Lemmy could definitely use a bit more comment activity on a lot of posts.
I think it’s because nobody really wants to be the first to comment and offer an opinion that might end up going against the grain when a thread develops. There’s no ‘reading the room’ as it were.
I’m doing my part by commenting on threads. Like this one.
That, and when switching from reddit to Lemmy I realized how toxic the relationship there was, and I just use all social media way less now.
Reddit for sure is toxic. Generally, it’s much easier to be toxic in a large, anonymous group with an endless amount of subreddits to retreat to. Here, it’s maybe 10-20 people talking, so there’s not much room to hide, as it were. You keep running into the same faces, so it’s a bit more important to stay polite.
It’s not even just “the first” post. Lemmy is exactly like Reddit where any comments or posts, no matter how high quality, that can be interpreted as “against the grain” will be attacked. Lemmy has the same strong tendency towards group think that Reddit does, it’s just lower volume and the bias runs even farther left. Shrug.
Unfortunate but true, I wonder if it’s the upvote system on comment threads
Rationing downvotes could help break the groupthink while still providing a crowdsourced method of controlling spam and trolls. Other platforms have systems like this and it seems to work.
I think there have been some Lemmy instances that disable downvotes entirely also.
I don’t often feel like I have something to say that would contribute to the conversation.
I always tell people, hey, I’m not a bot here posting things, I’m trying to share things I feel you guys would enjoy. If nobody comments, it doesnt incentivize me to continue posting, it makes me feel like a crazy person talking to themselves. I encourage people to say something, even if it’s just “I really enjoyed this, thanks for sharing!” or something. I do that from time to time on others’ posts. If they’re showing me something new, of course I don’t know anything about it coming in, but I can let them know now I do know thanks to their contribution here.
All these posts pop up all the time, “dang, it’s so dead here” but if instead of making, liking, or commenting on that post, you could thank someone that did post, or share something that you think others might like. I was never a poster on Reddit. I’m no expert on what I post on. I just find stuff I think people would like, and now after doing it for the last few months, now I do know a lot more and can give people better insight than I could in the beginning.
Comments have been feeling low on my posts, and I think when is the point where me making 2 or 3 posts a day isn’t worth my time anymore, but then someone will say “oh this post really made my day” and so I come back the next day and post again.
This is why I comment so much, I want regular posters to feel they’re not shouting out into the void. Also, having conversation starter comments on most posts helps new people feel like Lemmy isn’t “dead”.
This comment is sweet. I already try to comment but I’ll definitely be doing it more now.
Oh hey, I love your owl posts. I always read the comments too because I know there will be more pictures and info. I’ve been meaning to comment there, but work got super busy and I forgot to stop by.
Well, comment anyway. You never know what’ll happen.
And even if you have a boring, vanilla opinion on that topic, post it anyway. Because it’ll lower the bar for others to comment as well. (As this entire thread demonstrates)
I mean, if anything it does serve as an icebreaker and gets the convo going. Or you can do like me and realize that you don’t actually know what the article is about or have the ability to understand it so you just try to make a joke and hope it lands and you can feel clever for a few minutes.
The fact you possess self awareness puts you above a great deal of people so please comment more often
I have also noticed that once a few people “break the ice” it really helps (like you did here). Comments beget comments.
This has been one of the biggest things I’ve taken away from my time here too. Especially when I first joined and it was even more barren. I was probably the first comment on over half the posts I viewed for the first few months. Often nothing substantial but it would lead to insightful comments from users who may have never even opened it if they saw zero comments.
The last couple years on some other site really reduced the amount I commented. I’m not yet out of that initial instinct of just moving on without trying to engage, it just wasn’t worth it a lot of the time over there, had mostly positive experiences here though, experience wise.
I dont know why not. This is not a group of people who knows eachother. We are all strangers.
Are we? I keep seeing the same usernames again and again, feels like we almost know each other by now
Meh, I expect 90% of what I say to be downvoted and to get called antiemetic too
Lemmy has so few comments that people actually read my comments occasionally, which is wild.
Seriously, that comment got, like, an updoot every two minutes so far. Crazy.
My parents and a number of other people in my IRL life would like you to know that they strongly disagree.
You’ve activated my trap card! Autocorrect has used the spelling of a famous singer instead of little old Jojo.
It is just nice to be able to comment and have it read instead of buried 3000 comments down after the memes and one-liners.
Thanks for the gold kind stranger.
(This is the part where I get 50 gold for no reason)
Im not reading all that but congratulations. Or I’m sorry. I don’t know whatever works. (This one is actually kinda funny tho)
In a way, thats a win, no ?
Considering a big problem with conversion on Reddit is people just reacting to the headline I’d say it’s a win. I’ve noticed here when people do comment it’s more nuanced because they actually read the article.
I wonder if the reason for this is not due to having less comments, but instead because Lemmy simply has a different demographic. For one, I’ve noticed significantly fewer bad-faith arguments compared to on Reddit. And discussions topics that would have otherwise been trolled to hell and back ended up having reasonably impartial conversations.
I’ve read that Lemmy users are generally fairly old, compared to users from other social media. I wonder if that has a role in how discussions play out on Lemmy
Not really. People may talk shit about comments, but if it was just a matter of getting just articles, you might as well stick to the news sites. Even as far as pure news aggregation goes there are better options than relying on whatever a handful people decide to share here.
There’s value in public commentary too. It may not be as polished as these articles but it provides a variety of perspectives, questions and criticism that might be pertinent, and for as lacking or biased as they may be, it’s much easier to tell compared to sources trying to pretend impartiality.
There’s a reason why we are here and not on, say, Feedly. This particular community only highlights it further, since it’s entirely based on the interpersonal element. Ain’t nobody looking for journalism or scientific articles on !Showerthoughts
Hey, im clearly in phase with that.
What I’ve told you I’ve seen it though.
An feminist articles attacking the male vision on a pure “male subject” like computers and that’s just a fight like you can see elsewhere.
In that case, for example, the title is enough to tilt some. I’ve seen arguments told but if the articles were read, they would have never used it 🤣🤣🤣
I don’t know if I’m clear. But I agree with you, just told you me feeling BC of you know, experience x)
100%. i’d be more interested in knowing what some guys in a bar in NYC were saying when hitler died versus reading an article about it. articles are just facts put in order. biased opinions make us human.
A great thing about Reddit is that because of its size you would sometimes get an expert in that field or even the person who wrote the paper popping up. It wasn’t crazy common but did happen a decent bit.
That is ofc balanced by it being full of complete assholes who have no idea what they’re talking about.
It’s alright. Lemmy has good content and the comments are far higher quality than Reddit.
Also you can actually have a conversation and people tend to respond a lot more than on Reddit.
I’m finally over the feeling of going into comment sections thinking “there’s too many bots, no reason to try adding to the conversation”
reddit had no middle ground between new posts that get buried and overinflated posts that have a thousand regurgitated phrases plastered all over it
