cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/24889

[Disclaimer: Lemmy newb here]

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.

Thoughts?

  • lemmyrs@lemmyrs.orgMEnglish
    9·
    1 year ago

    A few things:

    • Instances are like their own self-hosted Reddits with communities being the sub-reddits. We have (had?) r/python, r/rust, r/golang along with r/programming; we can do the same here with topic-focused instance (like this one). I can imagine there being instances like lemmygo.org, lemmypy.org etc if the Reddit exodus continues.
    • You don’t need multiple accounts to access communities (sub-reddits) from other instances (reddit). A single account on any instance allows you to access communities from any other instance. The UX/UI is a bit wonky, but it works.
    • As @[email protected] pointed out, micro-communities like cli, wasm, networking etc can potentially become big enough and/or have specifics that are more suitable to exist on a topic-based instance.

    Personally, I don’t have any preference. I will simply subscribe to the community which is the most active on whichever instance.

    • veaviticus@lemmy.oneEnglish
      10·
      1 year ago

      The downside to individual servers, and micro-communities, is the cost and maintenance of lemmy instance. Its more scalable, reliable and cheaper to have a bunch of relatively low-churn communities exist on one bigger instance.

      The upside is that the rust community gets to own its own data. If programming.dev decides to shut down tomorrow, and posts and comments made there are gone. Lemmy doesn’t mirror or cache… all that data lives solely on the server ran by somebody.

      I’d vote lemmyrs at least for now until a governance and stability model is figured out to ensure these conversations don’t go into /dev/null like /r/rust (sort of) did.

      If say the Linux Foundation or a similarly large open source foundation (Apache, FSF, OSI, etc) decided to host a larger “open source” server, I’d consider moving there to improve discoverability and lessen the burden on the rust community itself

      • jeltz@programming.devEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        Agreed, there are advantages of having an own community. Especially until the people running e.g. programming.dev have a proven track record of being reliable.

        • snowe@programming.devEnglish
          31·
          1 year ago

          Hi, creator of programming.dev here. What could we do to prove reliability to you? Would open graphs and metrics of the current state of the service help? Would current server costs and how much has been covered by donations help? Would knowing the names of everyone with access to the server, on the admin team, or access to the domain name help?

          It seems to me like a user stood up an instance of lemmy and because it has rs as part of the name you might be treating it like the Rust community’s, but to me, it’s exactly the same as programming.dev, except it has a lot less chance of staying running.

      • snowe@programming.devEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        The upside is that the rust community gets to own its own data.

        Well, sure, if you know who the owner of lemmyrs is, and if they follow all the other stuff you talk about here.

        If programming.dev decides to shut down tomorrow, and posts and comments made there are gone. Lemmy doesn’t mirror or cache… all that data lives solely on the server ran by somebody.

        Correct! Which is why I’ve already taken great pains to make sure that if something happens to me (owner of programming.dev) that the server continues to run. I already have someone else managing the domain with me, several people have access to the server. Backups occur daily. Is some sort of “legally separated backup where if I die the lawyers can hand over the db backups to someone else and they can take over” what you’re looking for? I am trying very hard to make sure that the website does not depend on a single person to keep it running, but it seems like a lot of people want something to happen, but can’t describe what that is.

        • veaviticus@lemmy.oneEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Oh I’m not saying what your doing over at programming.dev is wrong or insufficient… Honestly I don’t know what your doing to ensure the lemmy server exists long term (though its great to hear you’ve got some policies in place already).

          I’m more thinking the rust community should evaluate options and vote, or some rust subgroup of the leadership should set criteria to ensure that another reddit-type event doesn’t happen again (the home of this community must be open-source, with data backups publicly available, with a governing body and a line of succession or something, etc).

          If programming.dev meets those things today, I’d say sure lets move there. I think its better to have a lemmy instance for a concept (computer science) than a specific topic (rust), but that’s just me

          • snowe@programming.devEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            Oh I’m not saying what your doing over at programming.dev is wrong or insufficient… Honestly I don’t know what your doing to ensure the lemmy server exists long term (though its great to hear you’ve got some policies in place already).

            Oh yes, I completely understood you weren’t saying that. I’m asking what we can do to make it more likely for the community to want to be at [email protected]! I want to do as much as possible! The rust community would be a huge benefit to others in the instance, and we think others will be more likely to want to work on the Lemmy project if the Rust community does join. Having programmers alongside each other will be really helpful to us all I think.

            I’m more thinking the rust community should evaluate options and vote, or some rust subgroup of the leadership should set criteria to ensure that another reddit-type event doesn’t happen again (the home of this community must be open-source, with data backups publicly available, with a governing body and a line of succession or something, etc).

            Yeah I’d love to see this! The data backups being publicly available might cause a problem (then your usernames and passwords have a chance of being cracked 😬), but other than that, yeah I completely agree!

    • unreliable@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      On reddit was very common having multiple communities about same topics, you just subscribe to all. Overtime each would creates its own personality or vanish. It is a natural process.