There are currently 3 Rust communities across 3 instances: programming.dev, lemmyrs.org and this one (lemmy.ml). I know it's still very early for the migration from /r/rust, but it would split the community if there are so many options and nobody knows which is the "right" one. Currently this community has the most subscribers, but it would make sense if the Rust community finds its new home in one of the other instances.
lemmyrs.org seems like the logical solution if instance-wide rules are paramount and "non-negotiable"
personally I would love a programming-centric instance and programming.dev seems like a good way. Rust is not the only language I'm actively using (unfortunately :)). Maybe there can be community-specific rules that "enforce" the Rust CoC and the Rust community can find a home there?
Either way, the current situation has the most negative impact.
My impression is that it is just someone who created a community for each language they could think of. But if programming.dev is a popular instance that is well managed, then sure. But for now, it seems that lemmyrs.org have more users and momentum.
EDIT: On a closer look, it turns out my first impression was quite wrong. programming.dev seem like a quite well managed place, so I do not have anything against using that as a base for rust if that is what the rust community chooses.
My impression is that it is just someone who created a community for each language they could think of.
Actually it's the /r/experienceddevs subreddit mods who created that instance. I had never heard of the subreddit before though but they had a bit above 100k subscribers
I was wondering if this would self-resolve due to the fact that most people choosing which community to join will tend to choose the one with the most people, driving it even farther into the lead. And the other ones would eventually just be deleted...?
But the thing that will decide this is where the leaders and contributors to rust will choose to post their updates, and take their discussions. So, for now I guess lurkers and regular users will have to follow all and see where this will be.
I suspect parent was talking about the number of subscribers to the Rust community on each server (currently 174 on P.D, 591 on lemmyrs). Which server people choose as the "home base" for their account so to speak is an interesting reflection of that server's maturity/impact but not the major driver of community activity.