EDIT 3: **Due to some bugs we’re delaying this feature until Lemmy 0.19.6 is released! **
The goal of c/Quarks has always been to help foster a sense of community for StarTrek.website, but it is just a generic “offtopic” community and does not really have an identity of it’s own on the Fediverse.
Thanks to the new feature in Lemmy 19.4, we can create true “local only” communities. And Quark’s can be what it was originally intended to be, a place for our users. This will allow us to better discuss what kind of experience users of this instance wish to have (not just provide) without all the dorks on less cool instances coming here and ruining our weather control network.
EDIT: to those of you concerned about missing out on “trek-adjacent discussion” @ValueSubtracted@startrek.website has indicated they plan on loosening the “on topic” rule of /c/StarTrek to include more of that.
EDIT2: If anyone is interested in growing and operating a community on our instance, please feel free to reach out or comment here!
And to be clear, Trek-adjacent discussions will continue to be allowed in Quark’s. I just don’t think making the community private will be some great blow to the Fediverse.
If it helps, we will allow sales of expired Yamok sauce in c/startrek, provided the seller can produce a certificate of authenticity.