Modlog: https://feddit.org/modlog/242334
Tl,dr: got a 3 day banned for pointing new joiners to !buyeuropean@feddit.uk , a more active version of !buyfromeu@feddit.org
Context
!buyeuropean@feddit.uk was established to promote European products and services. It got popular recently due to the US decision of potentially dropping support to Ukraine. It had a diverse team of moderators, and was getting some activity.
A feddit.org user (potentially unaware of the existence of the first community) decided to create !buyfromeu@feddit.org
They deleted their Lemmy account after, but promoted a new moderator before leaving.
This moderator created a post to vote about keeping the feddit.org community, or consolidating with the feddit.uk one: https://feddit.org/post/8679890
That vote itself is kind of debatable, as the only option to vote for the consolidation was to downvote, which is not enabled on instances like Blahaj or Reddthat. Also people tend to upvote more than downvote, so the votes expressed may not reflect the actual opinion of the community, but anyway.
Usually, I don’t really care that much about consolidation, there has been a lot of parallel communities for a while, like
- !android@lemmy.world and !android@lemdro.id
- !movies@lemm.ee and !movies@lemmy.world
- !privacy@lemmy.ml, !privacyguides@lemmy.one, !privacy@lemmy.world, !privacy@programming.dev, !privacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
It’s not that big of a deal usually, but this case is a big different due to the BuyFromEU movement.
BuyfromEU movement and Lemmy new joiners
https://old.reddit.com/r/BuyFromEU/ is getting quite large recently, even getting some press coverage. There are a few posts promoting Lemmy over there, with more or less success.
What happens then is that people join Lemmy, just look for “buyfromeu” and find the feddit.org community, while the feddit.uk is actually much more active. Some stats:
- 1.04K users / day
- 2.34K users / week
- 3.02K users / month
- 3.02K users / 6 months
- 1.9K subscribers
- 125 Posts
- 1.34K Comments
- 3.79K users / day
- 8.11K users / week
- 8.86K users / month
- 8.92K users / 6 months
- 2.7K subscribers
- 354 Posts
- 5.58K Comments
The main issue with this is that as the usually is kind of active, they think that the feddit.org community is the main community on the topic, while the feddit.uk is much more active. So I started to check for new joiners account, and if they hadn’t posted or commented on the feddit.uk community, I would point them to it, with comments like
Welcome here!
A few pointers for you:
The sidebar also lists a few complementary communities to this one, such as !buyeuropean@feddit.uk or !europe@feddit.org
Apparently this seems enough to give a temporary ban. The mod team is also quite expressive about the “consolidation cannot be discussed stance” https://feddit.org/post/8905532
Just to add some more context, those are the type of comments I give to every new joiners. Some recent examples
- https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/17196236
- https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/17196078
- https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/17196020
Now, a last section about why I’m personally in favor of consolidating.
Federation and decentralization is about spreading power and responsibilities, not splitting a small user base between different places
Some people argue that consolidating communities goes against the spirit of federation and decentralization. However, for people posting content, there is a consensus that our small user base can only sustain so many communities. Splintering the discussion between places is detrimental to the whole platform. Example of recent consolidations:
In the buyfromEU / buyEuropean case, we see people asking recommendations on the same topics on the two communities, while they might have seen a post from the other one is there was only one: https://feddit.org/post/8925080/5204057
Note that there are cases when new communities need to emerge due to power tripping mods. But here, the feddit.uk mods and admins have been good, no such issue to be reported.
Also, quite a few communities are “the main ones”, without any parallel community
Choice overload and decision fatigue are a thing
Too many options hurts users’ decision-making ability. How they feel about the experience as a whole can be significantly impacted as a result.
https://lawsofux.com/choice-overload/
Isn’t one for European Union and the other for the whole Europe?
The text what to expect says, that we are focusing on the EU, but if other befriended countries slip through we are not enforcing rules. We called it a soft limit, so pepole tend to limit themselves, rather than mods jumping each post.
https://feddit.org/comment/5211878
Due to the inherited name, buyFromEU we would like to soft limit the discussion to the European Union countries. We are tempted to read this as EU + friendly countries as long as this is within reason.
https://feddit.org/post/8545702
Wouldn’t consolidating lose people?
An example of successful consolidation/migration: https://lemmy.world/c/football
Shouldn’t people see the other community from the sidebar?
Sidebars aren’t usually visible on a lot of apps, on Voyager for instance people have to actively look for it:
https://vger.app/search/lemm.ee/c/buyfromeu@feddit.org
Why is this case different from other parallel communities?
Due to the growth of the /r/BuyFromEU sub (now at 148000 subscribers), some posts promoting Lemmy are appearing every few days: https://old.reddit.com/r/BuyFromEU/comments/1j7vkrg/the_european_hosted_reddit_alternative_lemmee_is/
As you can see, the main comment is about community split across instances. The commenter was incorrect about the working of federation, but us being unable to provide one community for the discussions to happen isn’t putting Lemmy in a good light as a viable Reddit alternative.
Finally, feddit drama! Now I feel right at home.
Enjoy!
Can I interest you in !fedidrama@lemmy.ca?
Wasn’t it !fediverselore@lemmy.ca ?
On yeah, that first one needs new Mods.
It would appear that sub’s not ready yet.
You are only guessing based on the title across the top of the page.
PTB. Leaving a comment like this doesn’t hurt anyone, even if it’s on every post. The mod just doesn’t want to lose power.
Some people can’t gey away from the centralised mindset. Why not both instances? That’s the essence of the Fediverse!? It’s not a zero sum game, unless I’m missing something…
You aren’t missing anything, especially if they have different contexts.
The only issue I see is that when the same articles are posted to different communities the discussion is split. But that also happens for similar, but not identical posts even within the same community when they are posted hours apart.
especially if they have different contexts.
What is the different context between the two communities in this case?
Well, they’re on different websites, for one. That context, despite what many here want to believe, is meaningful.
I was speaking in general, not this exact scenario.
But if they merged, all posts on the topic are at the mercy of the instance admins and mods. So if a community for buy EU was on an instance that limited all posts to English, users wouldn’t be able to post in German like they can on feddit.org. not saying the UK would do that, but it would apply to an all English instance. Or the posts could be in the context of the instance location. Like a similar community on lemmy.ca would probably be focused on buying from the EU with the context of shipping to Canada.
No, I won’t be spending my time finding the ratio of these two exact communities because I am disagreeing with the need to consolidate in general.
not saying the UK would do that
We won’t.
A lot of people get ants in their pants over the idea of people talking about the same or similar things in different places, for some reason. Decentralization’s just a buzz word, I guess.
Decentralization’s just a buzz word, I guess.
That’s why communities should be evenly split amongst instances. There’s no need to fragment the conversation unless the 2 or more communities have differing cultures.
Yeah I’d say PTB. They’re more interested in maintaining control, than what’s good for the users and community.
PTB.
Ideally the communities should be consolidated in this case. But if they aren’t (e.g. they’re geared towards different target audiences), there’s no harm on linking one from another.
Clearly consolidation is a bad idea here. Feddit.org community mods are idiots unfit for modding.
We need decentralization to fight these clowns
It’s recommended in the sidebar? And you got banned for quoting that??
With all due respect to the other mod, i’m going with PTB.
But here, the feddit.uk mods and admins have been good, no such issue to be reported.
Phew.
😄
I’m a good girl. I swear!
You have the Blaze Mark of Approval - it doesn’t get better than that.
That’s a shame. I’m guessing the new sudden mod responsibilities went to somebody who isn’t ready for it.
Yeah PTB
Oof, that is really unfortunate behaviour there. I know moderating can be tough and sometimes emotionally charged, but this really seems like overstepping their boundaries to the detriment of the community. Especially considering I know how much work you have been and are doing for fediverse growth and content.
Also, might be interesting to crosspost this to !fediverselore@lemmy.ca - although the community there can sometimes flipflop from actually interesting and insightful to slightly toxic.
Thank you for your comment!
Fediverselore rules prevents posting about events you are involved in
Looks like German cucks big mad haha
this is eerily similar to my experience
