Or possibly "I wish..." - trying to find the original artist when things have been reused so much is incredibly difficult (unless someone has a decent way to do it?)!
Yes very much so! I don't think it should be enforceable at all, but it will be interesting to see how it changes and works out at the platform grows - and more so as large companies move in and the majority of users and content is on large instances which a lot of early adopters don't want to be involved in.
Totally agree - it's a wonderful freedom, but it also means as happened with Android recently that a large community can be closed down and redirected and there isn't a policy to transfer or reclaim the space if it is locked by the one person who owns it. Not a huge issue now, but come the point large companies are moving to the space it could well get quite messy!
You're right but the other side of that is various instances seem to feel the need to address it and ask not to create duplicates in guides, which makes it feel like maybe there is an argument that the feature is not always a benefit in some scenarios.
I understand why it can be beneficial but it brings so many potential complications and issues that I think on balance it would be worth trying to address it somehow, maybe through codes of conduct, policy and enhanced search and validation at the point a community is created. Wouldn't be perfect by any means, and I don't think it should be a requirement to stop duplicate communities - but as an example to prevent issues with mergers and fractured user bases, with the android community being a recent instance of a disgruntled users where an established community has been shut down and moved to another instance with no way for the existing community to reclaim their space.
There are potentially issues with community name squatting, duplicate content and cross posting, users missing out on conversation from one instance if they aren't aware of it; and when large companies start to move into the space, there will be communities swallowed up potentially, and the various issues and questions and clashes it causes.
I suspect there are also going to be issues as the site grows with where servers are located and how compliant they are with GDPR and other regulations too.
