It might be a different user, a different community name, but it's always the same: mostly NSFW pictures (sometimes not even revealing), 0 comments and a ~-6 score. The pictures are mostly about an erotic/romantic encounter between two people. Then the community disappears, resurfaces with a randomly similar name, and the same happens again.

Why?

Probably bots being tested or something

Wut? Do you have a link to anything relevant?

I didn't want to give them too much attention (I was hoping for people who have seen it before), but here you go. I can't link the ones before because I don't remember the exact wording and I haven't saved those links.

Gives a server error for me.

Huh, weird. The ~-6 score seems about right, since that’s about the number of ambient downvotes you should expect in a niche community from people who feel entitled to an “all” feed that is tailored to their preferences only, but renaming the community is kinda weird — the only way to get that behavior to stop is to keep posting until the downvoters get tired of it and finally block your community, so deleting and recreating is counterproductive.

Server error too.

People assume this is a Reddit clone, spin up a community, get votes with nsfw stuff, close the communities, sell the accounts.

But that doesn't really with with Lemmy.

I think it's a single user who is trying to start some sort of a soft core porn community oriented towards women. The attempts keep failing (getting downvoted), so they just spin up a new user account and community (with a subtly different name each time) and try again. Ad nauseum.

It's getting really annoying. I've blocked several a couple of the accounts and communities. But a week month or two later a new one appears in the new stream.

And they are not helping themselves. The more communities they spin up the more downvotes they get, because quite a few people are clearly getting annoyed by this behavior.

I don't have a problem with them creating such a community. Not my kind of thing, but each to their own. I just wish they'd stick to a single community and take the time to build it up, instead of spinning up new ones all the time.

Edit: fixed some number and date inaccuracies.

I mean, I was aware of it probably being the same user, and I get the downvotes from the 2nd/3rd attempt - what I don't understand is the mass downvotes on the first one. Not my thing, either, but I don't find it any more irritating than any other average NSFW content.

I'm sure this kind of mindset exists, but I don't really get how suddenly a LOT of people started downvoting their first attempt at the community (or why it looks more suspicious of "karma farming" than any other new community). To me it seemed like a sudden mass sabotage, which must have a reason, but I couldn't figure out what.

This is weird, I just clicked it and it works. Might be temporary or some regional thing.

This is weird, I just clicked it and it works. Might be temporary or some regional thing.

I’ve seen it repeatedly.

At first I assumed it was someone grieving over, and longing for, a lost loved one, and went a little “internet crazy.” That’s the vibe I got from the posts; like it’s a shrine, memorial, outlet or something.

I’m not sure anymore, especially with how random the images tend to be.

I don’t mind its presence, though. It feels “old internet weird.”

EDIT: And I’ve never seen anyone else bring it up. TBH I thought I was the only one who noticed.

I didn't downvote the one post I've seen (like you and others said, to each their own), but I recognized the style from the subreddit and felt negatively about it. Doesn't have to be sabotage. Could just be people who remember the beforetimes metaphorically recoiling.

When you say "the first one", are you talking about the first community? Or the first post on the latest community?

The only necessary explanation is that people don’t want or like the content. There is a ton of NSFW material on Lemmy that exists plenty peacefully.

The issue is that the (low effort, low quality) content is hard to block because of the constant pivot to new communities and accounts. I don’t want to see it, but I could simply block it and be done with it if they’d keep it contained to a single place. Since they’re being SUPER annoying about that though, it gets downvoted. It’s bad form on that user’s part.

The first community (... I've seen about this, already being disliked).

To be fair, I would like this to be the real reason, because otherwise it would have puzzled me even more.

(BTW subreddit? :) )

Yes, I remember the subreddit from when I was on reddit, which is to say, the beforetimes.

TBF I really don't get why they keep restarting it under a different name. If they're not bothered by the constant downvotes, then why restart? If they are, then what do they expect for the 4th time?

Oh, I didn't know it had a history there, too. Thanks for the insight!

Oh okay. Whoever is behind this has been creating and then deleting these communities for over a year now. I guess I exaggerated a bit before when I said they sound up a new one each week. It's more like every couple of months. I've seen at least seven of them pop up. If one was created on the last couple of weeks then the number of downvotes could be because others are tied of this behavior too.

I thought I was the only one who noticed

Same. I was wondering when someone would bring this topic up.

I actually thought about contacting the server owner about this trend, to see if they could curtail it. I've seen at least seven of these communities pop up and disappear. It's getting annoying.

I just went through my blocked list and found a couple more that I've blocked in the past, usually when the user started spamming posts to them. There were other communities following this pattern that I noticed in passing, but I didn't block them because they weren't being aggressively posted to. And now they are gone.

My_Adored_Beautiful_King

to_my_brave_knight

Wow, thanks for looking it up! I couldn't remember them.

I actually thought about contacting the server owner about this trend, to see if they could curtail it. I’ve seen at least seven of these communities pop up and disappear. It’s getting annoying.

I'm not sure it warrants it? People can post whatever they want in their own communities, and I didn't see anything against the rules.

And (most importantly), I've never seen it linked to solicitation or spamming. But if it is, that's a different story.