1y ago

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

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.

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171 comments

Seems like everyone wants a bunch of arbitrary rules today. I think all this upheaval is normal for a rapidly growing decentralized network. Having a rule that no one in the fediverse can do something is going to be unenforceable.
- Having a rule that no one in the fediverse can do something is going to be unenforceable.
  That's a really good point.
- It's the admin's house rules. They're the ones running the server. !android@lemmy.world is only locked right now, so the admin can appoint a new mod team and unlock it again, if they want.
  OP was only asking for a rule in lemmy.world, not all of lemmy.
- The rule should be simply to kick out mods who close out communities like this. Right now it's impossible to post on !android@lemmy.world because the two mods closed it after the Reddit mods made them believe that they're the rightful representatives of r/Android.
  
  Isn't the whole point of Lemmy and the way communities work is if you want to moderate and don't like the way the existing one does it, then create your own? Like I get your point here but basically it sounds like the ones in charge of it said "oh we don't want to do this anymore". If they opened it and started it off, it sucks it's closed but a new one can always be reopened.
  Unless you're looking to NOT do it that way, and have the admins help find new mods for any large community that decides to do something similar
  
  It’s more realistic to ask for a rule on this instance for this instead of lemmy-wide.
  
  I didn't make myself clear, yes I mean a rule local to lemmy.world of course.
  
  the Reddit mods made them believe that they’re the rightful representatives of r/Android.
  I mean, they are the rightful reps of r/Android. The questions is whether or not that means anything on Lemmy. My opinion is that it doesn't.

171 comments