HI – I’m wondering:

  1. If support for private communities with a restricted member list within a Lemmy instance that is otherwise public is on the drawing boards for future implementation? Timeframe? Or just a someday since we are mostly volunteers?

  2. If not, where would be the best place for me to submit this feature request?

Trying to weigh several factors as to whether or not to keep my Lemmy instance operational. My use case is I’m trying to attract an audience of users (mental health professionals) who seem to be just not interested in discussions on Lemmy if they are open to the public. If they want an anonymous account to discuss other topics (I allow these too), they can just open one anywhere. (Yes, I’ve done more marketing than most, but that’s another topic.)

Thanks, Michael

  • Geronimo Wenja@agora.nop.chatEnglish
    6·
    9 months ago

    This actually already exists, it’s just not in the UI yet. Hiding communities can be done via the API. I was planning on putting in a PR to expose the functionality on the front-end at some stage.

      • Geronimo Wenja@agora.nop.chatEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        The existing feature is that only subscribers will see it in feeds, but it can still be searched for or viewed manually. It’s not a private community feature. I’m just planning to add front-end access for the feature that already exists, so that admins don’t have to do API calls to use it.

        I’ll see if there’s any existing discussions about private communities while I’m at it though, it might be something the main devs have an opinion on or plan for.

        • Michael Reeder LCPC@lem.clinicians-exchange.orgOPEnglish
          1·
          9 months ago

          Geronimo writes – “I’ll see if there’s any existing discussions about private communities while I’m at it though, it might be something the main devs have an opinion on or plan for.”

          Brilliant – thank you for checking.

          There are all kinds of situations in which a (usually small) group of people might need some privacy. An oppressed minority at a college in the southern United States, a group of employees trying to unionize, etc. Doctors discussing procedures and needing both vetted credentials to comment intelligently/safely and the general public to not see they are disagreeing with each other…

          At the same time, it would be great to have FEWER login credentials – so members of these private communities could also partake in all the advantages of the Federated communities on their same Lemmy instance.

          – Michael