Provocative title, yeah?
There has been a lot of discussion about what different instances should strive to be. I see a lot of posts and comments wanting instances to become subreddits, e.g. a gaming instance, a politics instance, etc. That kind of thinking is too restrictive for my taste.
To be clear, I am not a tankie, nor do I support tankie ideology. I DO believe, however, that the concept of Lemmygrad is what I would like to see the fediverse become.
Lemmygrad is an unapologetically tankie instance. For fuck’s sake, its name is a play on Leningrad. However, the instance is not restricted to discussions of communist ideology. Lemmygrad contains communities about gaming, food, shitposting, and everything else you might associate with a link aggregator. This is what they get right.
In my ideal virtual future, or “vuture”, the fediverse would be comprised of instances each geared toward a specific topical focus, with a wide variety of community posts and discussion. The majority of my IRL friends and I initially bonded over technology and gaming, but we like to discuss a wide variety of topics when we get together. Why should the fediverse be any different? I imagine instances that are gaming focused where m/politics is filled with Bioshock-themed shitposts and discussions about laws that influence the way we handle technology. Sports-focused instances share pictures in m/food of what they are making for Super Bowl Sunday. If I’m a gamer that is also really into militant communist politics, I might sign up for a gaming instance but subscribe to c/politics on Lemmygrad as well.
We don’t need subreddits in the traditional sense. Let’s turn instances into our little neighborhoods, our cul de sacs, and make the fediverse our town hall meetings, our sports arenas and our bars.
I saw the title and thought “wow this kbinaut’s feeling uncharacteristically edgey today” but then read the post and realized it’s the usual kbinaut W.
Agreed completely. I wouldn’t sign up for lemmygrad, but I haven’t had any issues with them and they seem to be doing the fediverse thing properly. They’re clearly branded so you know what you’re signing up for.
OP is basically pointing out how forums used to run. Generally geared to a theme or topic but includes spaces to discuss other things with like minded people on the same site. I’ve really missed that more and more over the last few years.
The closest Reddit could to is either have adjacent subs or reoccurring automatically generated threads.
Exactly! I remember being on some car forums back in the day and we always had spaces for off-topic discussion, memes, etc. You formed a kind of friendship and community with these users. You weren’t limited to only discussing cars.
I keep seeing posts here about wanting instances to be subreddits, like “oh this is the BMW instance, you can only post and talk about BMWs”. I think that’s the wrong way to look at it. I want our instances to be like old forum communities, with the added bonus of being interconnected with OTHER communities as well!