I mod the !iiiiiiitttttttttttt@lemmy.world community, I’ve managed to grow the number of subscribers from 360 to 800.

I’m thinking of moving it to programming.dev. Is this a good idea? I made a post asking this and I’m looking for feedback there.

  • drspod@lemmy.mlEnglish
    15·
    1 day ago

    a community I have.

    Try not to think of it that way. The community is the people who subscribe, post and comment. You don’t own them, you just take out the trash. If they are happy to move then good, if not then don’t force it. And you can always just make a second community on the other instance and hand over the old instance to the people who want to stay there.

    • rglullisAEnglish
      91·
      21 hours ago

      you just take out the trash

      I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s some form of ikea effect, where people think that the act of filling a form, adding an icon and a description makes them immediately attached to something that (initially) amounts to a record field in a database.

      I’ve lost count of how many people I asked “Hey, I saw you are the mod of <mostly inactive community on large instance>, I am running <slightly active/mostly inactive community on topic-specific instance>. How about we join forces?” And almost invariably they act like I am asking them to give me their firstborn.

      • irelephant [he/him]🍭@lemm.eeOPEnglish
        31·
        12 hours ago

        Some of those mods aren’t active for spans of several months, but are opposed to giving up any control on their communitiies.

      • drspod@lemmy.mlEnglish
        31·
        16 hours ago

        And almost invariably they act like I am asking them to give me their firstborn.

        You can’t infer that they are being possessive, when an equally possible explanation for that reaction is that they are offended on behalf of their community members, who would not want a unilateral consolidation of their community into another community that they feel no connection to.

        Just because you mod a community doesn’t mean you get to make the decision about where people gather for that community. When instances have different moderation rules and different vibes, you must have a consenting userbase in order to make decisions like that.

        • rglullisAEnglish
          31·
          15 hours ago

          that they are offended on behalf of their community members

          I’m talking about cases where there aren’t any community members to speak of.

    • Blaze (he/him) @lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      8·
      23 hours ago

      If they are happy to move then good, if not then don’t force it.

      Good point. Most of the time people are ok to move, but it’s always better to ask