this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2025
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How (and when) to consolidate communities? (A guide) (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works to c/fedigrow@lemm.ee
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Why consolidate communities?

One of the advantages of a decentralized platform like Lemmy is the ability to create parallel communities on the same topic. "You don't like how a community is being moderated? Go to another instance and start your own community!" (with or without blackjack and hookers)

However, this is a double-edged sword. The creation of multiple communities on the same (or similar) topics can also fragment the userbase, leading to very sparsely populated communities.

A few perspectives in favour of consolidation: (click to expand)https://sh.itjust.works/comment/11171955

I think until there’s some tool or system that helps collate all the information out here, fragmentation is detrimental to growth.

I’m not going to copy and paste the same comment with every mirrored post.

So sometimes commenting feels like a waste of time.

Centralizing helps ensure that there’s vibrant, consistent discussion which is what Lemmy should be about.

https://lemmy.ca/comment/8823953

I like this because people showing up to those communities might think that topic doesn’t have activity on Lemmy, when it actually does.

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/8370860

I sometimes think that unmoderated communities should be closed, and just be left and locked with a pointer to the active one. In case an issue arises with the active one, they can still be unlocked and used as back up.

Credits to @Ashyr@sh.itjust.works, @otter@lemmy.ca, and @Blaze@lemmy.blahaj.zone

How consolidate communities?

While consolidating communities can counteract userbase fragmentation, it is not an easy process for users to do, and so I thought I'd write up and share this guide.

Taking inspiration from @popcar2@programming.dev's excellent blogpost, let's imagine a hypothetical scenario where the pancake userbase on Lemmy is heavily fragmented, could benefit from consolidation.

Step 1: Identify duplicates

Search lemmyverse.net/communities for 'pancakes', as well as common synonyms (hotcake, griddlecake, flapjack). In our hypothetical scenario, we get the following search results:

  • [!pancakes@lemmya.net](/c/pancakes@lemmya.net) (active)
  • [!pancakes@lemmyb.net](/c/pancakes@lemmyb.net) (inactive)
  • [!pancakes@lemmy.food](/c/pancakes@lemmy.food) (active)
  • [!flapjacks@lemmya.net](/c/flapjacks@lemmya.net) (inactive)

Open each community on its home instance, note the frequency of posts, and check whether the moderators are active. From this, you will often get a hunch for what might be the best community to consolidate to, but you should still keep an open mind as you proceed to the next step.

Edit1: To avoid centralization on large instances, I typically prefer consolidating towards smaller instances, provided that they are well managed.

Step 2: Solicit input

Create a post on !fedigrow@lemm.ee. The post should contain the following:

  1. A brief reminder on the detriments of userbase fragmentation and the advantages of consolidation.
  2. The list of duplicate communities you've identified for a given topic.
  3. An invitation for discussion and, optionally, your recommendation of a community to consolidate to.

Example post here (electric vehicles).

Once you have posted, create a top-level comment for each community in which you reach out to the moderators, administrators, and contributors for their opinions.

Example comments: (click to expand)

Paging [!pancakes@lemmya.net](/c/pancakes@lemmya.net) active moderator @buckwheat_forever@lemmya.net

Would you be open to consolidating this community with one on another instance, perhaps [!pancakes@lemmy.food](/c/pancakes@lemmy.food)?

Also paging active contributor @maple_syrup_or_die@lemmy.ca for their thoughts.

[!pancakes@b.net](/c/pancakes@b.net) moderator @spez_ruins_pancakes@lemmyb.net is inactive.

Paging admin @the_boss@lemmyb.net. Would you be open to consolidating this community with one on another instance, perhaps [!pancakes@lemmy.food](/c/pancakes@lemmy.food)?

Paging [!pancakes@lemmy.food](/c/pancakes@lemmy.food) moderator @cast_iron_queen@lemmy.food

How would you feel about a potential influx of posters and commenters from other instances? Would you be open to adding additional moderators, perhaps those who were active contributors or moderators in pancake communities on other instances?

These comments will hopefully spark discussion among the pancake enthusiasts on Lemmy.

Edit2: There will often be users advocating for consolidation to whichever community currently has the most subscribers/activity. When this community is on of the larger instances, feel free to gently remind people of the risks of centralization.

If any two communities agree to consolidate, you can move onto step 3.

Step 3: Consolidate communities

When a decision is reached between any two communities, one community can then be closed, and redirect users to the other. You should recommend that the moderator take the following actions:

Example comment: (click to expand)

Would you be able to do the following?

  1. Lock [!pancakes@b.net](/c/pancakes@b.net) by checking "Only moderators can post to this community"
  2. Create one final post on [!pancakes@b.net](/c/pancakes@b.net) announcing the consolidation to [!pancakes@lemmy.food](/c/pancakes@lemmy.food)
  3. Rename the community to "[Dormant] moved to [!pancakes@lemmy.food](/c/pancakes@lemmy.food)"

Changing the community display name is particularly helpful for users when they are searching for communities.

When to NOT consolidate communities?

If there exist two active communities on the same topic, and they have a different significant difference in geographical focus, political leanings, or moderation style, these communities should not be consolidated. This would be an example of the advantages of parallel communities in the Fediverse.

TL;DR:

  • Find all the communities on a given topic (easy)
  • Convince people that consolidation is a good idea (medium)
  • Get people, many of whom may be reluctant to see a community on their home instance locked, to decide on a which community to switch to (challenging)
  • Contact the moderators (or the admins, if the mods are inactive) of each of the n-1 communities and get them to lock each community, with appropriate links to the decided upon community (simple, but tedious)

It can be a bit of a pain-in-the-ass to do properly, and I've seen many more failures than successes, but given the potential benefit for the Fediverse as a whole, I thought I'd write up and share this guide. Feedback is welcome :)

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[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

Not consolidating towards already dominant servers is more important than consolidating. This is kinda very important, but just entirely missing from this post.

If the most active community is on .world, then consolidation respecting this rule is unlikely because .world communties will never accept consolidating towards another server.

Consolidating should always prioritize smaller servers in an effort to strengthen lemmy's resistance against power centers.

If consolidation always moves people to already popular servers you will inevitably get a few servers that hold total control over all major communities and topics.

This ofcourse also applies to other servers than lemmy.world like lemm.ee, but at the moment .world holds 40% of all lemmy users which is not good.

US based servers are also something that should be avoided for obvious reasons...

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Consolidating should always prioritize smaller servers in an effort to strengthen lemmy’s resistance against power centers.

An excellent point. I try to consolidate towards small-to-medium-sized servers, provided that they are well-managed. Servers which are very small, especially if they have only a single admin, have a higher chance of shutting down without warning.

Edit: Added a few edits to the OP.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

If the most active community is on .world, then consolidation respecting this rule is unlikely because .world communties will never accept consolidating towards another server.

!television@lemmy.world got locked down in favor of !television@lemm.ee

!mapporn@lemmy.world locked for !map_enthusiasts@sopuli.xyz

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Nice to see. This is the exception to the rule in my experience tho.

In the end if some mods or admis try to do stupid shit the users have control over which community is active and which one isnt, but unified group action is always hard.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

!onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone is much more active than !196@lemmy.world

There are quite a few other examples, you can have a look at !support@lemmy.world for people requesting LW communities and then locking them, happens quite often.

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 4 days ago

Yeah i was there when the 196 stuff happened. I know you and many others did a lot of work to keep it off .world and i appreciate that. Its nice when the .world admins help people to democratize lemmy, but i wont stop being vigilant about it.

[–] Elevator7009sAlt@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Oof, made a post about consolidating !bunnies@lemmy.world and !rabbits@lemmy.world, and saw this a few days later. Although since both are lemmy.world no big loss, and I did leave an option for people to vote for creating a new community and moving there.

So then I figured I was going to message the mod of !bun_alert_system@lemmy.sdf.org. Awhile ago I said it was good for us to stand on our own, make options, but combining our reach would probably be good if we allow the same content (I think they might be different in that the alert system is just pictures and videos of bunnies in real life, and my community also allows other bunny-related content like media about them, questions about taking care of rabbits, though in practice it is also mostly just pictures and videos of bunnies and any other content like links to video games featuring bunnies usually comes straight from me…). But lemmy.sdf.org is also one of the biggest servers (though smaller than .world), and I saw the discussion below about getting people off the biggest servers too, not just the single biggest one of lemmy.world.

Also, would probably be bad having just put out a poll on consolidating !bunnies and !rabbits, and then doing a second consolidation towards !bun_alert_system.

What is a bunny lover to do? I feel it is easier to consolidate towards existing communities than to get everyone to agree to move to a new one.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Also, would probably be bad having just put out a poll on consolidating !bunnies and !rabbits, and then doing a second consolidation towards !bun_alert_system.

You can probably just suggest on both LW communities to move to the SDF one. Don't worry, SDF isn't that large.

[–] Elevator7009sAlt@lemmy.world 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Asked the mod of the bun alert system, conclusion is that we're two different places and should not consolidate. Ah well, but hey, less mess on my end.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 21 hours ago

Sorry to hear

[–] BagOfHeavyStones@piefed.social 11 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I just joined piefed since it looks like it merges multi-instance posts with the same article URL. Not quite the same thing as consolidating communities, but great for bringing conversations from multiple communities into one place.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

merges multi-instance posts with the same article URL

Are the comments sections merged as well? That would be major benefit, though it presents some moderation challenges as well...

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

They are, have a look at @rimu@piefed.social last post on the topic

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 4 days ago (2 children)

It's a nice idea, the main issue I see is when your local perspective gets dwarfed by !world@lemmy.world 200 comments: https://feddit.dk/comment/13423281

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[–] Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

Good guide. I would like to point out that you may get some political infighting around instance policies that are not very productive.

Reached out to !hardware@lemmy.ml (low activity, no mod, but 5K subs) to consolidate with !hardware@lemmy.world (much more engagement, albeit mostly me posting, 1.3K subs). I made sure to take a neutral and non judgemental tone, but I still got lectured about irrelevant things like LW admin policies and so on. You can take a look at the !hardware@lemmy.world modlog and see that there are no issues.

Haven't checked, but I wouldn't be surprised if hardware ML still doesn't have a mod.

Let's hope we can hit 100 K MAU by the end of the year. This will help both organic consolidation and even organic differentiation. I don't mind different communities, but they need to have their own spin on a topic (subfocus, regional focus etc.).

[–] misk@sopuli.xyz 6 points 5 days ago (9 children)

The !hardware situation is not great when considering political leaning of instances and user base and the fact that both will avoid each other.

Personally I avoid both .ml (tankies) and .world (performance issues, libs). I don’t think hardware is that much of a niche so maybe it’d make sense to start over on a medium sized and neutral instance? Maybe not lemm.ee because that one runs at risk of becoming like .world. I’ll move over wherever.

[–] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

!hardware@programming.dev, maybe?

Edit: !hardware@hardware.watch seems nice, too

[–] misk@sopuli.xyz 3 points 4 days ago

This one looks perfect for me because there’s no gadget news (which I grew bored of). I’m going to post there but I think it’s best that there’s a separate more gadget’y community too.

[–] rglullis@communick.news 4 points 5 days ago (32 children)

There is a whole instance for hardware news and reviews.

[–] misk@sopuli.xyz 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (6 children)

This is a very good initiative that I want to see succeed! My immediate feedback is that I avoid instances and communities without clearly defined rules so that’s something to consider.

I would also prefer to avoid a situation where we had shows & movies dedicated instance that turned out to be too much for the admin and went poof and so I need to know I can put my trust in a new dedicated instance. I understand it’s a bit of a chicken & egg problem but we need things to be stable during migration waves.

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[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 days ago (11 children)

Maybe not lemm.ee because that one runs at risk of becoming like .world. I’ll move over wherever.

As the main contributor to lemm.ee communities, don't worry, you still have to scroll quite a bit to see the first Lemm.ee community on https://lemmyverse.net/communities?order=active

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[–] Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

There is also a hardware community on programming.dev, which would fit the bill.

My first Lemmy account was on ML which I made by mistake. I have a personal issue with tankies (I am Ukrainian, living in Ukraine) so I immediately switched, LW seemed like a solid choice.

Contributing to the ML variant of HW was not an option and it was pretty dead in terms of engagement.

I looked up if there were other HW communities and found a dead one on LW. Asked for mod rights and started contributing.

The hardware subreddit has 3 million members, so I wouldn't really call it niche.

I wouldn't mind merging into the programming.dev instance if it could be programmatically done and in a graceful manner. Alas, it will likely be a long time before we see such functionality.

I personally don't think concerns about LW or lemm.ee are relevant for a social network with a mere 55K MAUs. IMO, at this point focus should be on growth. With growth we will see organic consolidation and differentiation.

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[–] j4k3@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I believe you will still end up at the same logic as Beehaw on this path. We do not need a micro niches first approach IMO. We don't need c/pancakes. We need ultra liberally moderated and very strong c/food first and foremost. We don't even really need c/3d printing even though I'm a mod there and it is one of the larger communities with regular daily user participation. It could easily be within a DIY, Hobbyist, or Projects community without dominating or detracting from the user base of the broader community. In fact it would probably benefit from the interchange.

I believe that we try far too hard to replicate reddit when Lemmy is its own thing. The more we embrace that, and build independence as a platform, the more Lemmy can grow of its own accord. We don't need to be just the reddit alternative like some second class bottom feeder. We can be more if we chose to.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (14 children)

We don’t even really need c/3d printing even though I’m a mod there and it is one of the larger communities with regular daily user participation.

I'm surprised about this, I thought that 3D printing was active enough on its own

Agreed with the rest of your comment.

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[–] Elevator7009sAlt@ani.social 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

to be honest if this isn't a pinned post or linked in the sidebar i feel like it should be, great writeup

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Thanks!

Good idea; Post pinned.

[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago

Let's see if it stays up, otherwise I'll repost it with my lemmee alt

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