At this point, it’s not the communities, it’s the engagement.

Art/design related communities. I made a few here but I was the only one posting. Also miss the model making/diorama/mini painting subs. And some other little niche hobby communities.

Oh also local city communities are basically nonexistent here and it will prob take years for that to become viable here.

I miss the regional/local subs. While there’s technically a few for my region spread across different instances, none of them have much, if any, activity.

Of the more “niche” communities, the one I miss the most is r/fosteranimals. I started one here, and have posted a few times, but given the already limited audience, plus my inexperience at growing/moderating a community, and my tendency to be mostly a lurker, I have not managed any engagement in the community beyond up/down votes.

There are some small, niche reddit communities I miss. Unfortunately since this part of the fediverse is small, the niche communities are even smaller. Either moderated by one person and no posts, or it just doesn’t exist.

malicious compliance

while curbing the number of “challenged the cook to test my spice tolerance and lost” posts

Some very nische anime communitys, but that would require more users in the first place.

A populated am I the asshole. That one really needs a critical mass of all sorts of people to be fun. When my GF and I go out to eat we generally pull the top posts of the week and talk em over while we eat. It’s a great conversation starter and a wonderful way to find out little stories that don’t come up in everyday conversation.

Essentially all of the ones that I used. r/Minecraft, r/minecraftsuggestions, r/conlangs, r/vexillology, r/pixelart, etc.

The thing is that all of these have communities and magazines on the fediverse — it’s just that there’s little, if any, activity on them. I don’t think you can really say that these communities are here if they have one person posting on them regularly.

The only communities that actually have a solid amount of activity here are ones about memes and news. If that’s all that you used Reddit for, then the fediverse is doing great, and such people will act baffled at how anyone could stay on or miss Reddit. But for everyone else, the content just isn’t there.

It’s deffo r/Flairwars and r/Num for me, despite not having been in the latter in the time I was on that site.
Both have their own unique inside jokes, battling systems, lore, fanworks, and most of all, a slow yet steadily thriving community that’s accepting of everyone. I often wonder how my first aforementioned community would thrive in this vast federated space, especially with all the new possibilities out here… Maybe new lore expansions, and a reinvigoration on the way?

Eyeblech.

It’s one of the reasons I created Morbid Curiosity in Kbin, to push things a little towards such material!

r/hotas
r/trackball

There are some small niche communities that I miss interacting with because the people were pretty cool. Mostly warhammer and some smaller game communities.

I still check /r/hockey for sports news since I feel like it’s the best way to keep up on all events compared to Shitter or HFBoards. The quality of discussion and friendliness of the community had been pretty good from between 2010-2020, a really good stretch that I can’t say was the same for most subreddits I used to follow. From 2020 on, there was a rapid change in tone on that subreddit as more and more angry dbags from Shitter started to frequent it more regularly and it became a not so fun place to engage with anymore.

I recently inherited /m/hockey here. I plan on being more active there in the near future by trying to create multi-topic news summary posts on a weekly basis.

I just started shroom hunting when I left Reddit. I’ve learned a fair bit about growing mushrooms since then on the fediverse but I know little about identifying them. I keep finding wild portobellos and I’m too scared to try them! (Yes, identified by gill, cap, spore, and stem discoloration)

/r/ancientcoins

Interesting mix of people, most of whom were chill. Always something new to discover. And they were pretty open to discussing the elephant in the room: much of everyone’s collection had been looted at some point. The only notable exception to that was an AMA by a Jr. Sales Person from Harlan Berk. He got roasted.

The rest of this is just me ranting about coins.

Coins are a relatively new invention. The first recognizable coins were made in Lydia (modern day Turkey) around 600BCE. For perspective, Egypt’s Old and New Kingdoms did not have standardized, metallic currency. (which is a shame - considering Egypt’s art, their currency probably would have looked awesome).

Greek coinage emphasized art and sometimes local trade items. For example, if your city was famous for its horses your coins would probably feature horses.

Celtic coins often looked like their artists were eating every mushroom they could get their hands on.

Roman coins emphasized political power, and had a lasting impact on the rest of coinage in the west. For example, they standardized putting the Leader’s head on the obverse, and an uplifting design on the reverse. Sometimes they’d put the Emperor’s wife on the front, which is always fun. (Curiously, Canadians that I’ve talked to about this are obstinate that the Queen is on the back and that the Bluenose/Loon/Beaver/whatever is on the front.)

Of course China had its own monetary progression. Ant Nose Money and Spade Money, for example, preceded the round coin with square hole that has been prevalent for the past 1200-ish years. India produced some really cool square coins. Japan minted one and two “Bu” coins that were rectangular during the 1800s - and although that’s stretching the definition of ancient, I think they’re cool.

So yeah, I miss being subscribed to COIN FACTS.