The title says it all: How can we grow the Rust community here on Lemmy? Many users fled Reddit or are here for different reasons. But compared to it’s commercial big brother, the Rust community here, feels more or less dead. I would like to discuss ideas, on how we can changes that and make Lemmy the default for Rust related discussions, instead of Reddit.

  • v9CYKjLeia10dZpz88iU@programming.dev
    0·
    9 months ago

    I think relaying posts and comments could work. A Lemmy instance could be easily modified to give reddit accounts names like

    Then, posts and comments on reddit on the rust subreddit could be watched from reddit’s API, and posted back in this community on the relevant post. The same could be returned to reddit using a bot account. I think it would last for a while, as reddit has usually allowed bot accounts, the only support needed is from /r/rust moderators to not ban the bot.

    When posting and commenting on reddit, something like the following could be done on the bot account.

    The following comment is relayed for @[email protected]

    I have been in this community from the start and seen it grow from nothing to almost 5000 members, so I think this community have done pretty good. We are one of the top communities on programming.dev.

    …

    I think if this was done, it’s not intrusive and also subtly informs reddit users that there are alternatives available. I think it’s also completely sustainable for /r/rust, as there are not millions of users.

    This is something I had personally considered doing, but just haven’t had time for it yet. It wouldn’t bother me though if someone completes it before me.

      • v9CYKjLeia10dZpz88iU@programming.dev
        0·
        9 months ago

        I don’t think there’s actually a problem in the fediverse. There’s been lots of different bots that did all types strange things on reddit. There are some issues with user content use without consent, but then again, people literally make YouTube videos of the top reddit posts. This is also a highly educational resource, not done for profit, and makes the world better.

        In other words, I might not care if programming.dev doesn’t want it, and move somewhere else in the fediverse.

        edit: Remember, the issue wasn’t making reddit clients, but making reddit clients without paying reddit for API usage.

        • ericjmorey@programming.dev
          0·
          9 months ago

          There’s an entire instance that implimented your proposal that was quickly blocked by the largest instances. They were considered spam. It resulted in the opposite of growing community engagement.

          • v9CYKjLeia10dZpz88iU@programming.dev
            0·
            9 months ago

            I don’t think you could name a single example of a relay. There were mirrors, like zerobytes.monster which took every post and mirrored them without relaying anything back to reddit.

            edit: Relays also show up in other places too. I’ve seen people relay Discord servers with Matrix accounts. It might make sense to relay GitHub discussion forums or similar content elsewhere in the fediverse.

            • ericjmorey@programming.dev
              0·
              9 months ago

              Getting hung up on the difference between a mirror and a relay is moot. I don’t see how people would be more accepting of that. In fact it seems like more people would object to having their posts mirrored to reddit considering the reason many are here is to stop participating on Reddit.

              And it doesn’t eliminate the initial problem which is that the posts will be considered spam by the largest instances.

              So you could not care and do it yourself, but I suspect that it will result in the same reduction in community engagement as the prior attempt.