When posts are made on lemmy they can be federated over to any instance so long as the instance is federated with ours and the community is federated onto that instance as well. It's awesome! But for community building sometimes it can be a bit overwhelming.
Since the lemmyverse is so big, sometimes posts on our own instance communities can be drowned out by others on other instances. That's fine in most cases! We want discussion! More the merrier! But for the growth of communities such as this with a specific hobbyist focus, it can kind of stunt the creation of it's own community identity sometimes.
Hence, local only communities can aid in that. Which is why when that feature comes to lemmy I will be making one in hopes of encouraging more local community general discussion as this instance grows. The purpose will be a general all purpose chat, similar to this but for those who want discussions focused on users in our instance only or don't feel comfortable posting something that will get federated into the rest of the lemmyverse.
Some very important things to keep in mind with this:
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Lemmy does not currently allow private communities, this new community will still be viewable for users who are logged out and browsing that specific community. It will simply prevent the community from federating over into other instances. Be mindful of this fact.
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The purpose of this community will not be to shut people out, but as a way to make a more cozy space when users who want to talk with just literature.cafe users. Like a safe haven away from the chaos.