EDIT 3: **Due to some bugs we’re delaying this feature until Lemmy 0.19.6 is released! **
The goal of c/Quarks has always been to help foster a sense of community for StarTrek.website, but it is just a generic “offtopic” community and does not really have an identity of it’s own on the Fediverse.
Thanks to the new feature in Lemmy 19.4, we can create true “local only” communities. And Quark’s can be what it was originally intended to be, a place for our users. This will allow us to better discuss what kind of experience users of this instance wish to have (not just provide) without all the dorks on less cool instances coming here and ruining our weather control network.
EDIT: to those of you concerned about missing out on “trek-adjacent discussion” @ValueSubtracted@startrek.website has indicated they plan on loosening the “on topic” rule of /c/StarTrek to include more of that.
EDIT2: If anyone is interested in growing and operating a community on our instance, please feel free to reach out or comment here!
That’s a total bummer but I’m not moving my whole identity for one single community. If everyone did this, Fedi would be an ever lonelier place.
Bye 👋
I’m legitimately curious: what is the appeal of this community to a remote user?
@ValueSubtracted @deegeese you’re joking, right?
I only discovered this place after I was on fedi for 3+ years. It’s incredible and amazing to be able to participate remotely. I honestly can’t fathom why you WOULDN’T want that. But hey if they want to close it then bye I guess.
From what I can see, you’ve only participated in this community once, nine months ago.
The other communities (StarTrek, Daystrom, Risa, etc.) are all staying open and federated.
@ValueSubtracted oh I didn’t realize there were requirements for “participation” my bad
It was just a point of clarification in case you misunderstood.
@ValueSubtracted oh I completely understand now that liking, boosting, or privately enjoying posts is not an acceptable level of engagement in an online community where “participation” is required. Thanks 🖖💫
@starkraving666
@ValueSubtracted
Never trust an instance with a closed governance process
On my home instance, the community !meta@sopuli.xyz is for discussing issues specific to the instance, it’s not really relevant to people not using the instance.
On startrek.website, the Quarks community seems to primarily discuss Star Trek adjacent topics which are of interest to many Trek fans.
I think it’s great that you guys want a private community for discussing things only relevant to the instance. I just wish you hadn’t chosen to close a community with broad external interest.
Thanks for the response.
We’ll probably relax the rules on c/startrek a bit to allow a degree of Trek-adjacent content that we might have previously punted to Quark’s.
I’m thinking of stuff like the Paramount acquisition drama, which is off-topic but clearly still relevant.
Expanding outward from there into stuff like “here’s what Frakes is up to,” we approach territory that can be covered just as well elsewhere in the Fediverse.
Trek-adjacent discussions
Literally the first topic of this community, according to the sidebar. Sales of expired Yamok sauce are also relevant to Trek fans on other instances.
And to be clear, Trek-adjacent discussions will continue to be allowed in Quark’s. I just don’t think making the community private will be some great blow to the Fediverse.
If it helps, we will allow sales of expired Yamok sauce in c/startrek, provided the seller can produce a certificate of authenticity.
I just don’t see how closing everyone else out from Trek adjacent discussions helps the community.
The whole point of federation is letting people with varied interests come together. It doesn’t work if every niche interest makes their “general” board private.
Goofy decision. I have an account here, but I rarely use it because of the ratio of spam to genuine posts on the instance.
You could always just defederate from those toxic instances? It seems like this isn’t a popular decision with the community. Might be worth rethinking it.
If you don’t like the content hosted on this instance, why do you have an opinion on this at all?
I do like the non-spam content on this instance, such as Quark’s and Daystrom. I’m subscribed to it through other accounts, but occasionally I poke my head in on the actual account I have here.
Personally, with most of the instances I actually use, I find it easier to just look at the Local feed. On this instance, however, a significant portion of what gets posted is just repetitive spam, so it’s hard to really do that. It’s much easier to subscribe to individual interesting communities, such as Daystrom and Quark’s, through other instances that I’m more likely to actively use.
I suppose if you don’t care what kind of experience anyone has on your instance, that’s your business.
spam
I’m referring to your constant advertisement posts.
Gee whiz, it really sounds like this instance isn’t for you, and also like you don’t know what an advertisement is.
Best of luck in…all that, I guess.
The admin team doesn’t make instance decisions based on what’s “popular”. It’s actually against our mission statement. Though that doesn’t mean community input is ignored.
But that being said, admins can see who’s voting and we can see that the downvotes are not coming from users with much/any history in this community. So we are not taking their feedback strongly into account.
This logic is bonkers. Lurkers are part of the community too. Everyone participates in their own way.
Man, I don’t like Stamets but he was right lol.
When you guys just wanna do something even if people disagree you’re gonna do it.
On either side though it kind of sucks. From the mods are right perspective, yeah, basically only users from the instance post here already. On the other side though, bringing activity in from across the federation is definitely a better move long-term unless the people coming in are toxic. Latest non @stw poster had a hilarious premise and I loved it. Would hate to see that go, but I guess it’s going to /c/startrek anyways.
Everybody is kinda dug in here, it’s pretty sad.
The problem is nobody wants to grow and maintain a federated “Trek adjacent” community. I’ve even offered the opportunity to host one on this instance and nobody wants to put in the effort.
(Also, I just need to point out that Stamets was not “right” about anything involving our team. He claimed the Risa mods were “transphobic”, and set up a new community where he repeated the claims. When one of our Admins asked Stamets if he intended to continue, he cried harassment and used the attention to promote a GoFundMe.)
I think you guys actually need more open communities and not less.
Quark’s is great as an off-topic zone. The theme makes sense because the bar is somewhere people go to unwind and not necessarily talk direct shop. Stuff like news that’s Trek-adjacent fits perfectly in here, but the subsequent topics listed after other sci-fi television kind of deserve their own community. I think the scope of Quark’s is too large.
Navigating the fediverse and server meta have traditionally been their own communities as a /c/meta sort of affair. Those are definitely things that only the @stw community would really want to discuss internally and perhaps should be kept instance-user-only, but something like news and other “adjacent” content is of value across the federation and the opportunity for everyone to post just makes more organic sense to me. I would also take the opportunity to have another themed name, like /c/battlebridge, /c/ops or even /c/conferenceroom for the meta community.
Yeah I totally agree with pretty much everything you just said.
