I posted a version of this as comment elsewhere, but I'd like to post it as it's own thread for feedback, more visibility and to see if there is any support for this idea. If this is a bad idea, please let me know. If anyone feels that there's something to this idea it'd be helpful for others to voice their support as well as any critiques they have, any problems that could arise, etc.

Keep in mind that I am not 100% married to this suggestion and that I tend to repeat myself when I write (sorry).

Okay, here's the thing:

What if users weren’t able to create their own communities? It’d be an interesting aspect of the site. It would set chapo.chat apart from reddit and the things that made it shitty. Power hungry mods, feuds between subreddits, toxic communities, etc. Those are all things that I don't think is good for any community, especially one that is centered behind a political ideology. Especially one that has the potential to be the "home of the online left", which is in desperate need to unity, and focus.

We don’t need infighting, we don’t need to waste time caring about drama between mods, and we don’t need the toxic communities that exist on reddit.

Something that sucked about reddit was that there was no real sense of community there unless it was a smaller subreddit. I think as this site grows and more people start posting, this site could maintain that sense of community by having a limited amount of places to post. It’ll encourage users to engage with other outside of bubbles and echo chambers that exist on reddit.

I also think it’d be kind cool to have a limited amount of communities because that's how old school message boards were. I bet some users here aren’t old enough to remember what those online spaces were like, and there isn’t anywhere on the internet that I can think of that has that 2000’s phpbb message board vibe. It was fun and even when there were lots of users, it still felt tight knit.

Maybe this the plan already, or maybe everyone will hate this idea. I don’t know. The main thing is that I would love to see this site be a community rather than a just a “platform” like reddit, twitter, facebook, etc. I think this site can and should be more than just a reddit clone.

Correct me if I am off-base with this, but isn't the idea of websites as platforms part of the neo-liberalization of the internet that has transformed how people engage with each other online?

There’s nowhere on the internet that feels like a community anymore. Having people just sort themselves into their own corner of the site would make this site seem like just another platform. A platform isn't a good place to do things such as organizing, rallying around a cause, spreading awareness, etc. A community, at least the way I envision it, would be a great place to do those things. I don't want a reddit clone, I don’t want another platform - I want a community.

Is this a terrible idea? Is this misguided, confusing, or poorly written? Thoughts? Questions? Ideas?