(also takeover request) should locking and forced "merger" of communities be allowed?
(also takeover request) should locking and forced "merger" of communities be allowed?
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1119656
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.
Having had more time to read over the arguments in the other thread, I do think that the community c/android here on lemmy.world should be reclaimed. Maybe after a little while, so the redirect has the intended effect - it was their community, and I think it's fair to give them a little time to try and get people to consolidate to where they wish, but after that let someone else have the name.
What I do not agree with is your framing of the situation. You have instantly escalated things by insisting this was bullying when that has been confirmed to not be the case, and are trying to pin the mods who decided to do this as intentional bad / rogue actors without actually giving them a chance to resolve the situation in a manner you find acceptable. Did you even message these mods first?
Why do we need to carry over this intense hatred and assuming the worst of others from Reddit? Can't we leave this bad habit behind and try to actually solve problems reasonably before resorting to inflammatory posts?
Yea like are you fucking kidding. Why should a community of 18k people shut down on the whim of 2 people and move to a place with a fraction of the members and far less history. If they are just planning to park the community name then the admins should step in and either remove it so a new community could be made or allow someone willing to take over. Lets not skip over the fact the lemdro.id is a newer instance with no real track record either.
What they did is and should be allowed, simply because nobody has or should have the authority to prohibit them from doing it.
But it should also be the case that by abandoning the original community, they lost all claim to it, so anyone else who wants to should be free to claim it. I wouldn't be surprised if that's already the case, and if not, it should be.
I think if the mods don’t want to have a community open they can decide to close it, fine. But parking the name so no one else can use it isn’t great. It should just be deleted and if someone wants to start one on that instance again they can. But giving people the ability to make ghost communities on any other instance to reduce competition is probably not good overall
I have submitted a support ticket asking about the policy for squatting or if there is no policy noted it is best practice to introduce one. Also queried time frame to take over or set up a new community with the name. Ticket#692599.
Completely respect people who have set up a community deciding to move away from it, but then to not allow others to take it over or set up a new one is questionable I think, and has a bunch of potential issues.
Edit - to illustrate a point, I made Thrifty as it is a large Reddit community, and locked it. Someone has already contacted me to ask about it, within hours. It would not be fair or right of me to squat on it - I have obviously offered it to whoever wants it and linked to another similar sub in the meantime.
Someone should be able to claim inactive or deliberately withheld communities.
Part of the beauty of Lemmy is that you can just start a new community on a new instance. I don't like people referring to things as c/Something, because that community often exists on multiple instances. Sometimes very active on both/all. You can create a new community on another instance, with whatever rules you deem appropriate, and convince people to join you - which is what happened with !android@lemdro.id
Their logic seems pretty solid, though. The old Reddit mods didn't just claim ownership - they reached out to the !android@lemmy.world mods and made their case. The mods at !android@lemmy.world were completely free to tell them to piss off, or welcome them in, or whatever else. They chose this path, and laid out their reasons (although they weren't required to). You may not like it, or agree, but that's generally how mods are handled.
In fact, I see giving you the mod permissions as a hostile takeover by you. You were not a mod, they made their decision, and now you want to takeover all of their work.
I really don’t see a problem with this. The mods of the new community decided they would be better off working with another instance to create a larger, central community.
Nobody was forcing the mods of the Lemmy.world group to close, nobody is forcing them to yield to Reddit mods. Communities are at the whim of the creator, not users. It’s always been the same on Reddit or any forum really.