Start them if they aren't here yet. You can always hand them off if you want.

Create the communities you want to see here and treat them as completely separate entities, with their own userbase, content, etc. You'll be the only one posting at first, but if there's interest it'll catch on.

You've already gone above and beyond by inviting the Reddit mods, and I admire your sense of ethics, but no need to sweat further. In the end, ethically speaking, mods don't "own" a community, much less the intellectual concept behind a given community; they just start it hoping others will join up. So you're stealing nothing by creating your own elsewhere. That's what Lemmy is about, anyway. And if those mods or sub participants ever decide to leave Reddit and they don't like what you're doing, any one of them can create their own instance and start again just like you did.

Again, I massively respect your conscience in this. I feel like I've seen a unicorn in the wild, lol. But you're good. Go forth and create the communities you want to see.

I messaged the mods of two subreddits saying “hey, I’ve left this shithole and moved to lemmy. I’ve opened this community there and if you’d like to mod it I’m happy to add you. Just let me know.” No response. I don’t think you can be much fairer than that.

There’s two communities I opened that had existing but inactive communities on lemmy. Again I messaged them saying “do you plan on adding content to get this sub going? If not I’m happy take over for you. Meanwhile I’ve started an alternative. I’d prefer to combine the two communities than have competing ones, let me know what you’d prefer.” Again no response, so I created my own.

I don’t particularly want to be a mod, but the stubborn part of me doesn’t want to put all the legwork into building up a community that has an inactive/uninterested mod.

I volunteer admin my own public service gig elsewhere, >10 years x 365 days. It requires some diligence to try and prevent scammers and fraud - there's a bit more at stake than just memes. It don't pay much, but it's honest work.jpg

I appreciate that people keep up the groups I follow just for amusement. And I'm definitely not looking to put those mods out of a job. I know it's work, and I appreciate those who do it.

I've wondered since the grumbling started why people weren't establishing their subs elsewhere, even if just a place holder.

You've done everything ethically by contacting OG mods/founders. Go ahead and start a new thing, you're covered. 10/10 interbutt citizenship