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should locking and forced "merger" of communities be allowed?

The !android@lemmy.world community on this instance thrived for a while and reached almost 19k subscribers very rapidly and it was very active.

Recently the Reddit mods of r/Android created another community with a few hundred members on another different instance where they are mods and that one was then astroturfed on c/android by a person seemingly unrelated to that community's mods.

Apparently some discussions then took place between owners of both communities and the mods of !android@lemmy.world community then unilaterally closed the community, thus, according to their own sticky notice, succumbing to the flawed reasoning that the Reddit mods are "more experienced" and therefore the rightful representatives of an Android community.

I find this behavior sad and it just shouldn't be allowed here for two reasons:

  • this sets the precedent for more Reddit mods to just come and claim "ownership" of communities by bullying existing ones into closing;
  • does not respect the almost 19k subscribers who didn't even have a say in this, and especially those who had already expressed that they joined !android@lemmy.world because they did NOT want to be moderated by the old Reddit mods.

!android@lemmy.world needs to be reopened now and the mods removed since they expressed that they no longer want to moderate a community on lemmy.world.

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  • I originally disliked this, but I was thinking about it and have changed my mind. Yea this isn't right. if you are closing a community it should be deleted to allow freedom for the next person to use the name. It wouldn't be enforceable at a federation level but, this 100% would be a good instance level rule. Don't take me wrong, I am not against temporary locks for issues internally or for staffing problems, but what was done here was essentially in the domain world what is called a "park" where the name is no longer available for anyone else, but is not being used. I don't think Parking should be allowed, it inhibits growth. This sets a precedent where it would be allowed to make ghost communities here that exist in other instances solely so the community can't exist here as well, it's very anti-user and in my opinion potentially anti-federation.

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