El Chisme

They're separate because in one you're allowed to post literally fucking anyone, like lemmy users writing complete garbage, whereas on the other you're only allowed public figures.

I think some people wanted the public figures content, but did not want the random dipshit lemmy users content. The separation enables having one instead of the other. It also makes searching for content easier because it narrows down searches, if you know you're looking for public figure you know it'll be there, if your memory is of a random dipshit you know it'll be in the other. I very very very regularly use the search function for old content by hazy memories I have.

The issue is not that there are 2 comms but that the names don't really stick in your memory and people get confused about which one to use. I don't remember how the names were chosen but I'd guess they were named by someone that wanted to remove dunk tank's content from the site entirely until the drama it caused.

Merging the comms won't reduce content, you'll just have the same amount of content but without separation so any public figure stuff will be drowning under the random lemmitor stuff.

My take is that the name could benefit from being changed. No merge.