I'm in a few but as a general rule I try to avoid most of the ml instance communities because some of them can be a bit on the toxic side.

Generally I stick with the ones that are on the same server as my account i.e. !linux@lemmy.world on my lemmy.world account and !linux@programming.dev on my programming.dev account with exceptions to ones where I don't have presence on that instance, or I have limited purpose of having an account there (i.e. my lemmy.blahaj.zone account only serves to moderate the Aroace and Agender communities), in which case I usually choose the one which has been most reliable. Part of the reason I did it this way was because in the early days when Lemmy.world had load issues and was being DDoSed federation would have a lot of issues,

Yep.

Looking forward to multi-community support on Lemmy.

It won't fix the issue of comments being everywhere though. Take this post I made on !bitwarden@lemmy.ml. The same link has been crossposted to 7 other communities with many more comments. I wonder if in the future it'll be possible to combine comments from various posts about a single link into a megapost of some sort.

Yes. I'd really like linux@programming.dev to be the main one but for right now I'm subbed to all 3 I think

AskLemmy for me. I like occasionally answering questions and there isn't enough posts on either for me.

Yeah, all, and all.

it's not a bug, it's a feature, also, it's not a bug, it's a feature

Yes

Yeah, why wouldn't I be?

Yes, and I’ve even cross-posted from one community to another trying to reach more help when I asked a question in the Linux help communities.

Yes, except not the first one bc it's on Lemmy.ml.

yep, but identical link posts are grouped on my mbin instance:

i kinda love it. i can see which one most users are commenting in, etc.

When I started on Lemmy after the Reddit exodus, I started by browsing by All, subscribing to communities that looked interesting, and blocking communities that I didn't want to see. I figured I'd eventually move to browsing by Subscribed, but more than a year later and I still browse by All. Removing the communities I didn't want to see, especially the overly prolific meme communities, and blocking the posting bots has made browsing New just fine.

So I guess I see duplicate communities assuming there are posts and I haven't blocked them.

"Duplicate"/competing communities is not a unique thing to Lemmy or the fediverse. Reddit had multiple competing communities for the same topic--different management.

Just apply the same rules.

Yes, but I only post to one at a time.

Aye.

Yes with the exception that I block every single .ml community. When I post I generally choose the most popular one.

Yep. There's not really enough content in a lot of single Instance communities, but when you sign up for all of them it gets to a reasonable degree of activity.

yes.

yes

Yes, it's kind of amusing you didn't cross-post this, in fact.

Yes

Yes

Several, and thank you for making me aware of those in the OP, I was until now only subscribed to one of them.

Yes and it's annoying. That disperses even further the already small communities

How many times do I have to answer this question!?

Well I was in the two "ask" communities, but then a person in charge, who many are concerned about in regards to motivations, made sure I got both the boot (the "normal" part of the punishment) as well as a taste of unprovoked exposure (wut?)