I don’t think the demographic should have much of a bearing on the intent and focus of the community, and I would personally prefer both communities to exist and satisfy their respective niche rather than attempt to shoehorn general discussion into Patient Gamers. The latter is very specifically about waiting 12+ months to play a game (for whatever reason), and while I don’t know their particular moderation policy I - as a user browsing - would not go there to look for broad general discussion topics like “what are some games that discourage savescumming well?” or “how do we make an evil playthrough interesting?”.
I myself would not go create a community dedicated to game discussion at this point. I don’t feel that the traffic at !games@sh.itjust.works is high enough to warrant even breaking communities out of that – like, there are plenty of people who do talk about games there.
But on the other hand, I’m not sure that it gains much to actively shut down a small community either. Like, I’d guess that most people on this community are probably also able to find !games@sh.itjust.works or similar. I just subscribe to both, and if someone posts something here, I’ll see the post.
Right now, if I want to talk about games, I do it at !games@sh.itjust.works. If that ever becomes too high-traffic, then I’ll maybe start posting somewhere like this community.
I think that having an MIA moderator could become an issue, but it’s not as if this community is flooded by spam or people behaving badly or something, so…shrugs
I think instance admins can transfer moderator powers by request, if absentee moderation should become an issue.
I wouldn’t blame anyone for sticking to c/games, maybe it is too early for niche communities to thrive on Lemmy. I still think attempting to promote and maintain this community has value, but there’s no denying that attempting to keep it active requires a lot of effort considering the type of posts it’s intended for.
I think instance admins can transfer moderator powers by request, if absentee moderation should become an issue.
We can indeed. If a user if the instance, who is in good standing, would like to take up the reins moderating a community they often post to, then they can drop us a note a and we’ll look into it. We do keep an eye out for enthusatic posters to communities without an active Mod and might reach out to them but there’s no harm in being proactive.
But on the other hand, I’m not sure that it gains much to actively shut down a small community either. Like, I’d guess that most people on this community are probably also able to find !games@sh.itjust.works or similar. I just subscribe to both, and if someone posts something here, I’ll see the post.
To me the main issue is new joiners. Once in a while, you see someone new to Lemmy who doesn’t know how to find communities. They register on feddit.uk, look at the local communities, see that it’s inactive, and question whether Lemmy is active as a whole.
It certainly depends on the clients used, but in my experience searching for communities Lemmy-wide is as, or perhaps even more, discoverable/straightforward than looking through local communities. So most new users will hopefully find their way to other servers’ communities (and I expect this UX to be reinforced by most clients where promoting decentralisation is part of their philosophy).
Of course some users will still stumble upon an inactive community first and be confused. However, I don’t know if stumbling upon locked communities instead would be a big improvement (and would certainly be a detriment to the existing occasional poster who now has an additional barrier to posting).
A reference to one or more related communities in the description would be a great idea though, regardless of level of activity; it’d be a fallback for inactive communities, but also a curated way to find more places in that field.
stumbling upon locked communities instead would be a big improvement (and would certainly be a detriment to the existing occasional poster who now has an additional barrier to posting).
Locked communities should indeed have a redirection pinned post
I don’t think the demographic should have much of a bearing on the intent and focus of the community, and I would personally prefer both communities to exist and satisfy their respective niche rather than attempt to shoehorn general discussion into Patient Gamers. The latter is very specifically about waiting 12+ months to play a game (for whatever reason), and while I don’t know their particular moderation policy I - as a user browsing - would not go there to look for broad general discussion topics like “what are some games that discourage savescumming well?” or “how do we make an evil playthrough interesting?”.
Interesting
I posted “Do you still play couch coop nowadays? Which games do you recommend?” 20 days ago, got 133 upvotes and 47 comments
I would like it too, but I’m afraid there is only so many posters / posts to spread over communities with our current userbase.
I myself would not go create a community dedicated to game discussion at this point. I don’t feel that the traffic at !games@sh.itjust.works is high enough to warrant even breaking communities out of that – like, there are plenty of people who do talk about games there.
But on the other hand, I’m not sure that it gains much to actively shut down a small community either. Like, I’d guess that most people on this community are probably also able to find !games@sh.itjust.works or similar. I just subscribe to both, and if someone posts something here, I’ll see the post.
Right now, if I want to talk about games, I do it at !games@sh.itjust.works. If that ever becomes too high-traffic, then I’ll maybe start posting somewhere like this community.
I think that having an MIA moderator could become an issue, but it’s not as if this community is flooded by spam or people behaving badly or something, so…shrugs
I think instance admins can transfer moderator powers by request, if absentee moderation should become an issue.
I wouldn’t blame anyone for sticking to c/games, maybe it is too early for niche communities to thrive on Lemmy. I still think attempting to promote and maintain this community has value, but there’s no denying that attempting to keep it active requires a lot of effort considering the type of posts it’s intended for.
We can indeed. If a user if the instance, who is in good standing, would like to take up the reins moderating a community they often post to, then they can drop us a note a and we’ll look into it. We do keep an eye out for enthusatic posters to communities without an active Mod and might reach out to them but there’s no harm in being proactive.
To me the main issue is new joiners. Once in a while, you see someone new to Lemmy who doesn’t know how to find communities. They register on feddit.uk, look at the local communities, see that it’s inactive, and question whether Lemmy is active as a whole.
Temporarily locking it with a pinned post to !games@sh.itjust.works might prevent that
It certainly depends on the clients used, but in my experience searching for communities Lemmy-wide is as, or perhaps even more, discoverable/straightforward than looking through local communities. So most new users will hopefully find their way to other servers’ communities (and I expect this UX to be reinforced by most clients where promoting decentralisation is part of their philosophy).
Of course some users will still stumble upon an inactive community first and be confused. However, I don’t know if stumbling upon locked communities instead would be a big improvement (and would certainly be a detriment to the existing occasional poster who now has an additional barrier to posting).
A reference to one or more related communities in the description would be a great idea though, regardless of level of activity; it’d be a fallback for inactive communities, but also a curated way to find more places in that field.
Locked communities should indeed have a redirection pinned post
!casualconversation@lemmy.world has one