What I think could make Lemmy superior to Reddit is the ability to create themed-instances that are all linked together which feels like the entire point. I’ve noticed that a lot of instances are trying to be a catch-all Reddit replacement by imitating specific subs which is understandable given the circumstances but seems like it’s not taking advantage of the full power that Lemmy could have.
Imagine for a moment that instances were more focus-based. Instead of having communities that are all mostly unrelated we had entire instances that are focused on one specific area of expertise or interest. Imagine a LOTR instance that had many sub-communities (in this case “communities” would be the wrong way to look at it, it would be more like categories) that dealt with different subjects in the LOTR universe: books, movies, lore, gaming, art, etc all in the same instance.
Imagine the types of instances that could be created with more granular categories within to better guide conversations: Baseball, Cars, Comics, Movies, Tech etc.
A tech instance could have dedicated communities for news, programming, dev, IT, Microsoft, Apple, iOS, linux. Or you could make it even more granular by having a dedicated instance for each of those because there’s so many categories that could be applied to each.
What are your thoughts?
I think, in time, those will come organically. Maybe those communities won’t be purpose built to be dedicated to a single topic, but despite federation I wouldn’t be surprised if instances popped up with rules about topics discussed. Still federated, but communities within themselves will be regulated somewhat.
I’m not sure how to feel about this, maybe it’s just the time I spent on reddit has jaded me, but there’s divisive topics that I’m not sure would do well if housed within the same instance without coming down to name calling and unsavoury behaviour. A reddit example, early days r/lowsodiumcyberpunk2077 and r/cyberpunk 2077, both held extremely differing opinions. An even worse example because politics got into the mix, r/thelastofus and r/thelastofus2. If mods keep on top of it with good rules set in place and are enforced, could be good.
I’m not sure either if forcing topics to newly deployed instances is a realistic path, either.