While larger, more general communities are thriving on the Fediverse - I'm missing out on the niche communities

Gaming, news, tech, general literature. All of these are somewhat thriving, with a steady influx of posts and comments. At the same time, the userbase is sorely lacking for more niche communities. In my case it'd be stuff like poetry, yoga, religion, linguistics, meditation. Or many other communities I'd doubt they'd form a larger userbase here, at least to the degree that it'd foster good discussions. Communities where there are a larger amount of "normal people", that are not tech-aware, and who have no interest in migrating off centralized corporate solutions. That just want a large space to discuss what they're interested in.

This for me at least, makes it hard to completely leave reddit (or even Facebook and their groups!). Do you think the fediverse will ever reach the point where this would become a non-issue?

exohuman,
exohuman avatar

It just takes time for these communities to form.

Gull,

There are existing communities and there is an exodus, so it shouldn't be necessary for the entire process to repeat from scratch.

sadreality,

From culture perspective, sure... But content don't generate itself.

Izzgo,

But content don't generate itself.

With enough bots and karma farmers it sure seemed to lol.

PillowTalk420,

What if we had some kind of artificial intelligence that just generated content? 🤔

sadreality, (edited )

Except it generate corpoporate PR and ads :/

First few times it was cute, than it turned into spam

hariette,
hariette avatar

Yup!

flta,

I was on Reddit for over 10 years and it only became a place for niche communities when they got rid of defaults. Kbin/Fediverse will get there in a few years.

SunburyStudios,

I personally think that's when the front page turned to crap. It was nice, curated, not insanely covered in alt-subs with bad actors.

donuts,
donuts avatar

On top of that, we can't expect communities to POOF into existence.

We have to be part of them to build them, which means making them if they don't exist yet as well as posting and commenting in the ones that do exist. I hope that people who are used to lurking on Reddit will go out of their comfort zone a bit and start to participate in fediverse communities so that we can build things up more quickly.

MadBabs,

I’m okay to help re-create some spots I’ll miss, but up I have to mod them?!

NomadJones, (edited )

What is the consensus on the etiquette of creating new communities/magazines with the names of the still extant old subreddits (particularly when you're not a mod of the old subreddit)?

eleitl,

Reddit doesn’t own these communities. The members do. Inasmuch these mods are interested in helping or were complicit in making Reddit a toxic place should be for the new communities to decide.

cacheson,
cacheson avatar

I've seen some magazines put a note in their description that the owner is willing to hand it off to the mod team of the corresponding subreddit. I think that's a decent compromise in order to welcome the old subreddit to migrate over and maintain continuity, while also not waiting around for other people to act.

eleitl,

I would suggest using great care in accepting new mods coming from Reddit. Do look at their history with their community and what they shaped the community into.

cacheson,
cacheson avatar

Well, yes. Obviously only do this if you thought the mods were doing a good job with that subreddit. :)

donuts,
donuts avatar

I'm not really sure... but the way I see it it's probably fair game.

Communities aren't something that somebody (reddit, specific moderators, etc.) owns, they are just concepts that people latch onto. And, for me at least, I would rather see popular communities exist here if people want them to, especially since you can have multiple communities under the exact same name on different servers in the fediverse.

In other words, if you want to bring over a specific reddit community I think you should just do it.

sadreality, (edited )

Yesterday lurkers are going to need to be today's commenters and posters!

I see y'all lurkin'
Not postin'

wanderingmagus,

Here is my post tribute.

NotTheOnlyGamer,
NotTheOnlyGamer avatar

They're just following rules, man:

Rule 33. Lurk More - It's never enough.

And yes, the pool is still closed.

samus12345,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

Patrollin’ and tryna catch me lurkin’ dirty

TechDiver,

i was a reddit lurker for 10 years. i didnt even have an account. today i made my second comment here. hello world

sadreality,

Chad!

defeater,

I feel attacked

sadreality,

You are being drafted. We are sending you out to colonize the fediverse!

TechDiver,

yesssir!

metaStatic,

I'm doing my part

Usually_Lurker, (edited )
@Usually_Lurker@lemmy.world avatar

And my axe! something something name checks out.

Orbitrix,

Yea I was a prolific commenter but I think I only created maybe 6-8 posts in 14 years on reddit, and certainly never created a community. So I might have to step up. Regardless of reddit, I absolutely love the idea of the fediverse and the decentralized nature of it, so I really would like to see it succeed. It really does have to be the way forward on the internet to avoid corporate interests.

donuts,
donuts avatar

Yeah! I mean, of course it's nobody's job or obligation or anything, but if we want this place to pop off we gotta put something into it. :)

DrNeurohax,
DrNeurohax avatar

Same. I think we need some way to coordinate the initial burst of content for some of the smaller subs. I hate to say it, but maybe we need to assign "homework" - Request (not require) new subscribers to contribute unique stories or info relevant to the mag/comm on some type of schedule.

Something like:
"As we try to grow this new community, we want to hear from you. We're asking (not requiring) all new subscribers to start a new post within their first week covering some aspect of the topic they find personally interesting or that they feel could help others. Just add "(1P)" to the title of the post. It doesn't matter if it's something you said elsewhere, if you're new to the entire topic and just want to post a bunch of questions, you have a funny story to tell, or have a super niche specialty.

Also, we should consider having more moderator-level users in subs to reduce the burden of moderation. It's more daunting if you're asked to be one of 3 mods than it is to be one of 15. We should also look into incentivizing moderation duties, but there's probably a much longer discussion to be had about that.

Izzgo,

This sounds like a great tradition to encourage and support. On Reddit I was pretty danged chatty & responsive, but almost never started my own post. Maybe at most once a year. I hereby commit to upping my participation game to include some actual posts to some of the quiet magazines I've subbed to. Thanks for the push.

DrNeurohax,
DrNeurohax avatar

And YOUR exuberance has inspired me to commit to upping my post game. I was never a big poster on Reddit, but mostly because I just didn't want to deal with the contrarian and amateur professionals fallout. It might be best to focus on the niche communities, since that's where the real valuable stuff exists on Reddit.

Good luck out there!

warden,
warden avatar

Same here. The voice in the back of my head says "be the change you want to see in the world", then I'm like "nah that's too much work"...

Hatchet,

Working on it! Right now, with this huge influx of new users, is a great time to create content that is very search engine friendly. In an effort to promote such content, I started the dance community here on kbin. Please join!

https://kbin.social/m/dance

xXGanondorfXx,
xXGanondorfXx avatar

Thank you for starting a community! I hope it's a great experience ^^

Hatchet,

Thanks for the encouragement!

AzureDusk10,

Ooh, fantastic! Amateur house and locking dancer here. Joined!

Hatchet,

Let's go!

Doll_Tow_Jet-ski,
Doll_Tow_Jet-ski avatar

Amateur dancer here
Just subscribed too. Thanks!

Hatchet,

Yay, thank you!

fearout, (edited )
fearout avatar

I created a couple of communities that I used to post to on Reddit:

Industrial Design and Jewelry Design

I’ve been working in both fields for years and I’d like to help build up these communities within the Fediverse.

Whether you’re a designer working in one of those areas, or are simply interested in them, feel free to join :)

Hatchet,

Best of luck to you!

fearout,
fearout avatar

Thanks.

Also, just noticed that I’ve replied to you instead of replying to the post itself, not sure how it happened lol, sorry. I guess I misclicked.

0x1C3B00DA,
0x1C3B00DA avatar

The fediverse grows in waves. This was the first wave for the threadiverse, not The Big Wave. Nows the time to let the lead devs catch their breath, prepare for larger userbase and contributor base, and work on critical issues and let contributors start to polish UX issues. The next time there's a wave, this will be a much better place and we'll be ready. That's when you'll start to see a lot more niche communities able to sustain themselves

drumdonuttea,
drumdonuttea avatar

I noticed there didn't exist a niche community that I'm passionate about so... I created it! It's like any other new platform, it just takes time.

sadreality,

Chad approach on life

TriLevelSync,

I really want to take this attitude but I just don’t have time to become a moderator.

drumdonuttea,
drumdonuttea avatar

Yeah that is understandable.

borzoiteeth,
borzoiteeth avatar

My hope is once a community has built up enough that I can dump the mod powers on someone else.

TriLevelSync,

I’m not mad at that. I’ll probably hold off until there are decent mod tools then start seeding some niche places.

borzoiteeth,
borzoiteeth avatar

Best of luck getting your old niché communities back!

eleitl,

Delegating is a good approach. Picking people you can trust is however not easy.

borzoiteeth,
borzoiteeth avatar

It's not easy at all! However there is less pressure with the federation system now. If the community goes way off base one can make another.

orientalsniper,

Funny you say that, Reddit thinks mods grow on trees.

theragu40,

Yes, as I understand it you simply remove your unpaid workforce and there are throngs of capable masses waiting in the wings ready to take the yoke of thanklessly propping up your multi-billion dollar company on their shoulders for free. I don’t know why this isn’t perfectly clear to everyone.

delirium,

why do you doubt it? there are thousands of new people flooding in daily. set up the mags and post for engagement? sounds like a lot of work but I understand what you're missing, my communities are not here either, but I'm going to do my best to make a space for them.

Treedrake,
Treedrake avatar

Just because it'd require a larger momentum than what we have now. But yes, I've been trying to contribute as well, so I'm trying to not sit idly by. I might just be a tad pessimistic, even though I like what we're all trying to do.

justheretoroasts,

Lemmy is just not as approachable or user friendly as other social media. I consider myself pretty tech savvy and even I’m not 100% sure I completely understand how the Fediverse works.

Yeah, it may be better than alternatives for a lot of reasons but not for the ones that matter to most people. Imagine the people that use Reddit casually. They’re likely even less willing to try new things. People want stuff that “just works”, they don’t want a long winded explanation about networks and decentralization.

cacheson,
cacheson avatar

While lots of people are suggesting creating communities for your niche interests, I think it's even more important to to find niche communities that others have created and contribute to them. Obviously you can do both, but if you've got limited time to post it may be better to focus your efforts, and be the "first follower" rather than the leader.

I've been doing this for /m/Animemes and /m/anime_irl, just making one post per day in each. There hasn't been a ton of other activity yet, but the subscriber counts have been growing steadily, so we'll get there.

I've also been wanting to build up /m/Bitcoin in the same way, but I don't feel like I've got much to contribute right now, so I'm focusing on the anime communities.

wjrii,
wjrii avatar

My dirty secret? Sometimes I grab college football stories for /m/cfb from… Reddit.

Sorry everybody.

eleitl,

Nothing wrong with picking the best from a dying platform to kindle the new. Aggregating from multile aggregators is lots easier than mining the raw rock face.

cacheson,
cacheson avatar

Yeah, most of my stock of saved memes are from r/animemes and r/anime_irl. They did at least make it through the filter of being funny enough at the time to compel me to save them. And they're not necessarily ones that would be easily found by looking at the top posts in those subs.

Coelacanth,
Coelacanth avatar

Yeah, keeping the content flowing will be the most important thing, and it's much less daunting than taking on moderator duties. Everyone on Kbin/Lemmy right now is basically an early adopter, so they might need to take more responsibility to keep momentum up. It's too much to ask people who usually just read news on their niche subreddits to suddenly start up their own community here, but everyone can take one step "up the ladder" so to speak, and we're already seeing this to some extent I think. Lurkers trying their best to be commenters, commenters putting up their own posts and regular posters starting their own communities.

pgetsos, (edited )
pgetsos avatar

I know my community will take many months or even years to thrive on the Fediverse. It took 3-4 years to gain good momentum on Reddit and only in the last year did more users start posting on the sub

But I will continue posting even for the 5-10 people that may read them right now. It's the only way forward

SpermKiller,

Yeah I feel I have to do the same. I also created a community for my niche hobby and I found I have to be a bit more of a poster than I used to be, even if it means that for now the magazine is mostly me and pics of my garden.

Catch42,
Catch42 avatar

If you build a linguistics magazine I will join :) I think the thing to do is pick the subject you're most passionate about/ most knowledgable about and create a magazine for it. Post things regularly and people will start to notice it. That's what I've done! https://kbin.social/m/Otomegames (@Otomegames for my federated gals)

Moohamin12,

The issue everyone is facing right now is we are expecting to immediately shift to a ready made alternative for Reddit in less than 2 weeks.

I mean Reddit happened over a course of 15 years. At least. Expecting to replicate the same diversity and engagements within 2 weeks is too much.

Right now the community is in ‘move house’ mode with lots of activity and excitement. It will all come to a calm once the shift is complete and we are all in our new home.

Then in the next few days… We will start hanging pictures and arranging the countertops(aka adding niche subs and improving engagements).

EmptyRadar,
EmptyRadar avatar

For what it's worth, this is exactly how Reddit was in the early days. I remember a niche sub being something that had maybe 30-50 members, now basically every subject has a subreddit with communities in the 5000+ range.

Just give it time. If there is a particular community you're missing, use this as an opportunity to start it over here and start getting people involved.

AlteredStateBlob,
AlteredStateBlob avatar

Come joing us over on https://kbin.social/m/benignexistence :) It's quiet out there.

Varyag,
Varyag avatar

Yeah it's going to be a process. For an example, the Gundam and Gunpla communities are relatively niche compared to other anime or model kit building (which are already niche things in of themselves) and while their subreddits are quite active, we still don't have that critical mass (or much mass at all) of posts and content to engage with here. I have been meaning to, and plan on, making more posts to those so they get more activity.

TriLevelSync,

Care minding linking those communities? I love Gundam. Hoping to come across some Evangelion communities.

NotTheOnlyGamer,
NotTheOnlyGamer avatar

Will you pilot the robot start the magazine or not? If not, we'll just have to send Ayanami out again.

Varyag,
Varyag avatar

Here you go!
https://possumpat.io/c/gundam
https://kbin.social/m/gundam

trifictional,

I have a buddy who’s into gundam, I’ll let him know about it when I tell him about Lemmy if you give me a link :)

Varyag,
Varyag avatar

Here you go!
https://possumpat.io/c/gundam
https://kbin.social/m/gundam

dumples,
dumples avatar

I've been pretty disappointed with the DnD community so far. So I've been trying to post a lot about the new playtest material in a magazine I want to grow. So far it's like 5 of posting often but I hope the engagement will bring more

FaceDeer,
FaceDeer avatar

I just came across https://ttrpg.network/, a Lemmy instance that's specialized toward tabletop roleplaying games. Haven't explored it much but I suspect we'll be seeing this pattern more in the future - whole instances devoted to a particular topic, with the specialized subgenres being communities on there.

dumples,
dumples avatar

That's is where I have been posting mostly. The startrek one has been amazing

NotTheOnlyGamer,
NotTheOnlyGamer avatar

The more that happens, the more fractured the community becomes, and the easier it will be for a new centralized corporate platform to suck up users. That's how Reddit started in the first place, and how Twitter started. Heck, it's even how LJ started. You look at fractured elements of communities, and build a site for the whole community to come together.

FaceDeer,
FaceDeer avatar

Except that the "for the whole community to come together" part is already provided by the Fediverse, built right in to the foundations. There's no "service" for the next Reddit to provide to these separate forums because they can already freely exchange with each other. They are not fractured.

NotTheOnlyGamer,
NotTheOnlyGamer avatar

Sure, just show me the combined DnD/D&D or TTRPG community | magazine | group. It doesn't exist. There are a hundred, or a thousand, individual groups. That's not a whole community. That's a thousand fractal shards, each one with its own voices, independent of one another. Yes, occasionally they do share content or users, but that happens only rarely and with effort. TTRPG Network, Lemmy.ML, KBin.Social, Mastodon.Social, etc., all have various groups dedicated to RPGs. These groups are not able to be combined.

The inability of these groups to combine and independently organizing is a severe weakness of ActivityPub.

FaceDeer,
FaceDeer avatar

What you're asking for never existed. Reddit had multiple subreddits devoted to those subjects. Forcing there to be only "one true" community for any given subject is antithetical to the whole concept of free association and free speech, there's always going to be people who disagree with how the subject matter has been divided up and how it's being moderated. They'll want to create their own groups.

You're probably wanting something like Reddit's "multireddit" functionality. I know of this issue for Lemmy, with some links to related issues in the comments. Kbin has one here.

NotTheOnlyGamer,
NotTheOnlyGamer avatar

No, what I want is r/RPG - a single, central hub for RPG-related topics. Yes, there are also subs for RPGDesign, DnD, DM advice, etc., but RPG serves as both a central community and as a hub for all those more specific groups. There is no way to have a “hub community” on the Fediverse, or to efficiently find all groups which share interests. Groups which had a “largest community” on Reddit will now find themselves shattered and separated. Sure, you can say Federation will save them, but it really won’t. All federation means is that now instead of one community, there’s one per server, and you have to know to subscribe to each and every one of them.

Sure, there’s Mastodon’s Lists feature, which works like a Multireddit, but that’s honestly a lot of effort, and doesn’t cover Lemmy or kbin posts like this one. We need a way to automerge common communities, at least in the user’s view.

FaceDeer,
FaceDeer avatar

What you want never existed in the first place. Not only because of those other subreddits you mention, but because Reddit was not the entire sum total of RPG discussion on the Internet. The RPGNet Forums, TheRPGSite forums, RPG PUB, EN World forums, RPG Codex, and innumerable other smaller forums were scattered all around the Internet. You never saw them or their content because none of them are "federated", and so you thought Reddit was the center of the RPG universe.

We now have an opportunity to restructure how diverse separate fora like that can work. If they were all federated then you'd be able to seamlessly view content from all of them, and communicate back without needing to have a separate login at each and every one of them.

If you really want to continue treating /r/RPG as the center of the universe and ignoring all the other fora, well, these new ones on the Fediverse merely add a few more onto the enormous list you were already unknowingly ignoring.

NotTheOnlyGamer,
NotTheOnlyGamer avatar

I was actually on the RPGNet forums for several years, but the topics, mechanics, and games which I care about became less-discussed over time.

ArtieShaw,
ArtieShaw avatar

I think what you're doing so far is key. And it's really the hard part. The rest is just being a friendly place.

No one wants to be one of those 5 people howling into the void when something is getting started, but it needs to be done to demonstrate that people are willing to participate. You might also consider posting easy polls or open ended questions to invite engagement. (If you haven't)

minnieo,
minnieo avatar

this is my mindset. its gonna take some of us to kick things off. i do it in my mags where im the main one posting

dosidosankofa,
dosidosankofa avatar

howling into the void

Yep that's what feels like, and it's part of starting a community because how is anyone going to find you if you're not making any noise?

It's actually exciting. During my first week around here, someone framed it as the shift from consuming content to making contact and I found that really compelling

The other thing I'm thinking about is how the other site was like joining a conversation, but here we are starting conversations

curiosityLynx,

I was part of the Linguistics subreddit, but I don't feel qualified to open a kbin magazine or lemmy community for it. While I did have linguistics as my major in university, I had to quit after getting my bachelor's credits but before finishing my thesis (due to depression).

I edited loads of my old comments to suggest people join kbin, but it seems the mods of /r/linguistics hate that. They were all removed with no exceptions.

Gull,

This post is helpful for highlighting some of the reasons the migration is slow. People who want to chart the future of the Fediverse need to listen to this kind of feedback and think about how to fix the pipeline.

abff08f4813c,
abff08f4813c avatar

You could always start a community here now, and hand it over when the right person comes along. In the mean time the one you make now might be the perfect place for your comments.

I figure there must be an admin among the mods of that sub.

aidan,
aidan avatar

That’s exactly what I’m trying to do for all the communities I want. I’m starting them, making some placeholder rules, letting them attract a community, then I’m going to have the community vote on permanent rules, and then, once all of that is in place to keep the community stable, recruit mods to take over. At that point, it’ll be clear which users would make good mods (I hope)

specks, (edited )

https://sub.rehab/: There are plenty of verified official new communities from the original subs, but there are plenty of unofficial spin-offs of subs.

Certain ones may not exist yet, but anyone can create a spin-off, post content, and submit to relocation sites like the one linked above. Even if the reddit mods don't want to move, they don't own the community members, members leave if they want to.

Edit: It is of course nice if they Reddit mods for something do decide to move the community, it lets the same people all follow a single source instead of several spin-offs if they are looking for the same community.

Doll_Tow_Jet-ski,
Doll_Tow_Jet-ski avatar

Hi there. I wasn't in the linguistic community in Reddit, but I am a linguist and I would be willing to create one here and moderate it. Linguistics is very broad. What were the topics discussed in the reddit community? I am a psycholingusit, so the focus of my contributions would be mostly in that field, and I imagine mostly scholarly content being shared and discussed, but I would like to know what someone like you, who used to be a member, would expect from such a community.

EDIT: There's already one! : https://kbin.social/m/linguistics

curiosityLynx,

The posts I saw fell into these rough categories:

  • Sharing articles that are interesting or important to know
  • People asking questions about linguistics (a frequent one was people asking about what some kind of feature is called in the field, kind of "what do I have to search for to learn more about this?")
  • Linguistic studies that were featured in general media (as long as neither the study nor the media coverage is garbage)
  • Stickied FAQ post and a regular general questions post
  • People sharing their own work that they think others might find interesting
  • Podcast episodes and YouTube videos about linguistics that are worth promoting

I think the only things related to linguistics that weren't welcome were posts where people come up with folk etymologies, spreading disproven theories or claiming one language being superior than another.

Conlanging: You'd sometimes see questions about linguistics in general (usually typology) by a conlanger, but I don't think I ever saw anything other than that. I would guess that links relating to conlangs/conlanging were deleted, with a suggestion to post them to /r/conlangs instead.

Doll_Tow_Jet-ski,
Doll_Tow_Jet-ski avatar

Thanks for the info 👍

retronautickz, (edited )

Well, these communities/magazines will not apear on their own, users have to make them. So, if you're interested in creating a magazine/community for a topic, just open it. There's always going to be someone who's also interested in participating.

Also, check, because sometimes there already chirp and/or Guppe groups for those non-techy things that you can follow from Kbin and interact with as if they were magazines

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • RedditMigration
  • DreamBathrooms
  • everett
  • tacticalgear
  • magazineikmin
  • thenastyranch
  • rosin
  • tester
  • Youngstown
  • khanakhh
  • slotface
  • ngwrru68w68
  • kavyap
  • mdbf
  • InstantRegret
  • JUstTest
  • osvaldo12
  • GTA5RPClips
  • ethstaker
  • normalnudes
  • Durango
  • cisconetworking
  • anitta
  • modclub
  • cubers
  • Leos
  • provamag3
  • megavids
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •