should locking and forced "merger" of communities be allowed? - eviltoast

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.

  • WhoRoger@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    20
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    This is bullshit. I am of the opinion that mods more or less own the sublemmy, but if they abandon it, either by just stopping to care or purposefully, then they should leave it to others to find and use it.

    Especially of it’s something general purpose like the most bloody popular OS on Earth. Where else should we show off friendly competition, debate and cooperation than when it comes to a product of one of the biggest monopolies that exist today?

    And no offense to Reddit mods, but everyone here is starting from scratch and they need to prove themselves just as much as everybody else. Reddit mods don’t have the best reputation as a group to begin with. This isn’t Reddit 2.0.

    • discodoubloon@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      That’s an interesting track. Why should the mods be allowed to close the sub? If this is trying to be a more democratic space then things shouldn’t happen in the shadows necessarily. Especially without 19k others that signed up to see content.

      I think the “magazine/sub” should be allowed to stand alone as if it were its own content reserve. Maybe Librarians are a good model to follow here. If we truly care about the democratic and federated let’s not allow people to Willy-nilly delete all the data.