When a user lives within an instance, the user is only capable of creating a community in that instance.
My original thought process was the following:
I want to set up an instance in which the focus is nature and science, and so people that share the same interest can join in. However, I do not want to set limits on the types of communities that can be created, because I also want users to be able to build communities about their other interests without needing to be searching for another more appropriate instance.
However, after reading comments from a few users, I have considered a different perspective too. Users that join into this instance may appreciate being able to browse specifically content about science and nature when sorting through “Local”, and diluting this content with off-topic communities can worsen that experience. By setting a tighter boundary on the types of communities that are created, we may be able to provide a better “Local” experience for the average user.
So - I would like to hear from you.
Would it be worth restricting the topics of allowable communities, even if that means that some users will need to hop in between instances to create their communities?
If yes, than how should the boundaries be drawn?
Some cases are easy to define. A sports-betting community is certainly off-topic, and a Nature Sketching community certainly on-topic.
But what about a community about “Sensors”? One can argue sensors fall into ‘engineering’ and not necessarily ‘science’, but I still think that there is significant enough overlap. So, if anyone has some good tips on how to define the boundaries, please let me know.
Of course, even the boundaries can be ‘soft’, and common sense can be used, but I think users would appreciate knowing what to expect.
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I also like that this community has a theme and that I can use the Local feed when I want to limit my browsing to Mander. I’m subscribed to other instances for generalist topics.
I don’t have a problem with opening the umbrella of Mander to a broader interpretation of STEAM, though. As long as everyone is being kind and responsible, people in diverse fields can share space and learn from each other.
Maybe extending the boundary of topics to the complete STEM fields (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) + Nature can broaden the range enough without diluting the theme. One suggestion.
The humanities and sciences are neural networks that complement each other. It should be fuzzy logic based on both tone and theme. I would invite STEM. We need to talk to each other more.
I would really appreciate a broader STEM theme. While I enjoy the natural sciences, I probably don’t have quite as much that I could directly contribute to those topics. My hobbies tend to fall more in the math/AI/programming/art sphere, so I have been wondering how broad the “science” umbrella was intended to be.
However, I am probably not going to start any communities of my own (at least not at this time), so I would also be content to contain those sorts of topics to relevant communities outside of our instance, if that’s what everyone prefers.
And though I like an overall science/STEM theme as my core, my personal hobbies drift towards the biological - gardening, beekeeping, homebrewing, mushroom-hunting, etc. I think it would be fine to allow all of that stuff here, or to limit the instance more tightly than that. It doesn’t really matter - federation means there can be 15 different beekeeping communities on 15 different instances, and as long as all the Lemmy beekeepers subscribe to them it’s just… not a big deal. And then if one instance goes down for an hour (or forever) the actual human community of beekeeping lemmings isn’t fractured, we’ve just lost one appendage.
I think once Salamander has made their choice they should just publicize it and then we can all abide by it. No matter what is chosen, I do like publicly belonging to a “science and nature” tribe on Lemmy instead of a “default” tribe or “communist memes” tribe.
I would also like math and AI, so we are at least two :)!
Personally, it is nice to be part of a community with a theme. If there was a community around sensors I would be there to talk about automatic irrigation systems.
I would ask, how do you want people to use Mander? Do you want it to be the singular home for your members and host to all of their varied and disparate interests (bringing in subscribers from a thousand other instances who are not remotely interested in nature or science), OR a destination repository of nature and science communities (topic-centered)?
I wouldn’t worry about people needing to hop between instances, unless you’d prefer to eventually become a generalized server like beehaw. If you look at the issues they are running into right now, even though their communities are admin-created, catch-all is a model I wouldn’t want to touch with a ten foot pole as an admin. Some of the instances they’ve had to block are just… shocking.
My own use case is I had already joined a handful of different instances, and set them each up to give myself some semblance of what multireddits used to do for me.
This is my brain-food account. From here I subscribe to communities about nature (my heart), science, and more broadly, those focused on curiosity, learning, research, and with more academically-oriented (or at least thoughtful) discussion. So my own extension of your theme has some pretty soft edges.
In terms of how to draw your boundaries, I honestly thought what you have in the sidebar should have been enough, it’s short and clear and I wouldn’t have thought to add anything… but then I saw communities for games/deals, a horror fiction author fan group, and a re-creation of the ‘boring dystopia’ doomscroll subreddit lol
Rather than getting into the absolute headache of putting hard boundaries around communities, another idea might be to just add a question/item to your registration process, reiterating that the focus of Mander is nature and science in general, and asking registrants to explicitly agree to consider this before creating a new community in this space?
This would leave the theme open to interpretation, while still respecting it. Like, the science of cooking is a super cool topic I would never have considered. Someone else mentioned a beekeeping community. Those are awesome and absolutely belong here. I think keeping the boundaries soft is a good idea, and I think “nature and science” should be perfectly fine, but a confirmation filter of some kind (either in registration or in the create community form, or both) could be helpful.
I think extending to STEM is a good take on it. That would keep it at least academically focused and make it easy to say “communities about horror fiction authors aren’t what we’re going for”, etc. My only concern would be an explosion of extremely niche communities that never really take off, potentially diluting broader communities. However, that’s more an issue with the Fediverse in general and could be unavoidable growing pains.
I love being able to browse local and only get topics in the sciences field. It gives Mander a unique feel and I think that tone is worth preserving. I have subbed to communities on other instances that are definitely not science-based and can easily catch up on them by filtering subscribed.
If a horror fiction author wanted help writing about a vine that could grow over someone as they slept, we would love to be the place for that discussion.
Oh, definitely! I actually saw a post like that on lemmy.world earlier today. I was referring to the community dedicated to Stephen King that used to be here.
I’m proud to have joined this tribe on Lemmy. I don’t mind having the local community list show some diversity (e.g. mushroom growing and gardening in addition to astrophysics and recent publications on COVID evolution) but I don’t need this instance to scratch my “askreddit” itch. That’s what federation is for! I think it’s your call, but I think drawing a line in the sand is worthwhile to keep this instance moderately thematically organized.
I joined this instance for the STEM topics actually :). I love that there are natural science too! For me it would be the perfect mix to have both.
The only thing about STEM is that I would really like to keep it academic focused :). More about the SOTA in AI and stuff, and less about how Elon Musk did something stupid again. There is already a technology community on beehaw for that ;)
