this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2023
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Although this issue might be more severe for Lemmy, I think it still occurs on Reddit, but it ends up working itself out. For instance, there's also a "r/tech" and (at some point) there was a "r/technologynews" subreddit, which you could view as redundant and possibly confusing to new users. But r/tech seems to have focused on longer-form more in-depth discussion while r/technology is certainly the larger and more general of the two, so most users will probably just sub to the larger one and maybe others will decide they like the vibe of r/tech more. In the long term, I'm sure a similar thing will happen to communities with the same, or close to the same, name.
Yes, but the problem is that your analogy isn't a 1-2-1 comparison. You are correct that at reddit we had r/tech, r/technology, r/technews, etc etc etc, but on lemmy, ALL OF THOSE can be named "Technology" with exactly the same spelling. So, when I'm trying to refer someone to a "specific" Technology, I also have to include the server. A conversation may go, "Hey WooChoo, you gotta check out the posts over on Lemmy. They have the best Technology content on the internet" Then you go to some rando "Technology" on a new lemmy server and you don't see any posts. What are the chances that you come back to me and say, "Hey Debo, remember that referral you gave me 6 weeks ago when we were talking? I went there and there wasn't any users." "Oh, sorry WooChoo, I forgot that you have to go to "THIS SPECIFIC SERVER of Technology" and then you're in a federation conversation when you were just trying to share a hot tip.
I think you're totally right! That's partially why I said it's a bigger problem on Lemmy. Tools like browse.feddit.de will be pretty important; it'd be great if they were placed prominently somewhere.
I didnβt even know browse.feddit.de existed until you posted it!!! Hot tip right there. :)
But on Lemmy you can also give your comm a name (and change it later), so you can have /c/technology on multiple instances and each may have a different name indicating its purpose.
Yes, and this is part of the problem. The great thing about an aggregation site is that it's a collective place for ALL posts about a single topic, say /r/Technology. With Lemmy, you might have DOZENS of /c/technology communities and for you to get the VALUE of the MASS of users, you'd need to subscribe to them all. This is a significant barrier to mass adoption as "my wife" won't be bothered to go out to many servers and subscribe to many communities just to get a reasonable flow of content.
I don't think it will be as much of a big deal as people think. Before the major aggregate sites, there's been web forums. Nobody had a problem with it, even novices users.
Second, it's not like it wasn't happening on Reddit anyway. For example there was r/askscience and r/sciencediscussion. Splinter subreddits were very common, and you might want to sub to 3 or 4 to keep up just with one topic.
It may actually be a good thing, because similar looking places may have a different feel/scope.
I mean, on Lemmy you can also specify a display name, i.e. a short description right on the home screen.
Finally, it tends sort itself on its own. I've already seen one example where 4 communities with the same name popped op, and after one ran away with popularity, another one shut down and the last two just link to the now "main" one. I suspect it will often be the case that just one or a small handful will grow to be major, and the rest will wither off.
Let's wait a bit, these are just the super early days remember.
Youβre totally right. Itβs gonna take a few months to see some clear patterns develop. Reddit only had 8000 some odd active subs. The best should rise to the top quickly.