’s needed/being used at the moment.
At this moment, there are at least a few manual hobbies that could coexist on the same community
They don’t have to be as interested in the other ones as their own niche, but at least they can share space and activity.
You could potentially have an “outdoor hobbies” with fishing, camping, animal trapping etc.
You kind of already see this when all of those hobbies can post to !imadethis@lemm.ee
Depends. There is also value in growing a niche community one post at a time, even if you are the only poster there for weeks or months.
The main risk is community building fatigue when you see another community getting most of the activity.
I stopped starting to grow !photography@discuss.online because of that when I saw that !photography@lemmy.world was getting most of the posts.
In general, yes.
I went and made !otomegames@ani.social instead of glomming into the existing visual novel communities half because someone else had started an otome community that died, so I felt okay making one (and then another when the instance died).
And half because 1) most of general gaming communities does not care about anime romance visual novels aimed at women and I did not really want to see a bunch of name-calling towards us, and 2) although the only currently-active visual novels community would be fine to post to, when I started there were more and the audience was very much dudes who like women. Although there is an overlap between people who play games aimed at horny straight men and people who play otome games (I know some!), it’s much smaller, and most otome players I know are women who do not wanna see VNs where we’re highly sexualized. I can understand the same for men not wanting to see VNs full of our romantic fantasies (although the dudes in ours are less-often sexualized). I am cool with games aimed at horny men existing, but that does not mean I want to step into a space posting them all the time, the same way I am happy to let other people eat lemons but I’m not putting one in my mouth.
The current !visualnovels@ani.social probably would not reject otome posts, but what it used to be probably would, and the old VN communities probably would too; and most though not all otome players would reject the greater surrounding VN community of the past (what it currently is on ani.social would probably be accepted) because of how often what was posted there would turn out to be galge and not more gender-neutral stuff anyone could like like Ace Attorney.
Finally, the way !newcommunities@lemmy.world and !communitypromo@lemmy.ca reacted to a post for a game aimed at women, !infinitynikki@discuss.tchncs.de, with tons of downvotes, was either not very encouraging for anime content that was still gaming content getting put in general communities (especially because one commenter explained they mistook it for a game meant to titillate because the icon was an anime girl even though part of why I really like Infinity Nikki is because it is a nice open-world game where women aren’t sexualized, but I can still have nice hair physics and clothing physics), or for content aimed at women getting received well in general spaces.
We’re small but I’d rather have this than nothing, or posting in big communities and getting constantly questioned about why I play a game where you can date fictional men instead of putting myself on the market in real life (lots of otome gamers are in happy, healthy relationships in real life! Or are not interested in relationships but still find fictional romance fun, or have trauma and are in a stage in their recovery where fictional romance is okay but looking for dates in real life isn’t. In my circumstances, a relationship would be nice but I know I could be happy without one too, and sticking my neck out on some dating app or going to a bar would inevitably get me horrid behavior I have never faced in real life yet. So I’ll keep living my daily life, which involves interacting with other humans, sometimes men, but not disrupting it by going to a bar as a non-drinker and non-dancer or downloading a dating app).
I don’t want to be presumptive but I highly doubt the downvotes for the Infinity Nikki post was because it’s a game aimed at women. It is a gacha game, and the general environment around the Fediverse is extremely hostile to that type of monetisation, or any type of microtransactions really (and I would argue it’s justified). I bet you anything that is the primary reason for the downvotes.
Hey, thanks for the explanation! The primary idea I had going on was mostly about people mistaking it for a titillation game aimed at men because that is the one someone explained in the comments there, anyways. The women idea is something I actually just thought of typing up this post, lol. I did say I got a progressive vibe from the Fediverse, not a sexist one.
For what it is worth it is indeed gacha, but none of that is required for meaningful progression in-game. From what I have heard of other gacha games you have to have some rare units or whatever from the gacha to pass some actual game content. I can do all story and gameplay stuff F2P. I think most Style Challenges can be beaten more easily with gacha but were all able to be beaten F2P, and all Style Challenges gating story content can be beaten F2P. As far as gacha goes it’s pretty good. If they start locking actual gameplay, and not just rewards, behind gacha then I’ll get pissed and leave. I play because high-quality game aimed at women, which is really rare. I usually also avoid gacha games and also dislike microtransactions.
There will always be exceptions - I doubt you can find any space, online or in person, that is completely free of prejudice and misogyny - but overall Lemmy is extremely left-leaning and progressive in my experience.
From what I have heard of other gacha games you have to have some rare units or whatever from the gacha to pass some actual game content. I can do all story and gameplay stuff F2P.
That is actually very common practice. You can beat the story in Genshin and Honkai as F2P too yet those games rake in billions every year from people playing the gacha. In fact, many games rely on the F2P promise to lure people in, to then later hope to snare them into paying. It’s all about getting them through the door.
I’m happy you are able to enjoy the game without falling prey to the monetisation, and I hope you’ll be able to stay restrained and without reaching for your wallet. Gacha is an inherently problematic type of game that abuses the same psychological mechanisms that turn people into gambling addicts.
I do not play that much gacha and only hear stuff, so thanks for telling me that that is actually normal and not revolutionary—the way I hear it told is you have to have that five star SSR unit to clear some gameplay content or whatever.
I know myself. I’m very good at getting my time sucked from me, but my actual money? I’m extremely stingy with that when it comes to media given my very picky tastes (I’ll express interest in lots but in the end I only bother to actually pop for a few things) and the huge amount of media out there, even moreso when it involves paying for MTX. I think I’ve spent maybe $20.00 over 15 years on any game with MTX total. Paying for microtransactions, especially in-game currency that gets used to roll the virtual dice (instead of to make a 100% guaranteed purchase of something), makes me feel filthy in a way buying a whole new game or buying a guaranteed thing does not, especially because I learned about the gambling thing at a very young age. (I did spend $5.00 on in-game currency once, do not regret it but will never do it again.) And because I had the privilege of education about tactics used both in lootboxes and regular gambling at a young age, I always looked down on it before I ever tried it. I never will try real gambling, although I did eventually try games with lootbox mechanics. I still have my distaste for that monetization model, I’ll generally avoid most games with it, but because those two deliver me specific things I want in a way where I do not feel any pressure to spend money, I continue to play. Thank you for your concern, though. I understand being opposed to that monetization model. It’s not where I draw my line in the sand but I do understand others drawing it there.
I also played a ton of F2P with premium currency as a little kid just because they hadn’t all implemented a way to defeat just shifting forward timers. I did have to put in extra effort but in return I earned premium currency or progressed through the game faster than I was “supposed to” without paying real money to get that faster advancement. So that probably informs my willingness to go near the gross transactions with video games but not in real life gambling.
Could be, but let’s be honest too, the comments made during the “would you rather encounter a bear or a man in the woods” also showed some bias on the platform
oh god when was this posted and when did this drama fire happen ;-; with no context that sounds so much more like ragebait aimed to get women with traumatic experiences to say “bear”, then pissing off non-rapist men who do not want to be feared as much as a dangerous wild animal that guns often do not put down quickly, than a legit question
I personally saw it more as a sign that as a society men should still work to make sure than women feel safe.
I follow French news, and the bear thing happened at the same time as two large trials
So 50 men in a random small town in France (“Not monsters, ordinary people”), and the venerable figure of one of the most beloved French person, have been convicted of rape.
Not to say that there isn’t ragebait in the initial question, but the societal issue is still very present.
Finally, the way !newcommunities@lemmy.world and !communitypromo@lemmy.ca reacted to a post for a game aimed at women, !infinitynikki@discuss.tchncs.de, with tons of downvotes, was either not very encouraging for anime content that was still gaming content getting put in general communities (especially because one commenter explained they mistook it for a game meant to titillate because the icon was an anime girl even though part of why I really like Infinity Nikki is because it is a nice open-world game where women aren’t sexualized, but I can still have nice hair physics and clothing physics), or for content aimed at women getting received well in general spaces.
Yeah, it was definitely sad to see. Feels like the Threadiverse as a whole seems to mostly share one single opinion, which is indeed not even really justified
Just want to clarify it could be both reasons or just one of them. I do get a nice progressive vibe from the Fediverse, not a sexist one. People were good and nice about the WomensStuff community. I am hardly the person to turn to sexism as my first explanation for things—in other words I’m no stereotypical angry feminist and my hair has never been dyed, thank you very much. But individual assholes who break that norm do exist, hence me still wanting to be cautious about sexist behavior in my OP
That seems in line with your previous posts and comments, so no surprises here!
By the way, have you heard of !WomensStuff@lazysoci.al ?
check my edit lol
I am not going there specifically because most women-only communities I have been in have complaining about sexist men and the patriarchy, and this one will allow it. I come to internet communities to have fun, not to doom about other people facing oppression and how some day my bubble will pop and I’ll face it too (yay for being a counter example to “every woman has a [sexual assault] story” because I do not and god I hope it stays that way). I understand the value of a support community, I have just repeatedly found that most support communities end up being unhealthy places for me specifically.
Especially because they almost always “punch up” at the majority, and I understand why it happens but holy hell do I really not want to see it, makes me all kinds of uncomfortable and angry even though I am usually part of the minority demographic punching and not the majority getting punched at. My energy is far better used fighting for minority rights in real life than getting pissed at them online (and tbh I’ll probably never stop getting mad when I see that kind of language, yes I know their explanations and justifications for it which is why I stay out of their communities so I don’t see the upsetting talk instead of lecturing them on why they should not vent frustrations in a safe space for them cordoned off from the general public, where venting that does not make “obviously this is venting” and “this doesn’t apply to everyone in the majority ever” disclaimers can be expected).
I wish them luck, and in their first days I did send a list of communities other women might like.
Makes sense, thanks!
This what I think at the moment, even if there might not be that much demand for the community yet:
It is better to try start building it now if you are on smaller instance to fight centralization
I agree, but at the same time there is something as community building fatigue when you see another community getting most of the activity.
I stopped starting to grow !photography@discuss.online because of that when I saw that !photography@lemmy.world was getting most of the posts.
Also hopefully by this week-end the LW and aussie.zone delay will be solved (more details on !meta@aussie.zone)
I stopped starting to grow !photography@discuss.online because of that when I saw that !photography@lemmy.world was getting most of the posts.
Do you think there’s a technical reason for this? I wouldn’t expect this considering we have https://lemmy-federate.com/
Maybe it’s just the UX of Lemmy-UI preferring local communities?
There’s also the other case where you start a comm on a smaller instance, and then later on someone starts the same comm on l.w. and gets by default more activity >_<
Yeah definitely…
Maybe !photography@fedia.io works better, since it seems to be also showing Mastodon and Pixelfed posts?
Oh that’s a great idea especially for a pictures community. That’s actually making me think about moving !deus_ex@lemmy.ml to fedia.io
Edit: I don’t think I see any Mastodon or Pixelfed posts there? I see a lot of LW
At this point just moving off .ml might be a reason in itself as there appears to be a large contingent of people who outright refuse to touch anything hosted there. Or maybe those are just a vocal minority, I don’t know.
Or maybe those are just a vocal minority, I don’t know.
Not sure. At this time, the .ml communities are still more active
So I guess some people want to move off .ml, but the majority just prefers to use the most active comms
Yeah I’ve definitely thought of that issue too lol (I didn’t create that community), moving people is hard but maybe that doesn’t matter cause the community is kinda dead anyways
Oh, cool one, I didn’t know about it. Seems quite active too, thanks!
I think it’s a discussion with having, but I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all answer to it. I think as a default, it’s probably a good idea. Don’t create more specific communities when more general ones will work.
As an example, Reddit has /r/Brisbane, /r/movingtobrisbane, and /r/brisbanetrains. But there’s only !brisbane@aussie.zone (there’s also a trains one, but it’s dead and irrelevant for these purposes, IMO), and I think this is for the best. Anyone interested in the more specific content can easily go to the more general community, and there’s likely to be at least a passing interest in that anyway.
But there are times when a more general community is inappropriate, because the audience for one of the specific parts is not interested at all in the other specific parts.
And I think your BG3 example is a good one of the latter. A general gaming community is not a good place for detailed discussions about a particular game, because most people in a general gaming community aren’t interested in that. They’re a good place for announcements about games and larger scale discussions about franchises, developments, and trends in gaming. But not about specific strategies, lore theorising, or patches of specific games.
If you can expect a majority of the audience for a particular Community to be uninterested in a significant amount of content, that’s the sign that a more specific Community should be made, IMO.
You just shouldn’t start a community and expect others to post in it a lot 🤷 Most people are lurkers anyways, and the prolific posters are probably already busy with their own communities. So especially in the beginning, it is yours to carry, so chose a topic you are personally interested in and know enough about to regularly post and make good comments. People will come if the community is worth it, the specialisation doesn’t matter.
Edit: but you also shouldn’t prematurely split off specialized communities like often the case with Discord channels.
People will come if the community is worth it, the specialisation doesn’t matter.
!eurographicnovels@lemm.ee has been kept active by @JohnnyEnzyme@lemm.ee and the other mod since the creation of the community 2 years ago, so I’m not sure people will come whatever the specialization of the community.
Oh rabbits-- you know something– I will always try to do my best, for BLAZE.
Not easy for a single user to constantly posts content for weeks or even months and still almost nobody else is posting
You just shouldn’t start a community and expect others to post in it a lot 🤷
Also, that’s not what the post says. The post says to only fork a niche community once the more generic community sees a lot of content from that niche. It’s not opening a community and waiting for people to magically arrive.
I can definitely see the value in this. Just to use !dcstudios@lemmy.world as an example, there’s still little enough activity as it is. And if they tried to create separate communities for every series and movie and cartoon like it was on Reddit, instead of just one community with not enough activity, there would be 10+ completely dead communities.
And on that note, I’m still keeping an eye out for this general alternative community that was being floated the other day. Because while it’s nice having communities specifically for punk, goth, industrial etc, I think that right now it would be even nicer to have a general purpose alt community where people can discuss anything from music to style to attitude.
general alternative community that was being floated the other day.
Did anything happen on that regard? @Sergio@slrpnk.net @CheeseToastie@lazysoci.al
You mean !gpral@hilariouschaos.com ? Yeah that’s there, I think when it was announced a lot of people disparaged it bc the community is on a pro-MAGA server, looks like the announcements were even removed (details).
One problem with an “alternative” general community is that, say, punk plays a big part of some people’s identity and life philosophy but they may not identify as “alternative”.
Yeah I saw that the thread had been deleted but before that, something gave me the impression that it was going to get remedied or moved to another instance. Pretty disappointing to hear that seems to just be the end of that, to say the least.
@CheeseToastie@lazysoci.al and @Sergio@slrpnk.net (can’t ping Alice as my instance defederates HC), would you want to move a general alt community elsewhere? @Zero22xx@lemmy.blahaj.zone , would you like to help building the community?
Yeah looks like that’s not going to happen lol. At least in this current wave of users. Feel like that’s the second time in recent weeks that my wish for more of certain things on Lemmy has been granted by a monkey’s paw because those things are here but I’m locked out anyway lol.
I have been thinking of shopping around instances again but either way, I’m not interested in associating with MAGAs on a seemingly well known MAGA instance that appropriate subcultures that are all about freedom, individuality and non-conformity while simultaneously condemning anyone that doesn’t conform and supporting politicians that make those people’s non-conformity illegal.
I’m not willing to ‘meet in the middle’ with these people, in fact I’m not even sure what the ‘middle’ of respecting human rights and individual freedom or not respecting human rights and individual freedom is even supposed to look like. Maybe it looks like being ‘punk’ or ‘goth’ or ‘metal’ but choosing to hold hands with the nazis instead of punching them.
And I don’t want to start anything but the fact that the big reveal that this instance is Exploding Heads 2.0 didn’t result in immediate plans for the community to be moved is kinda eyebrow raising to me. And making me wonder about a couple of things here and do a bit of reassessing of the situation…
That all said, I’m not the moderator type. But as someone that doesn’t really ever fit in anywhere and so prefers the banner of ‘alternative’ to choosing some specific subculture or way, I would gladly interact and help however I could if I community like that popped up somewhere that people can go and feel safe that they’re not going to be harassed by bigots. But I’ll wait to see if that happens with the next wave of new users in this place.
I would gladly interact and help however I could if I community like that popped up
Actually just want to clarify here, in case this causes me to get roped into anything. I’m actually too much of a flake to rely on for being intimately involved in building online communities and shit right now. I might be active here constantly for months and then disappear without notice for a few more. Also, life is pretty shit, I’m in a years long rut, I’m bored of my current music rotation but somehow helpless to change it, my wardrobe is ancient and all of my cool shit is starting to fall apart, I’m constantly broke and I don’t even know how to make ‘friends’ anymore.
So while I call for and wish for these things here, I’d probably end up just doing a lot of lurking and wishing and saving posts for ideas or to get back to later (then never look at them again) anyway. So yeah, I’m not the one to make the community and promote it and shit. I just wish they were there to escape to.
Thanks Alice has worked really hard on her community and there’s loads of posts there, so it’s not moving. Starting from scratch would throw that away. 😊
Nah, we just rebooted !gothindustrial@lemmy.world and have several daily posters now, I’d rather build on that than move and start all over again. Besides, there’s a lot of “alt” stuff that doesn’t really speak to me, so if everyone moved I’d just stay behind and wait for it to come to life again. (In fact, being alone on a dead community is kinda goth, lel.)
Hey, if you’re looking for communities to merge, !punk@lemmy.world and !punk_rock@lemmy.ca are both mildly alive, and their mods have been absent for a year or two.
