The content on all the communities seem different.

Why didn’t the “copycats” get the “this community name has already been taken” message?

It was bad enough at The Other Place finding one overlooked sub about one of your interests.

Now you have to find every single community in every single instance if you hope to talk about your topic?

I mean, look at this:

No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world

No Stupid Questions@kbin.social

No Stupid Questions@lemmy.ca

No Stupid Questions@mander.xyz

    • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Wait until they find out that there used to be hundreds of websites all talking about the same thing?

      And it was magical.

    • 0rly@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      Can you be any more condescending? Op has a point, it is not ideal to have the same community on different instances. There is no need to be a dick about it.

      • dangblingus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s not the same community. It’s 5 different communities on 5 different instances that all happen to have the same name. It will be the owners of those communities to determine whether or not they want to consolidate.

    • dmention7@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, as someone who used to frequent car forums back in the day, one way I think about it is you might have Mazda, Subaru, Ford, Chevy, etc specific forums. And they all had subsections devoted to suspension upgrades, with a lot of content that would look really similar to someone just getting into cars. But they also met the different needs of the different communities, and had their own vibes and culture.

      Now imagine all those communities could interact with each other directly, and you end up with something like what we’re getting with the Fediverse.

      Or maybe I’m just too hung up on analogies, idk.

      • postmateDumbass@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Thw internet was much better before corporations dug their teeth in.

        Better as in more information, much of it useful, but far less monetary reward for narcissism.

  • ZagTheRaccoon@reddthat.com
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    1 year ago

    There are 5 different forums on the internet about this topic.

    You don’t have to join all or any of them. But they are each available to you.

  • fubo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    You don’t have to. You can, if you want. You have options in your life. You could always just go plant tomatoes instead. 🍅

    • AmidFuror@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      But then there would be my tomatoes and the ones at each of my local grocery stores. Am I supposed to go get some from everywhere to enjoy tomatoes?

      • snooggums@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I go to two different grocery stores to get different vegetables because they have varying quality. For example, if I want tomatoes I go to store 1 and for onions I go to store 2. For carrots I go to either because they are fine at both.

        So if two instances have tomato, onion, and carrot magazines/communities with similar quality patterns I might want to sub tomatoes at one, onions at the other, and carrots at both.

        I just want an easier way to find all of the instances that have onions so I know what I might be missing at the local farmer’s market. Or find out that a new farmer’s market opened up!

      • MorrisonMotel6@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        It seems to me like there are 5 places the grocery store has tomatoes and and you need to check all 5 places before you know which place you should buy from. Then, maybe next time you’re at the grocery store, a different spot will have the better tomatoes and there are also 3 other new tomato stands in the store.

        I’m definitely grateful for lemmy or kbin or mastodon or wherever the fuck I am right now as a reddit replacement, but this shit is confusing and annoying

        • TheDoozer@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I think the idea is people coming from a grocery store where all the fruit and vegetables were centralized in a “produce” section and then going to a Farmers’ Market and complaining that multiple stalls sell tomatoes and having to visit all of them to go tomato shopping.

          At least that’s what I’m getting from these comments. I’m new here too, and getting used to it, but I get a Farmers’ Market vibe.

          • MorrisonMotel6@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            That’s a good perspective. Thank you for that. I’ll try to look at it like a farmer’s market from now on

          • ImFresh3x@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            Essentially no watering. Only works with places with some mild temps, a 20 inches of rain per year, and some morning fog etc.

            Where appropriate climate and soil conditions exist, growing dry-farmed tomatoes can be a good option for specialty crops growers. Dry farming generates an intensely flavored crop much prized by consumers and retailers.

            A limited number of geographic regions are suited to dry farming, which requires adequate winter rainfall and—in the case of annual crops—a summer-time marine influence that generates cool mornings and warm afternoons. These climatic conditions, combined with careful soil preparation, appropriate variety selection, adequate plant spacing, and vigilant weed control are all required to successfully produce dry-farmed crops.

            https://agroecology.ucsc.edu/resources/publications/grower-guides/pdf-downloads/dry-farmed-tomatoes.pdf

  • Ranessin@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    So? Reddit has about 10 sizeable Subs that are just a variation of “Ask Any and All Questions”. That’s not even counting speciality subs like “MedicalQuestions” or “ITQuestions” or “DermatologyQuestions” or “AskTrangender”. Or the different language ones like “FragReddit” (German). In the end 1-3 will become the major ones, all will be a bit different and everyone will find the ones they like most.

  • Kill_joy@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    This is how the world works. On Reddit there were multiple subs that covered the same topics, but the mods developed different cultures and vibes through moderation tactics and sub policies.

    If you want a car, there are different companies who all provide one but with different options. Same goes for ISPs, TV networks, restaurants, and schools.

    It isn’t at all a new concept and I’m not sure why people coming from reddit continue to get stuck on it. Subscribe to them all and as they mature unsub from the ones that develop into something you don’t feel like you need.

    Posting to all of them will be easier when cross posting is possible on Kbin (it is already possible on Lemmy) but developments like that often take time.


    Adding an edit as I’ve thought a bit more: I think it’s important, for those coming from reddit, to truly understand why the Fediverse exists. The intention is to be open source. To ensure that there is no single source of power. There are ‘unlimited’ options (instances, magazines, etc.) to ensure that it cannot be swayed, corrupted.

    This is why people are coming from Reddit - you are seeing what happens when one corporation has the power and sets the terms.

    I think it’s lovely to dip your toes here, ask questions, and see if you’d like to stick around. But please do understand the intention is not to be Reddit 2.0. We should not try to turn it into that.

    • TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world
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      It isn’t at all a new concept and I’m not sure why people coming from reddit continue to get stuck on it.

      Because having communities with an identical name on different instances will fracture the community. Given the hallmarks of the fediverse this is practically intended, to my understanding, but it is bad for initial growth and coherence of posts. This happened on Reddit as well, of course it did, but the way instances are completely separate and communities can have the exact same name compounds the issue.

      • FaceDeer@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        There is no “the community”, though. These names don’t “belong” to any one specific group of people, there’s no “there can be only one” mandate.

        As an example of why “there can be only one” is a bad thing, there’s /r/StarWars and /r/SaltierThanCrait over on Reddit. When the Disney Sequel trilogy came out there were some Star Wars fans who liked it and some who didn’t, and it became such a contentious subject that those who didn’t like it were literally driven out of /r/StarWars and had to create /r/SaltierThanCrait so that they could discuss their opinions without being downvoted into oblivion or outright banned. Why should they have had to give up the name StarWars, though?

        Another example is /r/Canada and /r/OnGuardForThee, which was a similar sort of schism - /r/Canada got “taken over” by right wing moderators and those who weren’t of that particular political bent ended up having to make a subreddit with an unrelated name. Why should one group and not the other get to name their community “Canada”?

        • TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world
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          You make good points. I think name squatting and squabbling over who is the “real” community was prevalent on Reddit, and the way it works here fixes that.

          But I still think that a downside of decentralization like this is splitting the activity up, sometimes unnecessarily, and making discovery of new communities just a bit harder. It’s not a deal breaker by any means, but I think it’s an issue that will have to be addressed either by Lemmy UI updates or third parties.

        • niktemadur@kbin.social
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          there’s /r/StarWars and /r/SaltierThanCrait over on Reddit

          Those two spaces had differing stances.
          There also the case of InterestingAsFuck as opposed to DamnThatsInteresting, because why the fuck does “Fuck” have to be in the title?

          But then there’s shameless karma-farming duplicates, like ComedyCemetery and ComedyNecromancy.

      • Kichae@kbin.social
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        Because having communities with an identical name on different instances will fracture the community.

        They’re different communities on different websites, though. Trying to force them all into one space is erasing all communities but one, just for the sake of having to see an @website.com address, or for pretending you’re not missing out on something when you ignore 99.9% of posts and comments that end up in the space.

        1 million users discussing a topic spread out across 1000 communities of 1000 active users leads to more vibrant and meaningful discussions on that topic than having 1 million of them all crammed into one place, shouting and competing for slivers of attention. And no one will miss anything of deep value in the 999 other communities, because people will cross-post the good bits anyway.

        • TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          For the record I don’t think what OP describes would be right. But I am certain there are better ways to mesh together disparate feeds into one and have all discussion at least be cross-referenced - something better than just crossposting. Because while

          1 million users discussing a topic spread out across 1000 communities of 1000 active users leads to more vibrant and meaningful discussions on that topic

          May be true, it doesn’t hold true at smaller scales; a hundred users spread out across ten communities of ten active users each is pretty much a ghost town.

          • Kichae@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Indeed, there’s a viability threshold for a community, and it’s probably on the order of 100 active users. Having them spread out isn’t doing any of them any favours.

            But that points to the need for and importance of discovery tools. Community tags, better search, better federation tools, better back-linking and cross-posting tools, user-defined lists, etc. The Misskey/Calckey “Antenna” saved-search feature would actually be very powerful in the threadiverse, particularly if coupled with community and post tags, and would really improve the visibility of new or undersized communities to those who are looking for them.

            But forced amalgamation across independent and independently operated websites definitely isn’t one of them.

            • TheSpookiestUser@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I don’t think it should be forced, but I think some kind of option for “amalgamation” should be available, either user-side (multireddit-esque thing, etc.) or community-side.

        • GunnarRunnar@kbin.social
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          Yeah let’s get to that million first before splitting everyone. It’s really not helpful in the current state.

          And there are actually options besides “this is how it currently works so it’s good”. Like some kind of federated communities/magazines where when you post to one it’s posted to all of them. And I’m not saying it would be technically easy to implement, I have no idea, but I’m saying there are always room for improvement.

          Near-identical communities/magazines with the same exact goal isn’t practical.

    • MeowdyPardner@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I think this answer is the most accurate. People get too hung up same names on different servers. There will always be multiple versions of a community whether they have the same name on different servers or whether one of them snagged the og name and others prefixed with Real_x / True_x. Imo I like it this way better because there’s less favoritism to the one that comes first / people can’t universally squat on a community name

  • Copernican@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I think there will probably be a natural selection of which one prevails. But each instances may have different rules and different mods. So follow and unfollow the few that have what you like. It would be nice in the future though to ability to create aggregate subs or find aggregate subs like a multi-subreddit for a given topic.

  • Zyansheep@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year ago

    There are multiple communities because these are all different servers, which don’t coordinate community names with each other.

    There are some feature proposals on the lemny issue tracker that try to address this issue in different ways…

  • wheeldawg@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Can we get some multicommunities that can include some of most active for a given community across whichever instance they’re in that can be subscribed to at once?

    Or does that feature exist already and I just don’t know about it? There were multireddits before. Not quite the same use case, but similar concept.

  • eldavi@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    the whole fediverse requires a more effort on your part than reddit ever did. i hate reddit now and left permanently, but i know that the fediverse will never be able to replace reddit and reddit will continue to flourish.

    • BURN@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      100% this

      I don’t want to have to curate every part of my feed. I find myself missing r/All constantly while browsing the local pages.

      There’s too many responsibilities on the user, which for some people is a huge plus, but for the average consumer is a huge drawback stopping them from joining a new platform.

    • TheEntity@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      FB and Twitter were flourishing for over a decade with me never being a part of it. I’m okay with Reddit flourishing without me, I’m happy where I am right now.

      • eldavi@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        i wish i could say the same about being happy here; i find myself missing the subs i use to visit and it’s only after moving away from reddit have i started to realize how ultra niche those subs are.

        however i’ve been wanting to spend less time with a screen in my face and the recent reddit assholery coupled w the lack of content from the fediverse is going to force me to make that change in my life and i see it as a good thing.

        • TheEntity@kbin.social
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          I miss some niche subreddits but in general I appreciate the digital detox it forced upon me. I can live without these niche communities. It’s not like they provided me with much more than fun trivia or memes on topics I already dabble in either way.

          • eldavi@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            the content from those niche subs is next to impossible to find on my own so i don’t get to dabble anymore; but i saw losing it as a digital detox too.

      • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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        Of course you’re welcome to that opinion but it’s a fundamental design feature of the fediverse.

        There’s no central point of control. Anyone can create an instance and create their own “No stupid questions” community.

        There are obvious benefits if you’d care to consider them but if not it’s fine if the fediverse isn’t for you. There’s always reddit I guess.

        • Hangglide@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          There is nothing stopping the fediverse from checking with other instances to see if a name is already in use. That would be a pretty cool feature to avoid a whole bunch of duplication.

          • can@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            They’re not duplicates. Remember /r/games and /r/gaming? Both with unique moderation styles? Well now they don’t need different names.

            • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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              Yup, this is just as easy If you notice one of the “nostupidquestions@fucknuts.com” communities is always posting edgy bullshit, you unsub and go on your way. No different than unsubing from “Actual” or “True” variants on reddit.

          • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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            1 year ago

            Yes there is.

            It’s decentralised. There’s no central authority.

            Even if lemmy imposed that restriction, you could just fork the code and remove it.

            • PlutoniumAcid@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Wait, he’s got a point though: Why not something like this:

              A user wants to create a new community. He enters a name, then the system checks and informs that “the fediverse already has a community by that name +here and +here.” The user may still create this same community on this instance - or he might say, hey cool thanks, and go subscribe to (one of?) the existing ones instead.

              • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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                This would only help if people creating these communities were not aware that communities with the same name exist on other instances.

                Even if this feature did discourage someone from creating a new community, some other fief lord would be along shortly to create it.

                I did feel the same way about multiple communities initially, but now I’ve been here a while I realise that it’s just not a problem - just subscribe to all of them, that’s the solution.

        • DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          To some extent perhaps but I don’t think that should be the objective.

          Just subscribe to all the “no stupid questions” communities. It’s no big thing.

          • BradleyUffner@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            New ones get created all the constantly. Are they supposed to spend all their time monitoring every instance for new variants of a community?

      • Pyro@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Ah yes, just like how having multiple email providers is stupid. We should all just use Gmail as a the single source of truth! /s