The beta for groups will release later this week, which won’t be federated initially. Federation will be added afterwards.
Looks like it will have some interesting features like videos, polls, and events, as well as moderator tools like limiting what a user can do.
Some links:
https://mastodon.social/@dansup/110931821965407984
https://mastodon.social/@pixelfed/110931868347117511
lemmyloves.art was just created and there’s also literature.cafe, but there definitely should be more focused instances being created, instead of general-purpose ones.
In case you haven’t seen it yet, I’ve compiled a fairly sizeable list of focused instances. More would be cool, but there’s a fair number to check out already.
!pixelart@lemmyloves.art and !digitalart@lemmyloves.art look great! !fiction@literature.cafe and !nonfiction@literature.cafe too
Thanks for the shout out! I agree, more niche hobby focused instances are better.
Thank you for actually creating it! Moderating even a small community is difficult, I cannot even imagine what it’s like for a whole instance. I wish you luck and hope it takes off!