Fedigrow

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To discuss how to grow and manage communities / magazines on Lemmy, Mbin, Piefed and Sublinks

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  2. No bigotry

founded 10 months ago
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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. To avoid centralization on large instances, it is typically recommended to consolidate towards smaller instances, provided that they are well managed.

Step 2: Solicit input

Create a post on !fedigrow@lemmy.zip. 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.

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 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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Most instances have a community where users can request the moderator role for inactive or unmoderated communities.

As each instance names these slightly differently, I have created a thread to collect as many as possible.

Lemmy

Mbin

  • fedia.io
  • kbin.earth
  • kbin.melroy.org
  • moist.catsweat.com
  • feddit.xyz

PieFed

Please comment below with equivalent communities and I'll add them to the list.

Note: When requesting the moderator role for a community, it is best to do so from a local account (same instance as the community) rather than a remote account. Many people (myself included) have encountered federation issues with some moderation actions when using a remote account.

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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by Vicinus@piefed.zip to c/fedigrow@lemmy.zip
 
 

Monthly Active Users:

Software Current Yesterday Last week Last Month 3 Months Ago 6 Months Ago 1 Year Ago
Piefed 4633 4583 2791 1950 1580 1666 260
Lemmy 36366 36362 36320 35127 36310 40133 24182
Mbin 783 790 770 712 721 906 860
Threadiverse 41782 41735 39881 37789 38611 42705 25302
Mastodon 757276 756319 743028 699858 679852 690496 877236
Pixelfed 103265 100584 118480 93330 84698 96797 304563
Peertube 29721 29660 29094 27264 27320 23452 34627
Loops 7342 7252 5578 2426 1074 26939 26110
Bookwyrm 1557 1549 3761 3405 3047 3020 7005
Friendica 1537 1534 1482 1359 1428 1732 2547
Forgejo 508 512 504 490 650 327 644
Funkwhale 241 246 259 221 284 248 483
Flohmarkt 39 38 35 29 7 0 0
Total 943268 939429 942102 866171 836971 885716 1278517

Difference:

Software -1 Day -1 Week -1 Month -3 Month -6 Month -1 Year
Piefed 50 1842 2683 3053 2967 4373
Lemmy 4 46 1239 56 -3767 12184
Mbin -7 13 71 62 -123 -77
Threadiverse 47 1901 3993 3171 -923 16480
Mastodon 957 14248 57418 77424 66780 -119960
Pixelfed 2681 -15215 9935 18567 6468 -201298
Peertube 61 627 2457 2401 6269 -4906
Loops 90 1764 4916 6268 -19597 -18768
Bookwyrm 8 -2204 -1848 -1490 -1463 -5448
Friendica 3 55 178 109 -195 -1010
Forgejo -4 4 18 -142 181 -136
Funkwhale -5 -18 20 -43 -7 -242
Flohmarkt 1 4 10 32 39 39
Total 3839 1166 77097 106297 57552 -335249

Change (%):

Software -1 Day -1 Week -1 Month -3 Month -6 Month -1 Year
Piefed 1.1% 66.0% 137.6% 193.2% 178.1% 1681.9%
Lemmy 0.0% 0.1% 3.5% 0.2% -9.4% 50.4%
Mbin -0.9% 1.7% 10.0% 8.6% -13.6% -9.0%
Threadiverse 0.1% 4.8% 10.6% 8.2% -2.2% 65.1%
Mastodon 0.1% 1.9% 8.2% 11.4% 9.7% -13.7%
Pixelfed 2.7% -12.8% 10.6% 21.9% 6.7% -66.1%
Peertube 0.2% 2.2% 9.0% 8.8% 26.7% -14.2%
Loops 1.2% 31.6% 202.6% 583.6% -72.7% -71.9%
Bookwyrm 0.5% -58.6% -54.3% 48.9% -48.4% -77.8%
Friendica 0.2% 3.7% 13.1% 7.6% -11.3% -39.7%
Forgejo -0.8% 0.8% 3.7% -21.8% 55.4% -21.1%
Funkwhale -2.0% -6.9% 9.0% -15.1% -2.8% -50.1%
Flohmarkt 2.6% 11.4% 34.5% 457.1% - -
Total 0.4% 0.1% 8.9% 12.7% 6.5% -26.2%
  • Note: Threadiverse is Piefed, Lemmy, and Mbin. Fediverse only accounts for listed software [12], not the other [117] software tracked by the website. Added 3 more since last week (Forgejo, Funkwhale, Flohmarkt) and added links to all the software.

  • Source: Fediverse-Observer Click on the icons on the right of the screen to see the data in graph form.

  • Caveats: Only using 1 source, using two different sets of data within the same source (why 6 month and 1 year data seems off compared to the others, I didn't dig through the code to figure out why that would be).

  • Other Notes: Did write a script to that could interact with Fediverse-Observer, unfortunately I ran into a bug in the API. Contacted the developer, they were nice and patched the bug the same day. However, the patch hasn’t made it to the main branch yet (should happen the next week or two). Also, looked into the Piefed API, looks relatively easy to interact with, so hopefully this post should be more automated next time (it's not fun entering all the values manually).

Congratulations to Piefed and Loops for significant growth (>100%) over the last 2 weeks.

Not sure what happened to Bookwyrm last week (20260202), but they lost ~60% of their users on 1 day (lost contact with a server or server shutdown?).

Mods: Again, feel free to delete if its not appropriate in the community.

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submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by Vicinus@piefed.zip to c/fedigrow@lemmy.zip
 
 

Thought it would be interesting to see the growth of the fediverse.

Monthly Active Users:

Software Current Yesterday Last week Last Month 3 Months Ago 6 Months Ago 1 Year Ago
Piefed 2791 2547 2057 1987 1608 1619 155
Lemmy 36320 36213 35487 35232 36482 40903 42973
Mbin 770 769 746 701 725 916 719
Threadiverse 39881 39529 38290 37920 38815 43438 43847
Mastodon 743028 742320 732938 691835 676002 729320 821566
Pixelfed 118480 120952 116430 91956 90879 125028 99003
Peertube 29094 28913 28338 27772 21900 23805 34735
Loops 5578 5039 3021 2271 493 26652 16227
Bookwyrm 3761 3811 3744 3080 2977 2985 4995
Friendica 1482 1470 1442 1313 1501 1756 2547
Total 981185 981563 962493 894067 871382 996422 1066767

Difference:

Software -1 Day -1 Week -1 Month -3 Month -6 Month -1 Year
Piefed 244 734 804 1183 1172 2636
Lemmy 107 833 1088 -162 -4583 -6653
Mbin 1 24 69 45 -146 51
Threadiverse 352 1591 1961 1066 -3557 -3966
Mastodon 708 10090 51193 67026 13708 -78538
Pixelfed -2472 2050 26524 27601 -6548 19477
Peertube 181 756 1322 7194 5289 -5641
Loops 539 2557 3307 5085 -21074 -10649
Bookwyrm -50 17 681 784 776 -1234
Friendica 12 40 169 -19 -274 -1065
Total -378 18692 87118 109803 -15237 -85582

Change (%):

Software -1 Day -1 Week -1 Month -3 Month -6 Month -1 Year
Piefed 9.6% 35.7% 40.5% 73.6% 72.4% 1700.6%
Lemmy 0.3% 2.3% 3.1% -0.4% -11.2% -15.5%
Mbin 0.1% 3.2% 9.8% 6.2% -15.9% 7.1%
Threadiverse 0.9% 4.2% 5.2% 2.7% -8.2% -9.0%
Mastodon 0.1% 1.4% 7.4% 9.9% 1.9% -9.6%
Pixelfed -2.0% 1.8% 28.8% 30.4% -5.2% 19.7%
Peertube 0.6% 2.7% 4.8% 32.8% 22.2% -16.2%
Loops 10.7% 84.6% 145.6% 1031.4% -79.1% -65.6%
Bookwyrm -1.3% 0.5% 22.1% 26.3% 26.0% -24.7%
Friendica 0.8% 2.8% 12.9% -1.3% -15.6% -41.8%
Total 0.0% 1.9% 9.7% 12.6% -1.5% -8.0%
  • Note: Threadiverse is Piefed, Lemmy, and Mbin. Fediverse only accounts for listed software [10] I'm curious about, not the other [119] software tracked by the website.

  • Source: Fediverse-Observer

  • Caveats: Only using 1 source, using two different sets of data within the same source (why 6 month and 1 year data seems off compared to the others, I didn't dig through the code to figure out why that would be).

I may try to make an automated version of this, but I already bounced off the API today (never tried to code to interact with an API before).

Mods: Feel free to delete if its not appropriate in the community.

Edit: Added Difference table & Threadiverse and Fediverse rows after requested. Added Note about Threadiverse and Fediverse. Added clarity it is 'Monthly Active Users', not 'Users'. Spelling.

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I modified a image I saw going around last year on Global Switch Day https://old.reddit.com/r/solarpunk/comments/1ijmkc0/make_the_switch_away_from_meta/

Perhaps we could use it to make people aware of Reddit alternatives etc. If you can imporve upon the image please do so, and feel free to use it.

I just threw it together in KolourPaint in a few min.

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Hey everyone,

We have two major FOSS/Open Source games communities:

!foss_gaming@lemmy.world
!OpenSourceGames@programming.dev

The first comm has a lot more subscribers (and more MAUs).

Seems like a perfect candidate for consolidation.

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/34716680

This was initially demoed at FediCon 2025, but CrowdBucks is an open source, self-hostable fundraising system that allows people to financially support one another. You use your existing Fediverse account to hold a fundraiser, and can also donate to other people's fundraisers as well. The form factor is kind of similar to Kickstarter or Patreon.

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submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world to c/fedigrow@lemmy.zip
 
 

We have three (major) communities around Cities Skylines (there is also another 3 or 4 completely dead ones):

I am not in any way getting involved with ML, they can do whatever they want.

But perhaps there needs to be a level of consolidation between the LW and ZIP communities.

@benjikuu@lemmy.world (mod doesn't seem be using Threadi anymore) @cm0002@lemmy.zip

I know cm0002 cross-posts (in an automated fashion) ML content to the non ML versions (most of which have far more engagement and are starting to overtake the ML ones in subs too).

I am good with whatever, I would prefer a single non-ML comm if I do post stuff about Skylines (which to be honest I haven't played in a long time, but I do like reading about developments on their end).

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Hi all. I was excited when I saw a new Dead by Daylight community was created and I've been trying to post daily to get it going. Its not my community, but I would love to have a thriving Dead by Daylight community on the Fediverse.

Some Dead by Daylight game content can be mature in theme, and I marked some posts as NSFW because I thought they might be a bit borderline, but I also noticed those posts I did mark as NSFW saw almost no interaction. Not even from the community owner. I suspect the issue is the NSFW flag and I second guessed and removed it, but I wanted to hear perspectives from others on that. Is violent game content worth marking NSFW? Should I just wait and see if anybody is bothered? Does marking things NSFW limit their growth a great deal?

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I'm attempted to MAYBE give a try running my own community which one of them would be for Gen-Z. My reason is the r/GenZ subreddit is badly moderated where there's a lot of bigotry and also bit of Generation-bashing which leads to stupid dramas. It would be in somewhat the format of like both causal conversation and any community/groups that talks about their nostalgia. I don't want any elitism about literally the year someone is born, just seems like a weird thing to act self-righteous about.

How do you handle politics? I tried to occasionally read up about politics but I'm not as up to date as I find if I read too much of it, it does affect my mental health for the worse. One thing I want for sure is to not make my community into a "Nazi Bar" but I'm not sure how good I am for spotting Nazis unless it the most well-known dogwistles. I know there's going to some stuff I don't agree with but it how do I know it's a red-flag that needs to be addressed and when it is just them having a different view.

I don't believe in banning politics for it unless there's bunch of people would prefer it and have a valid reason. I have some stuff I want to talk about which I say is somewhat political and want to say it to other Zoomers like me and talk about it like Job-search, money etc. Last thing I want to do is make it taboo to talk about it and give them a safe space to talk about it without feeling like someone would dismissed them.

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Even a huge subreddit like r/games (17 year old community with 1.1 million weekly visitors) is still heavily carried by a single poster, Turbostrider27

Keep working on your Fediverse communities!

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