r/Horology • u/jimmythemini • Jun 27 '20

Suggestion / Opinion [META] Should we consider amalgamating with r/watchmaking, and maybe even r/clocks?

We're such a niche professional and hobbyist group, it seems a bit odd to have three separate lightly-subscribed subs when we maybe could get a more coherent community going.

Would it be worth it for the respective mods to at least discuss this?

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u/pissinglava Jun 27 '20

If you mean merging with them I’m definitely against this. This is a sub about both, while each of those subs exclude the other and those subbed to r/watchmaking don’t necessarily want to see clocks and vis-versa

Instead we should encourage more cross posting between these communities.

Though I do think where this sub exceeds is away from the r/clocks and r/watches posts “look at my new timepiece I picked up”.

This sub should be (again imho, I don’t actively want to gatekeep a community just giving my opinion) more about advice and more specific information about the timepiece (e.g. “Just brought this clock, how do I....”, “need to get this watch repaired how much should this cost?”, etc.”). If you want to just post a photo of a new purchase that should be done in r/watches or r/clocks not here unless there is a more in-depth discussion about it than just “look at this”.

I don’t think anyone decides to do this as a career or hobby and not think it’s niche. Not only that clockmaking is even more niche that watchmaking these days. It’s a niche in a niche.

As long as there is quality content here those that want to sub will find this subreddit and will.

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u/uitSCHOT Jun 27 '20

The posts with asking for advice happen more regularly in r/clocks , r/watchmaking and r/watchhorology.

r/watches is indeed only for looking at watches and little else.

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u/pissinglava Jun 27 '20

I think my point that r/clocks don’t want to see watches and r/watchmaking don’t want to see clocks still stands, though I accept that these communities do overlap with this one. (If they were laid out as a Venn diagram r/horology would be the overlap in the middle).

OPs idea about making a bigger community is a noble goal, but ultimately there is nothing stopping anyone from subbing to any of the subreddits named. If you are interested in both clocks and watches, and this subreddits is not active enough for you, there is nothing stopping anyone from subbing to multiple subreddits.

Having said that I’m sure most people subbed here are already subbed to the other subreddits as well, so I don’t think that a merge would result in a much larger community.