My opinion is yes. That existing subscriber base goes a long way towards jumpstarting an active community

I think it is a good idea. We pretty much did just that when consolidating c/SpaceX from !SpaceX@lemmy.ml and !SpaceX@lemmy.world to !SpaceX@sh.itjust.works. I just now noticed the dormant !SpaceX@lemm.ee. Should that be consolidated as well?

There are also a plethora of data hoarder communities scattered around Lemmy: !datahoarder@lemmy.ml, !datahoarder@lemmy.world, !datahoarders@lemmy.ml, !data_hoarder@lemmy.world, !grayt@lemmy.world, !datahoarder@selfhosted.forum, !datahoarder@zerobytes.monster.

Another candidate for consolidation? A bit of a tricky case, as the current largest community is not on the most politically centrist/neutral instance, and lemmy.dbzer0 which (in my opinion) would be a more closely aligned instance doesn't have a data hoarders community.

I like this because people showing up to those communities might think that topic doesn't have activity on Lemmy, when it actually does. Assuming the moderators are still active, the abandoned community can stay open to new posts (in case there are issues with the active counterpart).

I personally subscribe to both, so that I can get all the posts, but I post to the community I consider the 'main' community

Yes! I think it's a good idea.