I was having a conversation with @cherry@piefed.social. They brought up having difficulty with “Feeds”.

… Its almost spread too thin and i don’t know what to ask/join etc.
For example crafts, i come across odd ones on my feeds but i was hit explore and click on Art & Crafts i have 3 options. That’s it
Arts
Craft
Photography
Its more maybe that when creating they are not going into a sub category if that makes sense?
I might be wrong, or i might be using my find and join wrong. Second it would be great if i could then either subscribe subcategory or block a whole category etc? …

I never used “Feeds” or “Topics”, so can’t offer too much feedback, but from my limited looking at it now, it seems in need of some improvements to make it useful. Some context: looks like all but two “Feeds” have 0 or single-digit subscribers…

Cherry:

If I could browse by genre and it was capturing a mix of my old plus any new communities that fitted the genre it would likely help.

I think that’s a really good idea. I could see “Feeds” implementing this. Like at community creation (and in community settings), each community could select what categories they relate to and be automatically added to that “Feed”. Might have a spam/troll problem and each “Feed” require its own mods, but still worthwhile, in my view.

Even if each community selecting a category only added it to a quick select list for “Feed”/“Topic” creators, I think that would be an improvement.

Let me know if you have any questions or want more information about the idea.

Goal: I see these posts as a way to identify community gaps that people want filled, but not to arbitrarily create communities to “fill those gaps”. I’m hoping that by creating a list of gaps and people interested in those gaps, we can put together teams that can/will work together to sustain their communities (many hands make light work).

My thinking is, once a number of people have indicated an interest in a particular topic, I can reach out to them (or they can initiate discussions themselves) and see if they are willing to start or revive a particular community. If not, no worries/no pressure.

To that end, I’m looking for anyone’s input about potential communities (not necessarily to be created anytime soon). Some ideas about potential input (don’t need to answer any or all the questions):

• Is there an inactive community you would like to subscribe and/or post to? (No pressure to try and revive it)
• Do you have an idea for a new community? (It would be helpful if you provide some detail about what the community would be focused on and what sort of posts it would contain)
• Do you have a suggested community name? (Not required, but if you have an idea, feel free to share)
• Do you have a suggested community instance/server? (Some servers have significantly different views on different topics)
• Are you willing to be a community mod? (Not to pressure you, just to provide support, if indicated)

Updates from Last Week:
Discussion of a working guide to be added to the sidebar has been suggested. It’s been confirmed that Piefed has the functionality for each community to have its own wiki (thanks Blaze @piefed.zip).

The guide could contain:

• On-boarding/quick breakdown of the threadiverse with relevant terms
• Demographics. Know demographic sets: Fedecan 2025, Lemmy.nz 2025, Any others?
• Suggestion of types of posts (ex. opinion requests, question-answer)
• Any other suggestions?

Thanks for the suggestions JohnnyEnzyme @piefed.social

Started Communities:

• !smallbusinessowners@lemmy.world

Suggested Communities - Potential subscribers or active users:

• Mahjong
• missingno @fedia.io
• Deer (images)
• Auster @thebrainbin.org
• Rooftops (pictures of rooftops, rooftop gardens, cozy rooftop spaces)
• Potential subscribers: squirrel @cake.kobel.fyi, vicinus @piefed.zip

Struggling Communities:

• !android@lemdro.id
• !ecospheres@mander.xyz (instance currently down)

Also, let us know if you have any suggestions about this community or post.

Edit: Adding context to the post’s goal and changed the post title to be more accurate to the goal.
Edit 2: Added another potential community and a couple struggling communities.

• Do you have an idea for a new community? (It would be helpful if you provide some detail about what the community would be focused on and what sort of posts it would contain)
• Do you have a suggested name for the community? (not required, but if you have an idea, feel free to share)
• Do you have a suggested instance/server for the community? (some servers have significantly different views on different topics)
• Are you willing to be a mod of this community? (not to pressure you, just to provide support, if indicated)

Also, let us know if you have any suggestions about this community or post.

Thanks to @stuartml@piefed.social for starting the ball rolling on these types of posts.