A user checking out one of these URLs does not want to filter only local post on that instance.
On all instances, this url should mean “show me all /c/piracy on all federated instances”
If you really mean /c/piracy only on that instance, then add something to the url.
The current convention breaks the most important aspect of federation and makes its vestigial appendage.
The current way has user asking question /c/piracy, but on which instance ?
So now they’ll all join the same instance . You wouldn’t post anywhere else since no one would every see it.
It’s a recipe for centralization.
I think this is obvious to most users, were deal with “voat with extra steps” here
Silently combining communities, which may each have different content policies, is rife with potential for user confusion. Also, there’s no guarantee that communities with the same name across servers have the same aims — to use your “piracy” example, c/piracy on one instance may be enthusiasts of literally sailing the seas wearing peg-legs and looting ships, or people who have sarcastically adopted the name for their fandom of those Johnny Depp movies, or something else entirely. Or your desired kind of piracy may take place in communities named differently across servers, whether it’s due to someone else registering the community name first, local slang/translation, etc. Ironically, I think what you’re asking for is a different type of centralization — centralization of namespace across servers.
The suggestion is interesting, but you may be expecting something out of Lemmy that it is not, as communities are individually hosted and managed. It does sound like there may be potential for Lemmy instances or client apps to allow a user to combine communities, multireddit-style, for their own personal usage. That would be cool and useful.
This sounds like the /r/trees and /r/marijuanaenthusiasts situation
And I agree, a most sophisticated system would distinguish and agglomerate communities not just by their namespace but also their topic.
But I think we have to be realistic and go for an expedient solution before reddit’s moment of weakness if over.
Reddit are coming here, discovering they have to hunt down which community is on which instance, this month.
Most will just give up and go back to reddit when they realize lemmy is an agglomeration platform that does not agglomerate
I think where we differ is whether Lemmy is pointless without truly distributed communities. I come down on the side of “it’s not pointless” since there’s a huge and growing install-base of mostly* compatible servers, clients and users that means the cost of switching communities is low, and the threat of switching may be enough to keep mods from implementing unpopular policies. More worrying to me is the admin of your home instance, where your identity is located, going rogue, getting hit by a bus, forgetting to pay their hosting bill, etc.
*notwithstanding serious issues like defederation