Hey everyone! Preston here. As The Possum Patio has already started growing a surprising amount since I set it up last week, I wanted to put some thoughts down on what the instance is right now, where it might be going, and some other general background info.

Background

Like many of you, I am (was?) a longtime user of Reddit - going on 13 years for me. The site was always an excellent time-waster and source of entertainment, but a couple years in I realized what really made reddit special to me were the niche communities. With old school forums generally going defunct over the past 20 years, Reddit was The Place to find discussions on that one weird niche JRPG nobody’d ever heard of, or find a fandom of some show that finished airing years ago. All those niches were what Reddit was to me, and as the site continues down the path of enshittification it’ll be sad to see those niche spaces slowly decay over the coming years.

So! Reddit drama aside, the ethos of having niche communities is what I want to focus on for this Lemmy instance. The larger instances have the big umbrella topics already covered - I’m not interested in hosting (or moderating) a politics or general gaming community. I want to curate spaces that get into weird niche topics that I (and maybe you!) care about, spaces that seem to be missing from the larger Fediverse as of right now.

Communities

Right now, The Possum Patio hosts 8 communites:

Currently, new community creation is disabled. Moderating and maintaining communities requires effort and time commitment from volunteers, and for now the only mods are myself and @brycethemilkman.

For now, I’m going to limit the total number of communities we host to around 10 or so. If we continue to grow I’d certainly consider expanding that number.

One last thought on communities - as the general Lemmy/Kbin userbase grows over the next few months, some of our communities might get pretty huge, some might not see much traffic or another “default” community for that topic may crop up elsewhere. Both of those things are good! I don’t want to assert sole ownership over these spaces, I’ll be happy whatever with whatever instance they find as a home.

Closing/Questions

Thanks for reading my rambling if you made it this far! I’m excited and honestly a bit nervous about the positive reception the instance has gotten - some of you were very flattering in your registration responses. 😊

If there’s any questions or concerns you have, throw 'em down in the comments. As mentioned above, I’m open to creating about 2 more communities (maybe more if I really like the ideas) so feel free to suggest some.

-Preston

  • michael
    8•1 year ago

    Hey, thank you so much for doing this! Personally, my favorite subreddits lately have been r/goodyearwelt (high quality boots) and r/tea. That being said, I love opossums and animals of all kinds, though I am partial to snakes because I have one.

    So I’m open to anything really, and whatever catches my attention or is already something I’m interested in, I will try to participate in.

    • @stoneparchment
      6•1 year ago

      I’m with you on r/tea… hope a similar c/ fills the niche soon so I can show off my gongfu cha setup ;)

      • @prestonOPMA
        3•1 year ago

        I’m not a huge tea guy, but I’d be open to making a community for it here. My main concern around new communities is making sure moderation/support is there for the long haul - I’m a bit concerned by some other instances where users have made dozens of comms just to squat on them.

        I’ll DM both of you if you’re interested in acting as mods of a new /c/tea :)

  • @IDDM1DM
    5•1 year ago

    The appeal of niche communities is why I joined! Well that and I love possums. So much so I used one for my old logo!

    If you ever open community creation I intend to take my first dip into community moderation for a few. I’d love to see a 3DS community for example.

  • emilythesincere
    5•1 year ago

    Thanks for standing this up and making this post, Preston! I’ve also been on reddit since around 2011, and I’m certainly happy to see something else filling the “niche community” gap that’s been left in my life since reddit has become…let’s say, less than desirable, to hang out in. Looking forward to the future on possumpat.io!

  • @variants
    2•1 year ago

    Heyo, Im really liking the idea of niche small communities, I used to run a small community on reddit called sideoftheroad, where we would post pictures of all the strange things you come across on the side of the road, and I think it would be a neat community especially in the early days if you are open to creating more

    • @prestonOPMA
      2•1 year ago

      Sounds like a cool idea! I’m putting together some thoughts about coordinating moderation as we continue to grow and add communities, I’ll send you a DM soon.

  • @SlateGreyCrazyPotato
    1•1 year ago

    Hi, I’m new and I really love the idea of this instance :) this feels like a very calm place to be! I only have one suggestion at the moment and that would be for a community based around the old game Bamzooki. I’m not sure how much people know of it, but I have many fond memories of it growing up and I’ve never come across a space dedicated to it, would be awesome to see!