Star Wreck: Deep Space Nein.

Exactly this worked best for me back in the day ;) I’m German and while we have some mandatory English classes, they’re …well … not good. Blunt, boring, 1:1 translations of German sentences, and at least the teacher I had first also had a VERY thick German accent, pronouncing stuff WAY too harsh (“Zis is nott how yoo shoold zound when zpeeking inglish for forks zake!”) so other than learning a few basics, the lessons weren’t at all useful to me.

…but I’ve been an avid fan of the Zelda franchise even back then so I decided to play Ocarina of Time in English after a first German playthrough. Barely understood the dialogue at first, started to recognize certain keywords after a few days, and once I was halfway through the game my brain kinda switched to “English mode” and I actually learned words and grammar in a natural way instead of trying to force myself to understand what the hell a “singular past tense adverb” is.

Long story short, school tried to teach me how to translate German thoughts into English sentences before speaking them out loud. Games, movies, books and music taught me to THINK in English so I wouldn’t need to translate my thoughts first.

The same way I’m currently trying to learn Spanish by the way, which already works way better than any classes ever did.

How old is that data?! France and Ireland should absolutely be red as of now. And don’t get me started on Germany. Can someone please update this horribly outdated map to 2024?

Triceratops already means “Three-Horned Face” =P It’s just Greek instead of Latin.

… he sleeps all night and he works all day … ♪

(Thanks, now I have that dumb lumberjack song stuck in my head, lol)

f I created a community, would I become it’s (lone) moderator automatically?

Yes. But you can also immediatly appoint new mods and/or un-mod yourself if there are other mods present, so it is easy to give a community away when there are other interested users. It’s not a permanent thing.

What consequences, requirements and things would I need to keep in mind as a moderator?

Your community needs to be compatible wih the Fediverse Code of Conduct … but that boils down to “don’t be a dick and don’t post illegal stuff” which is pretty much just common sense. It’s not exactly hard to follow those rules ;)

Apart from that, you can set whatever rules you want. But keep in mind that the Fediverse is still a lot smaller than reddit, so if you are TOO niche / narrow / strict with the rules, you’ll have a hard time finding people who want to engage with your community. General, broad-themed communities with easy-to-follow rules have a bigger chance to thrive.

… and a personal little tip: don’t slam down the ban hammer at every opportunity. As a mod you are able to ban, silence, remove or otherwise “punish” people for bad behaviour, but that doesn’t mean that you have to do that. It’s a lot better to give users the benefit of the doubt, explain instead of punish (as they might not be aware that they did something bad in the first place), and give them a reasonable chance to fix their mistakes on their own before taking action. Post removal, bans and the like should be reserved solely for when the user in question is unwilling to cooperate OR did something obviously super shitty (like threatening other users, using slurs, posting illegal stuff etc.)

Is it advisable to copy-paste content from Reddit to kickstart new communities (given that the link source to the original content was added as well when making new posts)?

Well … as a last resort, yes. Original content or stuff from non-reddit sources is always preferable as it gives users of the Fediverse an incentive to visit communities here instead of going to reddit, but copypasted content is still better than no content at all, so if you can’t find interesting / worthwile stuff elsewhere, then copypasting from reddit is okay-ish too.

OC is still way better tho.

Imagine being cleaning staff in that office. You accidentally drop something during your night shift. All the chairs start driving themselves across the room at 4 AM while you’re completely alone in the building.

“Heart attack” would be an understatement for the reaction I’d have.

It’s astounding that one can learn really cool and interesting stuff by posting random nonsense to the shitpost community, lol. Thanks for the link! That was indeed new to me ;)

I think we broke the comment section, lol.

…hot dang. Ok, you win this round ^^ now please excuse me while I continue to binge that guy’s entire musical history. Never heard of him before, but that vocal range! Oh my ~♪

Thank you for introducing me to that artist, and thank you for the highly entertaining banter as well ;)

That’s Chandler Bing. You’re thinking of a large, decorative hanging light with branches for several light bulbs (or candles if you’re feeling fancy)

That’s Bunga Bunga. You’re thinking of Riley’s imaginary friend from Inside Out.

That’s a burrito. You’re thinking of a small, single-story house.

That’s Borat. You’re thinking of the holes wild rabbits live in.

That’s the Autobahn. You’re thinking of the northern lights.

That’s an autobiography. You’re thinking of a state or society governed by one person with absolute power.

That’s photosynthesis. You’re thinking of the art of taking pictures with a camera.

Those are paratroopers. You’re thinking of the inability to move.

That’s a party. You’re thinking of the landlocked country between Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia.

That’s parsley. You’re thinking of a conference between opposing sides in a dispute amongst pirates.