I don’t know what everyone means when they use ‘rule’ in the title and at this point I’m too afraid to ask. Please enlighten me.
I don’t know what everyone means when they use ‘rule’ in the title and at this point I’m too afraid to ask. Please enlighten me.
Uh no, that’s a good thing.
It “can” be, especially for those of us who want and even explicitly ask for such, but I was pointing out how the lack of tools to do otherwise removes it as a “choice”. Being able to switch between modes at will would maximize our freedom and capabilities, but simply having things be this way bc nobody has yet built the tools to do otherwise does not make it the best option, only the default one.
How does that work when anyone can make a community on any instance at any given time?
It doesn’t work now ofc, b/c it does not exist! But it could work however we make it to work! It is only subject to the constraints of like logical possibilities plus technical implementation effectiveness. e.g., just like the language options, or applying a NSFW or spoiler tag (currently the former only applies to posts while the latter only applies to comments), when someone makes a community they could make their own selections as to which categories they want to be listed under. It could be hierarchical - e.g. “hockey” could presume “sports” but not the reverse - or not, in which case the latter would be interpreted more as a “sports, general” or “sports, other” category, rather than a super-category that includes other sub- ones.
And, just like the language options and NSFW/spoilers, people will forget to mark their communities/posts/comments, so that model could never be a perfect solution. Then again, nothing else will ever be perfect either so… it is no reason not to try? Especially if enough people and enough communities DO want it.
Anyway I am not a Lemmy developer, just saying that I hope that such a thing may come here, eventually, to make it more welcoming to newcomers, so that they don’t have to spend hours and hours subscribing to this and that and also blocking others. :-)
But right now, the connection issues and defense against hostile attackers spamming the Fediverse with CP are much more major considerations, so I do not believe it will come anytime “soon”.
So… who is going to maintain and curate this list? You don’t think they would be “censoring” communities?
It’s not gonna work, it’s something that can only be accomplished by the user.
Exactly. The community could partner with the user to enhance findability - e.g. a community could label itself with the “hockey” tag, and if the user clicks somewhere they could see all the communities that likewise have that “hockey” tag, and just like the language function, include or exclude all of them in one group rather than having to do so individually. No “censorship” by external agencies need apply, and anyway this could be entirely optional to the user who could continue to exist entirely in the absence of such a thing.
So I don’t label my community, or mislabel it so it shows up elsewhere, you can’t rely on others to hold your hand, this is only something that can be done user side.