This is how the world works. On Reddit there were multiple subs that covered the same topics, but the mods developed different cultures and vibes through moderation tactics and sub policies.
If you want a car, there are different companies who all provide one but with different options. Same goes for ISPs, TV networks, restaurants, and schools.
It isn't at all a new concept and I'm not sure why people coming from reddit continue to get stuck on it. Subscribe to them all and as they mature unsub from the ones that develop into something you don't feel like you need.
Posting to all of them will be easier when cross posting is possible on Kbin (it is already possible on Lemmy) but developments like that often take time.
Adding an edit as I've thought a bit more: I think it's important, for those coming from reddit, to truly understand why the Fediverse exists. The intention is to be open source. To ensure that there is no single source of power. There are 'unlimited' options (instances, magazines, etc.) to ensure that it cannot be swayed, corrupted.
This is why people are coming from Reddit - you are seeing what happens when one corporation has the power and sets the terms.
I think it's lovely to dip your toes here, ask questions, and see if you'd like to stick around. But please do understand the intention is not to be Reddit 2.0. We should not try to turn it into that.
Everyone's going to say No, and "just subscribe to the most active one", but if you're a 'Fediverse completionist' and want to ensure that there's not a single thing you miss anywhere at any time, then the answer is Yes.
So? Reddit has about 10 sizeable Subs that are just a variation of "Ask Any and All Questions". That's not even counting speciality subs like "MedicalQuestions" or "ITQuestions" or "DermatologyQuestions" or "AskTrangender". Or the different language ones like "FragReddit" (German). In the end 1-3 will become the major ones, all will be a bit different and everyone will find the ones they like most.
No offense, but you're argument reveals that you're thinking of all this fedi stuff as a service provided to you, like Facebook or reddit.
It is not. It is people like you and me creating and taking part in them.
These tools are BRAND NEW. It is likely the creators of one didn't know about the other(s) at that time. This is US doing all this for US not a corporation making tools to suck people in to advertise to.
Not gonna crit you further. You probably don't remember the internet before the corps ruined it.
No. You don't have to. But if you want to throw a wide net and not just wind up with a singular place with a unified mentality, it's good to have multiple places focused on the same topic. For perspective.
Ask yourself if you subscribed to /r/tech or /r/technology or both or neither (or /r/pics, /r/pic etc., whatever you jam is) and you will have your answer.
A community name is just an address, both on Lemmy and on Reddit. It never mean that that address had the exclusive rights to a topic.
You don't have to if you don't want to. Subscribe to the one you like best, and help grow that one.
Personally, I find myself only subscribing to and browsing communities on the local instance. The idea of the Fediverse is cool and all, but it's just way too much information for one person to process.
Some of these duplicate communities are just placeholders. But sometimes, the differences are obvious, where one community Is populated by jerks or modded by power-trippers.
Over time, the more popular community will become clear by the number of subscribers. (Or the real, topical one will give itself a different name to avoid confusion with the jerks).
They don’t get the message that a similar community already exists because they are on separate instances. Due to defederation, it’s possible that not all of those communities will be visible from all other instances. This is one reason why it’s useful to have the same community across multiple instances.
I think there will probably be a natural selection of which one prevails. But each instances may have different rules and different mods. So follow and unfollow the few that have what you like. It would be nice in the future though to ability to create aggregate subs or find aggregate subs like a multi-subreddit for a given topic.
For now yes, but over time probably no. Multiple communities around the same subject are created on different instances. They'll compete to become the most active one. Then everyone will subscribe to that one, and it will grow even more.
However, if over time you don't like that one any more (e.g. don't agree with the mods) you can start a community with the same name somewhere else and compete again to become the most active one (or not, and stay small if that is preferred).
the whole fediverse requires a more effort on your part than reddit ever did. i hate reddit now and left permanently, but i know that the fediverse will never be able to replace reddit and reddit will continue to flourish.
Pretty much, but i I think as the apps and front ends mature, we’ll be able to set up personal “multireddits.” I don’t mind signing up for the multiple communities because I understand why or is that way. However, do think the instances are forming more from simple load distribution and less from the types of deep seated shared interests that may have been predicted. The result is that there are more communities than expected that might benefit from being "collated", but that will be a pretty personal decision.
"That's the way of the world" is usually said by Ayn Rand types who don't care about anyone else or know how to make things better.
Also, they paint the questioner as some nutter obsessed with finding every single byte about a topic.
And, no one is "stuck" on anything, we notice a defect and want to find a solution.
So think about this. Suppose you're making a community for, say, Ukrainians who have taken refuge in the USA.
What kind of person shrugs off their need to find each other and says "Suck it up buttercup". Or makes fun of them for asking.
Yes, there are inconvenient and irritating ways of handling the problem. Shrugging it off just tells me what kind of person you are, but it doesn't improve anything.
Now, what we could do - crazy, I know, hear me out - is think of a way to conglomerate all the content from diverse instances with different policies into one community where anyone can hear everyone else.
Two kinds of people in this world. The ones who start asking mocking questions, and those who put their heads together.
isn't activitypub stuff basically open?
so you could create or comission your own platform/ interface that can synthesize posts from all sorts of places and could even do things about duplicates?
thats the benefir of the open source data model and apis - someone can probabledevlop the features you want - eventually.
the current platforms probably all look a bit like pre existing forums / aggregators or social media . butthats just a starting pont, the future could be much weirder ways of compiling displaying and creating posts. and in theory it can all interoprate (within reason, and outwith federation blocks)
i probably have no idea what i'm talking about though . . . i've certainly not even queried a single activitypub api personally
can you subscribe to all of them? yes. do you have to? No. Lemmy is still new, overtime people will gravitate to particular ones and the others will wither away
For example, if No Stupid Questions@kbin.social tomorrow decides to add a rule "No Post about cats" there are still others you can subscribe to that won't have that rule
Can we get some multicommunities that can include some of most active for a given community across whichever instance they're in that can be subscribed to at once?
Or does that feature exist already and I just don't know about it?
There were multireddits before. Not quite the same use case, but similar concept.
You don't have to. You can. You can also only subscribe to one of them. Did you subscribe to every single subreddit covering a specific or non specific topic? Is it an issue that you get content from ~4 different communities / magazines of similar content? Why make it harder than it is?
No, you don't have to subscribe to any of them, much less all of them.
There's gong to be multiples with a given name because they each exist on their own instance. Instances are mini reddits that can talk to each other, not the same site.
You want redundancy, it's one of the biggest benefits of federation and decentralization.
For real? I didn't know this is how it worked. I don't even know how to find those other instances. Do they just come up automagically or do you have to specifically search under those other instances?
I mean you can, but there are instances I don't want to be federated with because of some of the content they host (which is moot for this discussion and I'm not thinking enough into whether they're any of these four). In those cases, I wouldn't want to subscribe to those specific communities. Kind of a guilt by association thing. Shitty, but it's how the system works.