Why lock it? Seems unnecessary. The mission statement of this sub doesn’t lend itself to daily posting - at least without significant effort - but I still like that it exists. 26 days ago isn’t even that bad, there are other niche subs that see even more infrequent activity. Should we lock them too? There’s been multiple posts here over the last few months that have actually gotten replies and traction.
- the mod has gone missing
- !askgaming@piefed.social is an actively moderated community with daily posts
there are other niche subs that see even more infrequent activity. Should we lock them too?
It depends how niche they are, but redirecting to active subs allow to reduce https://lawsofux.com/choice-overload/ for people, and create more activity in sustainable communities
What would be the inactivity time a community should have before getting locked?
!oldgamers@lemmy.world only has one post 6 months ago, beyond that it’s an 8 months old post by me, than 10 months old posts. If we suggested to lock that one down, would that be okay?
Same for !timberborn@feddit.org and !citybuilders@sh.itjust.works. The first one hasn’t had a post in 26 days, the other one gets a few posts per week. It would probably be better to lock the first down and redirect to the more active generalist community.
I don’t really see the reason to preemptively lock communities in that manner, is there really much harm in letting them exist? I get consolidating communities that are literally clones of each other but none of your examples fall under that for me.
I personally wouldn’t lock subs out of only inactivity at all. What if someone tries the Fediverse for the first time, sees that their niche sub exists and is faced with a “SUB LOCKED” message? Is that a better situation than them just seeing a long time having passed since last activity?
I get consolidating communities that are literally clones of each other but none of your examples fall under that for me.
What is the different between “let’s talk about games” and “askgaming”?
What if someone tries the Fediverse for the first time, sees that their niche sub exists and is faced with a “SUB LOCKED” message?
They wouldn’t only see a “sub locked”, they would see “go to !othercommunity!”
Examples:
This shows new joiners where the active community is, which seems better than having them conclude that the communities (and thus the platform as a whole) is inactive
What is the different between “let’s talk about games” and “askgaming”?
I guess the difference is up for interpretation. I always saw “Let’s Talk About Games” as a successor to r/truegaming, which ideally should be a place for more high effort posts and in-depth discussions about games and gaming. Askgaming is just whatever you’re wondering about, like “which controller should I buy for my PC?” or “Which version of each Ninja Gaiden should I play?” or whatever.
They wouldn’t only see a “sub locked”, they would see “go to !othercommunity!”
Does this even work well? It feels like c/football has seen reduced activity with every move but maybe that’s just me. Hell, we don’t even have a match threader bot anymore.
Also isn’t it cumbersome to have to unlock the community again when/if interest in the niche subject grows enough?
Askgaming is just whatever you’re wondering about, like “which controller should I buy for my PC?” or “Which version of each Ninja Gaiden should I play?” or whatever.
Looking at that community homepage right now
- What is your most wished for sequel?
- What game does everyone seem to love, but you just don’t get the hype at all?
- How do you feel about turn-based combat? Should more modern games adopt it, or is it best left as a thing of the past?
- Which video game ideas do you wish existed but don’t? What’s your most out-there concept that doesn’t fit any current genre?
Seems pretty good ground for in-depth discussion.
/r/TrueGaming emerged when /r/Gaming was too busy, and had enough of an audience to create that community. Lemmy’s userbase is much smaller, so the audience isn’t there yet. If people want in depth discussion, they can post in on !askgaming@piefed.social, it’s not like that community is that active in the first place.
Hell, we don’t even have a match threader bot anymore.
We… do?
Does this even work well?
!television@piefed.social has 4.99k monthly active users, probably because it’s the only community in that space.
!movies@piefed.social has 2.54k MAU, probably because the activity is split with !movies@lemmy.world and its 2K MAU
If people want in depth discussion, they can post in on !askgaming@piefed.social, it’s not like that community is that active in the first place.
I mean askgaming is very new so it doesn’t surprise me it has only modest activity. But I don’t know, I’m much less involved in these matters than you are so I’ll defer to your expertise. You probably know what’s best more than I do.
Hell, we don’t even have a match threader bot anymore.
We… do?
Oh huh. I guess I don’t know where to comment to request match threads since I haven’t seen a weekly discussion thread in a bit. I went to the sub ahead of the first PL match day and didn’t find one.
I went to the sub ahead of the first PL match day and didn’t find one.
I guess we don’t have that many PL followers, or that nobody was invested enough to send a request? The other mod posted the BBC live thread for West Ham vs Chelsea, so there was at least that.
https://lemmy.zip/post/46931521/20984401
I sent a request for the Barcelona game today, so there will at least be that one.
I’ll add the way to request a game in the body of the next weekly thread.
I am kind of torn myself. I hope to grow the community organically. Right now !askgaming@piefed.social has active participants for discussions (comments), but still lacking in posts. I am not sure if it is sustainable when the mod is the only one posting. But I will keep trying at least for a while.
Feel free to create a dedicated post on !fedigrow@lemmy.zip, we can discuss there how to help you with your community
Most small communities pretty much need a single dedicated person to do 99% of the heavy lifting posting-wise at the current size of Lemmy.
People often express this view. And, in practice, it does seem to mostly work that way. But why? There’s no reason it should have to. There are many oldschool forum websites where the entire website as a whole has less members than there are subscribers to individual comms on Lemmy. Yet those forums have individual subforums with greater post volume/rate. Why should this be?
I think the problem is that most Lemmings are reddit refugees. They still have reddit-brain. They expect every Lemmy comm to be a constant firehose of content that they can just passively consume, and only occasionally post to. Even though the constant firehose nature of Reddit was largely bot-driven. So when there’s no constant stream of content, people incorrectly think the userbase is too small, and check Lemmy less often… which means they post less often, which means there’s less content. It’s a vicious cycle.
I think people need to come into Lemmy with a healthier mindset. It is a community to participate in, not a feed to be consumed. Lemmy isn’t Reddit, and shouldn’t try to be.
I don’t know the exact mechanics behind why small niche forums have a higher rate of user contribution than here, but the 90-9-1 rule is observed all across social media and it’s not something exclusive to Lemmy.
You need a minimum level of activity to keep a community sustainable.
Without that minimum level, single active posters stop posting after a while and leave the platform altogether.
!fedigrow@lemmy.zip to see discussions between active posters
And that’s why it’s usually recommended to find a more generalist community where there is at least another active poster.
Keeping a community active by yourself is quite tiring, and most people will drop it after a bit.
No. The entire point of the Fediverse is so that no single site can monopolise discussion on a topic. Having multiple communities with overlapping themes is an expected and desired outcome.
And, to that point: the themes are indeed merely overlapping in this case, not identically the same. ‘ask gaming’ is about asking questions of the gaming community. ‘let’s talk…’ lends itself to more in-depth discussions. They are not the same. There can be no justification for shuttering one in favour of the other.
People keep trying to force there to be ‘one single comm to rule them all’ for each given topic, as if this is reddit or something. That’s literally the exact opposite of the point of the Fediverse.
You need a minimum level of activity to keep a community sustainable.
Without that minimum level, single active posters stop posting after a while and leave the platform altogether.
!fedigrow@lemmy.zip to see discussions between active posters
