Say what you will about reddit, at least an established subreddit was the place to gather on the topic, ie r/technology etc.
With Lemmy, doesn’t it follow that similar communities on different instances will simply dilute the userbase, for example !technology@lemmy.ml and !technology@beehaw.org. How do we best use lemmy as a (small c) community when a topic can be split amongst many (large C) Communities?
This is an earnest question, in no way am I suggesting lemmy is inferior to reddit. I’m quite enjoying myself here.
I’m not so sure I agree with that use case. Consider these made-up communities on not-made-up instances:
I think the first two would be great for general questions. But since mander.xyz has a focus on science and nature, it would be more appropriate for science and nature questions.
Well than only the coms on lemmy and beehaw would choose to be connected by default, and the one on mander wouldn’t. Maybe instead they’d choose to connect to c/technology or c/science on other subs.
In general the names of the communities can often be misleading and confusing. Same was the case on Reddit where sometimes two subs can have the exact opposite uses (famously trees and marijuanaenthusiasts (sp.?), and worldpolitics and anime-titties) and it might be better to assign tags/topics.
Then also attach tags and topics to instances themselves so people can choose their home instance with more confidence.
I like the idea of tags on instances to help search/discovery.