The fact that you actually crossposted this between !nostupidquestions@lemmy.world and !nostupidquestions@lemmy.ca is interesting, but is an example of a recurring issue on the whole platform.

My personal stance on this is that

If rules, moderation policies and admin policies are similar, there should only be one community on a single topic while we have a userbase below 100k

This allows for !politics@lemmy.world and !politics@hexbear.net to coexist, as there is a reason for them to (different moderation policies). It's similar for !climate@slrpnk.net and !climatehope@lemmy.world, as those communities have different principles and perspectives on their topic.

This suggests to consolidate communities like !movies@lemmy.world and !movies@lemm.ee

Another recent example is

• !buyeuropean@feddit.uk
• !buyfromeu@feddit.org
• there is now a third community, !BuyFromEU@europe.pub

These three communities have similar rules, similar moderation and admin policies. They should be consolidated. And I know this is a very controversial topic, but I made a longer post recently on !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com for people interested.

In summary, my main argument is that

• even though subscribers can potentially subscribe to all communities on a topic
• posters are only going to post to one community, because they want the conversation to happen with the most people in one place, which is not the case if you crosspost as the comments gets splintered across the different communities

To take a recent example

As a member of both communities, I find it a pain to have two similar communities even more so when both post the exact same content because it creates more noise in my feed and because it forces me to waste my time and energy deciding where I will read said duplicated content and maybe post a comment. The solution is obvious: I will unsubscribe from one (for the time being, I still follow the two communities).

https://jlai.lu/post/16318139/13038429

There is a natural tendency of "one community emerges as the main one" on several topics

• !europe@feddit.org
• !fediverse@lemmy.world
• !gardening@lemmy.world
• !metal@lemmy.world
• !jrpg@lemmy.zip
• !crochet@lemmy.ca

If one community does not emerge as the main one, it's usually because two or more regular posters maintain both communities active by posting to their preferred community.

• !movies@lemmy.world vs !movies@lemm.ee
• !android@lemmy.world vs !android@lemdro.id
• all the privacy communities that are active at the same time

So, my suggestions are to consolidate similar communities. This single decision will not make this platform similar to Reddit. On Reddit, you had no way to complain about power tripping mods, there were no public modlogs, and discourse criticizing the mods or the admins would get silenced.

Here, we have !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com, and recent examples have shown that the community can actually resist power tripping: https://feddit.org/post/7025680/4263481.

If the mods of the consolidated community start to power trip, document this on !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com and reorganize on the alternative communities. If not, stay on that one community, to foster more active conversations and posts.

That's the theory we encourage on !fedigrow@lemm.ee, feel free to join us there to discuss this further.