I first found online community on listservs and Usenet (just after the eternal September), hopeful that the tide is finally turning back to decentralisation.
Lemmy or at least Beehaw tends to favour more general communities; I wouldn’t mind seeing a general notetaking/pkm/digital garden community where we can share our high-level methods and philosophies without getting too deep into specific software issues.
My introduction to online communities was through listservs and Usenet in the early days of the eternal September (1993-1994). I begrudgingly joined various corporate social media platforms to keep up with friends and family; thought that Reddit (a decade ago anyway) carried some of the spirit of old Usenet but knew a centralised corporate platform would eventually start eating its users. I’m hopeful that the various manifestations of the fediverse will gradually turn the tide of the internet back towards decentralisation.
I dithered over whether to use the slightly anonymous handle that I’ve used on Reddit and a few other platforms, or a less anonymous one that I’ve used in more places – ended up choosing the one that I’ve used on Mastodon accounts among many others.
IRL I alternately call myself a professional filer and a professional queer, as I work for an LGBTIQ+ archive. Politics, literature, and tech seem to be well covered here; I think the communities I’ll miss the most from Reddit are the ones devoted to coffee and stationery.
The niche I haven’t found on Lemmy yet is coffee – we don’t need to replicate a subreddit for every brew method, but I’d love to have a general community for coffee bean reviews and brewing tips.