I am still trying to wrap my head around how it all works, but I feel like I am slowly getting the hang of it. One thing I was wondering, and forgive me if I get the terminologies wrong, since instances are their own little ecosystems, wouldn’t there be multiple versions of the identical communities i.e. gaming, videos etc., or is that the beauty of it all?
Another minor concern I have is that since instances are run by individuals, wouldn’t there be a risk of losing massive amounts of content if said owner no longer wishes to maintain their instance or “goes rogue” for a lack of a better word and shuts down access to all communities located on that particular instance/server.
I think those are all fair points. Reddit did duplicate communities too, sometimes because some communities wanted to focus on specific elements of the topic they were covering, sometimes because of splits and disagreements, and sometimes just because it happened over time. People tend to find their niche, as do communities, but there will usually be a main one with the most members and activity.
Regarding individual instances, the way Mastodon has tried to manage that is by asking the people running instances to commit to a set of rules, one of which is giving appropriate notice should they wish to shut it down. This has been adhered to for the most part, and instances that don’t voluntarily subscribe to those rules can get degenerated, or more likely just not promoted through the various explorer tools. So long as there’s notice, there’s opportunity to migrate to another instance and copy over data. It would be good to see something similar on Lemmy, if it’s not already there (this is my first day!).
Maybe lemmy can already do this, but maybe we need to reintroduce the concept of ‘mirrors’ — being able to create a community on one server that can mirror a copy of all posts from a community on another server, so if the original disappears then the mirror can be promoted into its place.
…or maybe this is already a thing, or isn’t necessary? I’m new here and still learning the ropes.
I am still trying to wrap my head around how it all works, but I feel like I am slowly getting the hang of it. One thing I was wondering, and forgive me if I get the terminologies wrong, since instances are their own little ecosystems, wouldn’t there be multiple versions of the identical communities i.e. gaming, videos etc., or is that the beauty of it all?
Another minor concern I have is that since instances are run by individuals, wouldn’t there be a risk of losing massive amounts of content if said owner no longer wishes to maintain their instance or “goes rogue” for a lack of a better word and shuts down access to all communities located on that particular instance/server.
I think those are all fair points. Reddit did duplicate communities too, sometimes because some communities wanted to focus on specific elements of the topic they were covering, sometimes because of splits and disagreements, and sometimes just because it happened over time. People tend to find their niche, as do communities, but there will usually be a main one with the most members and activity.
Regarding individual instances, the way Mastodon has tried to manage that is by asking the people running instances to commit to a set of rules, one of which is giving appropriate notice should they wish to shut it down. This has been adhered to for the most part, and instances that don’t voluntarily subscribe to those rules can get degenerated, or more likely just not promoted through the various explorer tools. So long as there’s notice, there’s opportunity to migrate to another instance and copy over data. It would be good to see something similar on Lemmy, if it’s not already there (this is my first day!).
Maybe lemmy can already do this, but maybe we need to reintroduce the concept of ‘mirrors’ — being able to create a community on one server that can mirror a copy of all posts from a community on another server, so if the original disappears then the mirror can be promoted into its place.
…or maybe this is already a thing, or isn’t necessary? I’m new here and still learning the ropes.