Title is a bit of a loaded question but I tried to fit it into one sentence.
Do you think Lemmy’s search and use functions are hurt by all the communities that were made and abandoned during the 2023 Redditfugee influx? As in, do you think that Lemmy would be better off if some of these communities were consolidated into larger general pages until it gets a big enough user base to warrant individual communities for specific TV shows, for example.
Does it do it automatically or do you have to request from the admins of the instance?
You have to request them on !support@lemmy.world … and sadly it is not yet well-known. Automating the procedure (like making a community freely availiable after 6 months or so) would make adopting them a whole lot easier, but the additional hurdle of having to ask a supporter first means that they can decide on a case-by-case basis which lowers the risk of trolls taking over communities just to mess with them.
Both have their pro’s and con’s.
On Kbin it’s automated, but so far if a community is active they’re the ones who’re likely to request to own it, and if a troll took it the others could bring it up with Ernest at that point.