I found it quite impressive that people are capable of this. For me, I have neither energy, nor ability, nor comprehensive knowledge to do so. So, it is always fascinating (and a bit intimidating) to see people writing these all the time. I want to ask how you guys achieve this feat.
Maybe, is it that I am nonverbal so I cannit write coherently?
The wall-o-text comments on Lemmy are the worst. No shame at all in not being that person.
Sometimes I get into a long story, but overall, I’m with you. I usually just read the first few sentences and move on.
In recent times?
ChatGPT.
You just get started. Its part of the reason I’ve always preferred either forums or fark/ digg/ reddit/ lemmy style conversations.
Also, writing is a skill. You get better at it with time. Its like how a TV show host can just ‘riff’ on a topic. I think responding to comments has definitely improved my ability to write in particular style (engaging/ proactive/ enthusiastic, whatever.).
It also helps to be familiar with markdown, as good formatting makes the writing more satisfying.
I was just talking about how commenting has made me reflect on how effectively I communicate in everyday life. I only ever lurked on Reddit because it seemed like everyone had already said what was worth commenting on. But on Lemmy, there is an opportunity to give it a shot and see what happens.
The worst case is someone picks apart what you were trying to articulate (rare), or no one responds (common). In the best case, you have an engaging conversation (also rare).
There are many people on lemmy who are very passionate and/or opinionated about certain topics. So when a discussion about that topic comes up, they tend to go hard on the comment section. Also, for some terminally online people, this is literally their only social space to express themselves.
I don’t know, even if I’m extremely prone to write huge walls of text, and need to actually take my time to abridge them.
(And every bloody time that I do abridge it, some reply makes me regret it.)
When someone points out something I deleted or only alluded to for the sake of brevity, it kills me. I want to respond “…yes, I know I actually wanted to write that, but wasn’t sure anyone would care or even read it.”
But knowing everything doesn’t get you any extra credit on Lemmy or in real life. Speaking as a recovering teachers pet my entire academic life, I find it’s best to just remember that it is just a conversation. Especially on Lemmy, responses to comments are pretty rare, so any thoughtful response is welcome.
I’m fine with replies correctly filling what I’ve deleted with actual and meaningful info.
Instead, most of the time, I regret it due to some reply misrepresenting what I said - because the replier is now assuming shit, or interpreting literally a figure of speech that I’ve used for brevity, etc.
