this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2024
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Quark's
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Come to Quark’s, Quark’s is Fun!
General off-topic chat for the crew of startrek.website. Trek-adjacent discussions, other sci-fi television, navigating the Fediverse, server meta (within reason), selling expired cases of Yamok sauce, it’s all fair game.
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Thanks for the response.
We'll probably relax the rules on c/startrek a bit to allow a degree of Trek-adjacent content that we might have previously punted to Quark's.
I'm thinking of stuff like the Paramount acquisition drama, which is off-topic but clearly still relevant.
Expanding outward from there into stuff like "here's what Frakes is up to," we approach territory that can be covered just as well elsewhere in the Fediverse.
Literally the first topic of this community, according to the sidebar. Sales of expired Yamok sauce are also relevant to Trek fans on other instances.
And to be clear, Trek-adjacent discussions will continue to be allowed in Quark's. I just don't think making the community private will be some great blow to the Fediverse.
If it helps, we will allow sales of expired Yamok sauce in c/startrek, provided the seller can produce a certificate of authenticity.
I just don’t see how closing everyone else out from Trek adjacent discussions helps the community.
The whole point of federation is letting people with varied interests come together. It doesn’t work if every niche interest makes their “general” board private.
I mean, if we're talking about the sidebar...
But I do understand and appreciate the perspective. It's in-line with the internal discussion we had when making the decision.
But aren’t all Trek-related discussions on-topic?
If you’re going to ban “outsiders” from off-topic chat, you should also ban on-topic chat from the off-topic community.
If the concern is that we're going to have a sooper secret, members-only Star Trek discussion group, that is not the intent. If we were going to do that, we'd just make the instance private.
No, I’m concerned about balkanization of the community of Trek fans.
Oh. Okay.
I have to say that this makes me rather sad.
Instead of drawing folks into the fandom tent with adjacent topics or broadening the discussion of established fans, it’s creating less conversation.
I think that there’s a place for a ‘discuss the health of the instance’ conversation on a separate dedicated community, but also a Trek-adjacent general and open discussion. I consider Frakes’ career as a sci-fi director or the Paramount saga as adjacent.
As long as it meets the norms of the instance in terms of civility, why not? Are the admins/mods truly being flooded with a high volume of spam from outside on Quarks?
Last, I would like to note that without Quark’s being open, I doubt we’d have had the interest to create the Dr Who community. I think that it’s cool that it percolated up through the discussion.
I hear you, but "drawing folks into the fandom tent" was not what Quark's (or the instance for that matter) was created for. Quark's has always been "General off-topic chat for the crew of startrek.website.".
That said, if you or anyone else wanted to create a community with that or a related stated purpose (and promised to grow and actively maintain it in line with instance values) I would be more than happy to entertain the idea. But you can't have mine lol
Yeah, it's probably good to mention that all (I think?) of our DMs are open if someone has a suggestion for us.
@Admin @StillPaisleyCat bye 👋