EDIT 2: Ruud has posted some guidelines for community moderation
EDIT: I want to clarify that the purpose of this post isn't to call anyone out in particular, and I think it's best to approach this issue with a gentle hand. Users who are doing this aren't necessarily ill intentioned, but may not realize the negative affect their actions may be having on the instance, hence why it's important to have this discussion. That being said, I removed the link to the user originally mentioned in this post to avoid any possible witchhunts.
Original Post:
I'm not sure what to call them, but I've noticed a few instances of users on this server creating dozens, and in some cases over a hundred different communities, and doing absolutely nothing with them. No sidebar description, no logo, banner, welcome post, or anything.
I understand that some people may be doing this in good faith in an effort to make sure that these spaces exist in the first place. That's fine and all - as long as you're allowing other community members to step in and help maintain and grow these spaces you've created, I don't really have a problem with it.
However, I think there are a good amount of people who are grabbing communities... just to squat on them? For some odd reason?
Take a look at this user's account [redacted]. Doing a little poking around, it seems they're an account that's owned by a [redacted] company based in [redacted]. They also don't have a single post or comment on record. So... Why do they own over 100 communities, many of which are simply duplicates of existing, popular Reddit subs?
I think the biggest problem here is that we may have users who want to create, cultivate, and grow communities that they feel strongly about, but when you go to set up a community only to find that it's owned by someone who isn't putting in any effort to make it a place for discussion, or outright doesn't care about it at all, it's going to discourage people from wanting to contribute in that way. First impressions are important, and these users might be turned off of Lemmy from an abundance of seemingly dead or spam communities.
What do you guys think? Is this an 'issue' worth thinking about, or will it sort itself out with time? I know it may not be super important in the grand scheme of things, but it's a question that's been on my mind for a few days now.
I came to lemmy.world hoping to create a community to replace my favorite subreddit. I found that the community had already been created but, like you describe - no logo, no sidebar. Also, as you describe, the moderator of that community had reserved multiple other communities. I began posting to the community in the hopes of generating activity, and I messaged the mod offering to help with moderation. The mod did not respond, so I messaged ruud to say that this mod appeared to be squatting on the community name - I pointed out that the mod had created neither logo nor sidebar. ruud contacted the mod, who immediately banned me from the community. The mod filled out the sidebar (a copy/paste from the reddit sidebar), this was obviously only in response to the concerns that I had raised. The community otherwise remains dormant and the mod is not actively maintaining it. Very frustrating. It is exactly because of this kind of nonsense that I looked for an alternative to reddit but it seems that lemmy is no better.
Not that you should have to do this, but you could join another instance and create your community on that (no reason why you can't be in more than one instance). Sure, there'll be two communities in Lemmy about the subject that you want to participate in, but seeing that the other community is dormant, your active community will gain the gravity.
Again, this isn't ideal, but is a way around it for now. However, something should be done to prevent this kind of squatting, so you don't have to do this to circumnavigate the problem.
Edit: Seems that I'm parroting what @what_is_a_name said. I'm always late to the party. ;-)
Except that you would then have to manage additional accounts for the communities, since it's not possible to make a community on an instance you're not on.
So if said community is on the instance that you're on, then you would have to do the subreddit thing, and make your own with a different name.
I did mention that you'll have to make a new account on the other instance that the community is on. It's not ideal and one shouldn't have to do it, but if you're desperate to set up a community, then it's a way to do it.
However, I'd prefer it if community hoarding was properly dealt with. That'd be better.