I hate big tech controlling social media. I desperately want social media to be federated.
I really love community-driven social media like Reddit. Lemmy feels… too small. I really loved that Reddit let me jump into any niche hobby, and instantly I had a community. Lemmy, you’ll be lucky if that community even exists, and if it does, chances are nobody has posted in ages.
On the other hand, Lemmy is full of political content lately. I’ve basically been doom scrolling everything US election-related, and it’s really starting to take a toll on my mental health.
I know I can filter content. I know I can post and be the change I seek. Yet, it feels like an uphill battle.
Not sure what the point of this is, or if it’s even the right community to vent about this. I just really want to replace Reddit, but I find myself going back more and more (e.g. r/homekit is very active compared to Lemmy version).
Yes Lemmy is smaller and doesn’t have instantly fully formed communities. Reddit has been around for almost 2 decades. Lemmy is newer, smaller, and actively fights the sorts of shenanigans that Reddit initially used to get big.
If you want more niche activity, make posts and interact with posts. Lemmy is user driven- that means you. It isn’t a giant megasite where you can just expect to be a passive receiver of endless content.
I once read somewhere that mentioned how Lemmy is actually bigger than reddit was at the same age. I don’t know if that is true or not but that’s pretty cool if it is and I think it means Lemmy is on a good track.
The difference was that Digg used to be the site. Then Digg ticked off all their users and 90% of them migrated to reddit, which was already available.
Reddit had its dumpster fire moment over the last couple years, but there was no available place for everyone to quickly migrate over to other than Lemmy, and it didn’t really happen. Lemmy is a bit harder to get used to and figure out, so we missed out on a huge migration.
So its doubtful that lemmy will ever expand out like reddit did. Not for a long time, anyhow. It will be great if we make it to a couple million active users. At that point, I’d be totally content. Things get too sloppy once you go over 10 million users, it seems.
I was their in reddit beginning. There were no initial shenanigans. It was a good place and existed at just the right time, when people wanted to leave Digg because it was turning into a dumpster fire, similar to what reddit has done.
When reddit started turning to shit there just wasn’t anything for the masses to migrate to that was available other than here. Problem is that here isn’t as simple to get into. In lemmy, the learning curve is slightly higher than “bare minimum”.
Sort of, but it didn’t really work. Reddit existed in 2005, but wasn’t popular. It only became popular in 2010 after all of Digg went to it, because it was pretty much a Digg clone, but with owners who weren’t Digg.
On Lemmy you feel like your voice is heard more because it’s smaller, IMO.
you gotta realize reddit didn’t just “appear” one day with those obscure niche topics built out. There is a network effect large communities have. We need hundreds of thousands more members before that is possible.
I think you probably weren’t there for early reddit, but most of the active posters here on Lemmy were. It was tiny. Like Lemmy.
You can’t force those niche communities to exist here. It doesn’t work. But what you can do is post and create valuable content. and eventually we may get there.
It’s so weird to me that people are so spoiled today that they feel inconvenienced when there isn’t limitless content in their niche fields of interest being served to them on a platter every single day.
Those of us who remember the before times can tell you that the absolute best of a platform comes before that point. I’m sure it’s lovely getting your full every single second, but the best conversation, the best education, the best introspection comes when you’re allowed a few minutes between stimuli to think.
I feel like “Old woman yells at cloud” but I really feel like our younger folks who crave endless, mindless interaction, don’t know what they miss out on.
I can’t blame them, because they’ve been conditioned to be consumers of content. While they idealize creators, they also put up barriers in their minds as the the level of quality a given comment, piece of content, whatever, needs to achieve before getting involved.
I try and think of Lemmy as the equivalent of the Linux. We’re just going to have lower adoption because there isn’t a corporate juggernaut behind us promoting this thing.
But if people really want to know why reddit was able to become reddit, it happened here yesterday with cats. It’s bean memes. Its Stör. Its us developing culture of our own as a community.
So its fine. I’m not too worried. We’re doing great.
Pardon me for wanting to have a place where I can discuss my hobbies, I guess.
You can still do that.
Start the conversation. That’s what we all did, and where these communities got their start.
Maybe that’s part of it, but it’s not just that.
For example, I preordered a Nanoleaf Sense+ switch, which just shipped for everyone on the preorder. I’m excited to hear other people’s experiences with the product as it uses direct communication with lights via the Thread network.
If I go to Reddit’s r/nanoleaf, there are enough members that I see people posting about Sense+ within a few days of the product shipping.
And it’s not just consuming. I want to help people set up the switch too. For example, Nanoleaf has a very confusing menu in the app that took me a while to figure out. I saw someone else with the exact same issue and left a helpful comment.
Seems to be a good topic for a thread on !homeimprovement@lemmy.world ?
Feel free to block communities with political content.
You can also use an app or alternative frontend to filter keywords. !newtolemmy@lemmy.ca has a post about that.
For communities, !newcommunities@lemmy.world can help
For home kit, the Apple communities are probably more active, and you should be able to post about it there too
To add to this using these two features has really helped remove a lot of the threads that were taking a toll on my mental health from my feed.
How do I do this? Because honestly, yeah, I’ve come to a point where I’m realizing that, while it’s my responsibility to do what I can in the world, it is not my responsibility to just bear witness to suffering when I can do nothing to prevent it. All it’s doing it hurting me for no gains to anyone.
A lot of focus is put onto posting, but I like to encourage commenters. I’ll post and respond all day, but if nobody is interacting, it’s going to stay quiet. Put the quiet to your advantage by doing things like:
If you like an image, say what you like about it. Lately, I’ve been having people talk about how they really have been enjoying dawn/dusk pictures, so I’ve been collecting more of that so I can post what people are in the mood for. It gives me good feedback, it gives people a chance to agree or disagree with you, and you got to participate.
Do you ask anyone any question? Take advantage of the relative quiet. With not having a million comments on every post, I have plenty of time to give you really detailed answers. I got asked how to differentiate between 2 animals yesterday, and I had time to make a nice visual guide, highlighting key differences and giving multiple visual examples of potential variations while still simplifying the process of identification. If there’s a million people talking like on Reddit, it’s hard to give people that much attention, but here it’s easy. I pretty much take time to respond to every comment.
Don’t be afraid to go off topic. Rules seem to be looser in many communities because of the low post count. This week, I posted something from a country with a different language, and I ended up having 3 days of conversation with a native speaker who filled me in on tons of subtleties of the language pertaining to our niche topic. I got to learn so much, and they got to learn a few things about English.
I feel you have to do something to have a good time here, but it needn’t be to post multiple things every day, but it’s more than just up or downvoting something like you can get away with on Reddit. We’re too small for you to have a free ride. But make someone laugh. Let them know that you liked their post with a short comment. If you don’t like it, say hey, do you have any content on such and such instead. Make a post saying, hey, what’s your thoughts on this? It doesn’t need to be something groundbreaking or insightful, you just need to give a sign of life so we know you’re here, and one of us will probably talk back to you.
Interact enough like that, and you may find what you enjoy doing, if that turns out to be posting, or you become the resident expert on a topic even if you’re not an expert, being a serial commenter, or whatever it may be. It’s a great opportunity if you make it one because it is so easy to get attention here if you try.
I’m not typically a social person, but being here has let me talk about what I want, when I want, and somebody will listen to it, and I can ask about things I want to know and get answers. There’s much less shouting into the void like at Reddit. Play Lemmy to its strengths and you will find enjoyment. And if you don’t like it, go to where you’re happy. Nobody’s going to hate you if you split time between here and Reddit.
I’ll post and respond all day, but if nobody is interacting, it’s going to stay quiet.
Well I just wanted to respond because I’m also trying to comment as much as I can and even post every now and again. But the issue I’ve seen is Lemmy draws a certain kind of person, which means a lot of like minded people in the comments. I see your response here, read it, like it and then think: “Yes I agree, nothing to add”. So I don’t respond, which makes it feel pretty quiet.
Another thing I’ve seen is not a lot of people even bother opening posts, they just scroll through the feed, get their dopamine and that’s it.
not a lot of people even bother opening posts
I’m a bit inclined to agree with this. I try to do the equivalent of the XKCD hover text, where you have to click through to get some of the good stuff. If you aren’t clicking through to the comments, you’re going to miss a lot of good stuff. Photo sets, photography tips, stories, fun facts. I try not to have the pic and title be the whole thing. But I’ll have 100 upvotes on the post pic, and maybe 10 on any bonus pics inside.
With some news posts, they feel like a RSS feed. Just a link to an article and nothing else. I may read it or I may not. There’s no initial comment or question to interact with. I don’t even know if it’s a bot posting or not that way. If all you offer is a Reuters link, I could have just gone to Reuters and gotten the headline myself. I feel these posts have little value until they start collecting comments.
“Yes I agree, nothing to add”
This is a common response I get when I try to get people to comment more. There can still be value to add to something like this though. Why do you agree? Did you agree before you read the post/comment? Do you have any caveats to your agreement? If you haven’t always agreed, what changed your mind? What part of what they said, or the chart/pic/stat they shared really stood out or was unexpected? You may agree, but you’re still a different person with a different background and different adjacent ideas.
Example from today: Pic of flying owl. Comment was basically I like all these recent pics of flying owls. On the surface, not the deepest comment ever. Buuuuuut, someone took the time to respond to a post, so I know they liked it enough to make effort. Makes me feel good knowing I motivated someone enough to respond, keeps me motivated to post again. I also learned that a specific type of content really got them interested. I know to look for more of it. Then I took the time to respond in kind, because their effort deserves recognition. I said I’m glad you’re enjoying it. I also said that even though I see hundreds of owl pics every week, that I was still surprised by something I saw in one of the recent photos, so that gives them or anyone else reading the response something to go back and look at. They might not have noticed the unique thing about the photo the first time.
Example going the other way: Maori rights in New Zealand. You can’t get much further from NZ than where I am. I know basically nothing about it. This topic really caught my attention though. I read the article to see what was going on, and I thought I understood the basics of it. I commented and said, hey, I read this, and this is my understanding. Am I correct in my understanding or am I missing some significant parts of the story not in this article? If so, can someone explain it or point me in the direction of some more reading? So I know nothing, but I showed them the story was making me interested in something they shared. Anyone familiar with NZ can chime in to talk to me. I hopefully get more things to talk about from that, and we have some conversation. I don’t have to know anything, I just show interest in the topic, and in interacting with someone.
Not every interaction is going to result in more upvotes, comments, or conversation, but if nobody is going to be willing to make the first move, it’s gonna be boring. We’re not big enough for the 1% rule (1% creators, 9% commenters, 90% lurkers) to carry us. It kills the creators having to force the momentum all the time, and if you disagree/agree too much with the small pool of comments, you’re going to say this place is boring. We need to participate, we need to show our individual personalities, and we need to interact. That’s the “social” part of social media. Have fun with it!
I see your response here, read it, like it and then think: “Yes I agree, nothing to add”. So I don’t respond, which makes it feel pretty quiet.
On the one hand, upvotes are there. On the other, they’re not really the right took for the job, Lemmy (and the Fediverse in general) needs some sort of “same” / “mood” / “this tbh” tag.
and the Fediverse in general
A significant number of the not-Lemmy-or-Mastodon servers support emoji and custom emoticon tags, not just ‘up’, ‘down’, or ‘star’. I wish that was more widely adopted.
For me, the upvotes are ok. I use them more to gauge overall traffic. I have an idea the typical number of votes things will get, and I can see what deviates to see what is a hit, what’s typical, and what isn’t resonating. But without comments, there’s no “why” anything is good or bad. I’m not really any better off than before to give you what you want. I can take a guess, but you could have also taken a moment to tell me. It doesn’t tell me everyone’s opinion, but it gives another things for the people that do vote to either add upvotes to that comment or ignore it.
Also, as someone providing the content, it’s nice to have an interaction, even if it’s minimal. Creating posts can eat up a lot of time, and I’m doing it to talk to you all. If nobody stops by to even say, yo, nice work, or whatever, even if I have a lot of upvotes, it still feels like I’m not talking to anyone. It feels like a chore. But if I get one person that says, hey, seeing this really made my morning, now I feel awesome and I want to post more.
I agree with you. It’s disheartening when you see something you want to talk about and the comments are empty.
Or when you comment and no one else ever chimes in.
Yup, my questions in the Maori article have been up for 24 hours now, so time for people in that part of the world with direct knowledge had time to see it. My comments and questions got 7 upvotes, so other people seem interested in some more elaboration, but the thread is probably dead.
Someone’s leaving an audience that wants more hanging, and nobody even gave a yes or no saying if my understanding of the article was right. 😮💨
Seeing all the cats made me realize that we need to all participate to make the community what we want it to be. It’s clear to me there are a lot of lurkers based on the influx of cat pictures. The more we start posting in ANY instance the more visibility there will be for active users.
