Dear European enthusiasts,
We’re excited to grow Europe Pub and need your help to make it thrive! We’re looking for passionate individuals to join us as community builders and moderators.
What we need:
- Community builders to breathe life into our existing communities
- Moderators for country-specific communities who speak the native languages
Why native-speaking moderators are crucial: Europe’s beauty lies in its linguistic diversity. We want to replicate this diversity in our country-specific communities. Our goal is to ensure that every European can participate in discussions using their native language. This approach will make Europe Pub truly inclusive and representative of our continent’s rich tapestry of languages and cultures.
This is your chance to contribute to the fediverse movement and create a truly European social network. Let’s break free from centralized American social media and build something that represents our diverse continent.
Whether you’re passionate about European culture, politics, or simply want to connect with fellow Europeans, we’d love to have you on board. No technical expertise required – just enthusiasm, a love for Europe, and fluency in your native European language!
If you’re interested in helping shape Europe Pub, please comment below or send me a message.
Let’s work together to create a vibrant, inclusive space! 🇪🇺
Adding my 2 cents from a user perspective:
I have all 3 on my watchlist. Crossposts are shown to me 3 times. I don’t comment, because the segregation does not help in getting a discussion going. You need to get information from all 3 in order to have the full picture. Or I mute 2 out of 3, and that kind of solves the problem in the long run. Are this point, people would decide for the biggest of the 3 anyways, right? Let’s speed up the process.
I’m all in for merging the 3. Let’s join forces rather than fight “centralisation”.
Thanks for the feedback. I’ve already commented on this matter: https://europe.pub/post/14163/38489
Basically, this should be solved at the platform level. I don’t like the idea of consolidation since it leads to more centralization. The feed should bundle similar posts and comments from similar communities. That way we keep it decentralized and also the feed clean. :)
The point I’m trying to make is: it will organically be centralised by users choosing to only actively use the biggest and most active community. By proactively merging, the process will only be sped up.
Time will tell. As I mentioned, I’m in favor of more similar communities, more mods, more admins, and more decentralization. The duplication issue is better addressed by bundling posts rather than consolidating communities.
Additionally, let’s remember that mods and admins significantly shape the culture of a community. Therefore, even similar communities can look very differently.
To add to what you’re saying, Lemmy communities are already “centralization”
People wanting complete decentralization should use Mastodon or Sharkey, there it’s completely decentralized as every person is posting their own content, without any risk of consolidation.
Not sure that’s what people are looking for here, Reddit and Twitter were very different formats.
There’s always too many dutch people volunteering for stuff like this. But I’m open to helping moderate the dutch side, although I’m not much of a community builder to be honest so won’t be able to help that much on that side.
As a short introduction I’m 23, Software Test Automation Engineer with quite a bit of experience within a moderator teams (Hypixel, Cubecraft, MCCI) and also being a semi-lead on a forums moderation team for Hypixel having input on rules and moderation. Currently also a mod for !buyfromeu@feddit.org but I do not actively mod there, I’m just a part of decision making when action needs to be taken / rules need changing (head-mod there decided for it to be a democratic process + mostly hands off).
I’ll send you a PM! :)
Hello,
Currently also a mod for !buyfromeu@feddit.org but I do not actively mod there, I’m just a part of decision making when action needs to be taken / rules need changing (head-mod there decided for it to be a democratic process + mostly hands off).
How do you feel about having 4 active communities on the same topic preventing all activity on that topic being visible in one space that can be linked to new joiners (e.g. people on /r/buyfromEU)?
Just to preface, this is my personal opinion and I am not speaking on behalf of the mod team of buyfromeu@feddit.org as we all have our unique opinion on it.
I think the whole point of the fediverse is that we don’t centralize anymore. People have the decision what community of BuyFromEU/BuyEuropean they want to join/participate in and cross-posting is a functionality. Every community has their own rules and moderation styles and people may not agree with 1 of them. The most preferred one will become the biggest/most active one and the others can always exist alongside and serve as a place to go if people feel the need to change.
Just to add on to this a little bit, I believe we should leave it to the community to naturally decide where they want to go and what should exist (something that shouldn’t or has no interest will die out by itself) instead of trying to encourage people to drop what they’re working on to lead people somewhere else.
Every community has their own rules and moderation styles and people may not agree with 1 of them.
What are the differences in rules and moderation styles between !buyfromeu@feddit.org , !BuyFromEU@lemm.ee and !buyeuropean@feddit.uk ?
I believe we should leave it to the community to naturally decide where they want to go and what should exist (something that shouldn’t or has no interest will die out by itself)
!buyeuropean@feddit.uk weekly active users: 6500
!buyfromeu@feddit.org weekly active users: 1400
Where are the active alternative communities with similar rules to
- !europe@feddit.org
- !metal@lemmy.world
- !gardening@lemmy.world
- !woodworking@lemmy.ca
- !patientgamers@sh.itjust.works ?
Having one community allow people to search for recommendations in one place. Having three or four of them is not convenient in that regard.
People want the place with the most people to ask their questions. Having three or four communities gives them choice overload https://lawsofux.com/choice-overload/
You mention crossposts, but they don’t prevent all of the conversation to happen in one place, usually the larger community
What are the differences in rules and moderation styles between !buyfromeu@feddit.org , !BuyFromEU@lemm.ee and !buyeuropean@feddit.uk ?
I don’t specifically interact with the communities enough to give you an answer. But also, it may be similar now but rules and teams evolve.
The rest
I personally do not use the bottom 4 so wouldn’t know. But in terms of europe this is what I have on hand: !Europe@europe.pub !europe@lemmy.ml !europa@lemmy.world
You make points that are your personal opinion, if everybody shared that they’d only be using 1 of the communities and nobody would even want to make another one.
As I’ve stated, you should let the community naturally decide what gets to exist and stay alive and what doesn’t. You are not the main decider what should happen on Lemmy/the fediverse but you’re trying to have a lot of influence in shaping it. If something like this was “bad” the developers of Lemmy should make something for it, the way people use software is shaped by the features on it, not from someone telling people how they should use it. Instead of having discussions like this every time a new community pops up suggest a technical change that can improve Lemmy, that’s much more useful and time efficient.
Also just want to bring up, stuff like this also happens on reddit believe it or not. Belgium itself has multiple subreddits all just being “belgium” and a number or something, this specifically happened because people did not agree with the moderation of the others.
But honestly, I don’t really care about this “issue” enough to keep debating it. Here’s my simple opinion as I’ve stated twice already: Let the people choose, it will all evolve naturally and we’ll see what sticks over time. Having discussions like this is a waste of time and new people seeing this may even be turned off from using anything fediverse related as its already complicated enough compared to normal social media and this just shows how “unstable” it is compared to normal socials.
Hello,
Copy pasting what I put in another post on !BuyFromEU@lemm.ee
My personal stance on this is that
If rules, moderation policies and admin policies are similar, there should only be one community on a single topic while we have a userbase below 100k
This allows for !politics@lemmy.world and !politics@hexbear.net to coexist, as there is a reason for them to (different moderation policies). It’s similar for !climate@slrpnk.net and !climatehope@lemmy.world, as those communities have different principles and perspectives on their topic.
This suggests to consolidate communities like !movies@lemmy.world and !movies@lemm.ee
Another recent example is
- !buyeuropean@feddit.uk
- !buyfromeu@feddit.org
- there is now a third community, !BuyFromEU@europe.pub
These three communities have similar rules, similar moderation and admin policies. They should be consolidated. And I know this is a very controversial topic, but I made a longer post recently on !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com for people interested.
In summary, my main argument is that
- even though subscribers can potentially subscribe to all communities on a topic
- posters are only going to post to one community, because they want the conversation to happen with the most people in one place, which is not the case if you crosspost as the comments gets splintered across the different communities
To take a recent example
As a member of both communities, I find it a pain to have two similar communities even more so when both post the exact same content because it creates more noise in my feed and because it forces me to waste my time and energy deciding where I will read said duplicated content and maybe post a comment. The solution is obvious: I will unsubscribe from one (for the time being, I still follow the two communities).
https://jlai.lu/post/16318139/13038429
There is a natural tendency of “one community emerges as the main one” on several topics
- !europe@feddit.org
- !fediverse@lemmy.world
- !gardening@lemmy.world
- !metal@lemmy.world
- !jrpg@lemmy.zip
- !crochet@lemmy.ca
If one community does not emerge as the main one, it’s usually because two or more regular posters maintain both communities active by posting to their preferred community.
- !movies@lemmy.world vs !movies@lemm.ee
- !android@lemmy.world vs !android@lemdro.id
- all the privacy communities that are active at the same time
So, my suggestions are to consolidate similar communities. This single decision will not make this platform similar to Reddit. On Reddit, you had no way to complain about power tripping mods, there were no public modlogs, and discourse criticizing the mods or the admins would get silenced.
Here, we have !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com, and recent examples have shown that the community can actually resist power tripping: https://feddit.org/post/7025680/4263481.
If the mods of the consolidated community start to power trip, document this on !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com and reorganize on the alternative communities. If not, stay on that one community, to foster more active conversations and posts.
That’s the theory we encourage on !fedigrow@lemm.ee, feel free to join us there to discuss this further.
Open to discussion on this.
I see it like that:
Consolidation leads to centralization, and centralization creates power structures that go against the core principles of the Fediverse. If too many users concentrate in a single community, it gives disproportionate influence to a small group of admins and moderators. If that community’s instance goes down (as we saw with feddit.de) or if those in charge abuse their power, the entire structure can be destabilized. That’s precisely the kind of problem the Fediverse was built to avoid.
The idea of migrating communities when moderation becomes problematic sounds good in theory, but in practice, it rarely works, especially as the network scales up. It’s also cumbersome. People don’t want to uproot and start over repeatedly, and large communities don’t just “move” smoothly. Instead, they tend to fracture, lose engagement, or remain stuck under poor leadership.
it creates more noise in my feed
I get that, but this feels like a problem that should be solved at the platform level rather than by consolidating communities. People should be able to subscribe to multiple similar communities across different instances, and the feed algorithm should be able to detect and bundle similar posts across these communities. However, it should not decide which content is “best”. It should simply organize the feed more efficiently without interfering with visibility.
In the end, this is the ongoing dilemma of decentralization: Do we prioritize distribution of power, or do we focus on ease of use? There’s no perfect answer, but we should aim for a balance rather than rushing to consolidate.
Thank you for your comment
The idea of migrating communities when moderation becomes problematic sounds good in theory, but in practice, it rarely works, especially as the network scales up. It’s also cumbersome. People don’t want to uproot and start over repeatedly, and large communities don’t just “move” smoothly. Instead, they tend to fracture, lose engagement, or remain stuck under poor leadership.
People left !moviesandtv@lemm.ee after the power tripping: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/29606682. !showsandmovies@lemm.ee became the most active community
!onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone is also another example: https://feddit.org/post/7025680/4263481
get that, but this feels like a problem that should be solved at the platform level rather than by consolidating communities. People should be able to subscribe to multiple similar communities across different instances, and the feed algorithm should be able to detect and bundle similar posts across these communities. However, it should not decide which content is “best”. It should simply organize the feed more efficiently without interfering with visibility.
This is not going to happen any time soon for Lemmy, and even though Piefed has feeds, the issue stays the same: if a question about European luggage is listed on 3 different communities, people are not going to copy paste their answers in the 3 communities, leading to discussion splintering
In the end, this is the ongoing dilemma of decentralization: Do we prioritize distribution of power, or do we focus on ease of use? There’s no perfect answer, but we should aim for a balance rather than rushing to consolidate.
I am in favor of having one community, !buyeuropean@feddit.uk , due to the good track record of the instance admins.
Should the mods start power tripping, people can organize on !europe@feddit.org
Piefed has such a feature now https://europe.pub/post/44083
Piefed still doesn’t have mobile apps.
They still sit at 331 monthly active users. https://piefed.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=7
Lemmy has 54781: https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=7
Are you planning to switch your instance to Piefed?
No I don’t. Just wanted to say it’s possible and we should take that as inspiration.
Also why does it matter how many users they have or an App? It’s still a working feature and I really support this.
It matters because this means that only 0.6% of the userbase (it’s even less, as Mbin also have a few hundreds users, but whatever) can use that feature.
The 99.4% of the userbase is still going to experience what the other commenter has reported: https://feddit.org/comment/5567697 and that you choose to ignore
As I mentioned, I’m in favor of more similar communities, more mods, more admins, and more decentralization.
May I ask you why you’re not using a micro blogging Fediverse platform, like Mastodon or Sharkey? On these, decentralization is maximal, as every person post on their own to the general feed.
Lemmy/Reddit format of communities/subreddits relies on people to collaborate at some point. The value of that format compared to microblogging is the crowd sourced curation (votes) and additional input (comments). Votes and comments require the posts to be created once, so that users can interact with it once.
There are plenty of examples recently, but let’s take this one: https://feddit.nl/post/30955168 484 votes, 28 comments
- https://feddit.nl/post/30988819 , your crosspost: 34 votes , no comments
People only comment once on a given topic, so crossposting on similar communities splinters the conversation
mods and admins significantly shape the culture of a community. Therefore, even similar communities can look very differently.
What are the differences between
Except that the first one is more active? I crosspost most of the content you post on the second to the first, you crosspost some of the content I post to the first to the second.
People left !moviesandtv@lemm.ee after the power tripping
Firstly, !moviesandtv@lemm.ee still has 2,500 subscribers, while !showsandmovies@lemm.ee only has 1,500 at this point. Additionally, the moderators are now directing users to !television@lemm.ee, which has even fewer subscribers (around 200), as mentioned in this post. Rather than a clean transition, this situation has resulted in a fractured community.
Secondly, in this case, the issue was malicious moderation. Users left because of bad mod behavior, but the real concern remains: admins have the final say. If an admin decides to power trip, the entire community—and potentially the whole instance—falls under their control.
This brings us back to the exact problem Reddit has. As long as the company aligned with community interests, it could hold rogue moderators accountable. But once Reddit had a financial or ideological agenda, entire communities were left powerless.
In contrast, a decentralized approach with similar communities on different instances offers a natural fail-safe. If one instance becomes problematic, users can easily regroup on other similar communities rather than having to start from scratch. This ensures continuity and resilience rather than the all-or-nothing risk of centralization.
If a question about European luggage is listed on three different communities, people are not going to copy-paste their answers in all of them, leading to discussion splintering.
If Lemmy’s feed algorithm can bundle similar posts, it can also bundle comments. This is a matter of software development, not an inherent flaw in decentralization. Whether or not this happens depends on developer support, but it’s absolutely possible and could even be implemented in frontend apps like Voyager or Thunder.
The question isn’t whether consolidation is the only way to improve discussion efficiency—it’s whether it’s the best way. And given the risks of power concentration, it seems clear that a better solution lies in improving the tools rather than weakening decentralization.
I stand by my position, but I’ll leave this discussion open for others to weigh in. Let’s see what the broader community thinks.
