I saw one recently in a linux community where a user complained about multiple "I ditched Windows" posts. I've seen requests for stickies in some gardening communities.

I assume nothing actively prevents the communities from merging other than the mods being comfortable running their communities. But they shouldn't have to merge. We can have solutions that enable multiple communities to exist while also preventing rampant crossposting and post duplication.

[–] Blaze@discuss.online 0 points 10 months ago

I saw one recently in a linux community where a user complained about multiple “I ditched Windows” posts. I’ve seen requests for stickies in some gardening communities.

That's something that the moderators need to take action on, isn't it? Don't get me wrong, unmoderated communities is a whole issue on its own, but it doesn't seem linked to the community separation.

But they shouldn’t have to merge.

They don't have to, they can. But them being unwilling to merge similar communities seems strange, except if they can't agree on instance due to the instance politics.

Cooking communities did a few months ago: https://lemmy.world/post/7578470