SimulatedKnave

I don’t know that empty communities matter that much. If something’s a niche interest, having a community at all seems more likely to encourage discussion. And asking people to start shouting into the void is a moderate-to-large ask. My local subreddit has 22K members, and took since 2011 to do that. It may be a little while before anyone else comes along, let alone comes along with something to talk about.

Also, while I have you here, there is no good reason to turn off ctrl-clicking opening a new tab.

This is definitely a problem that’s going to get worse, fast. Federated communities+feed that draws from a pile of them without particular reference+larger userbase…

At a guess: holdover in style from newspapers, where you needed the space.