First off, I want to say that I love what the people here are doing but I do have a problem. There is never any conversation about posts. There are tons and tons of links shared but most of the time they’re just articles that someone found interesting. I never see any true, meaningful discussion the way I do on reddit. Does anyone else have a problem with this or am I just shouting at the clouds? Is there anything we can do about it?
I think there’s a few factors contributing to the low amount of discussion/participation.
First and foremost, we are small, much, much, much, much, much smaller than most communities out there. We’ve got a few hundred users, and of those maybe a few dozen which are active in any given month. It’s rare we see new faces around here (hello everyone who has recently registered!). More importantly we’ve got to respect the 90-9-1 rule. Most people don’t participate. Even for those that do participate, their likelihood to participate in a particular community or a particular comment will only reflect a portion of their contribution.
Secondly, I think many of the users who have come to this platform are tired of shitty bigoted and hateful speech that they’ve seen on so many huge platforms. They’re less likely to share their opinions on polarized issues or less likely to want to participate in charged discussions. Often times these are the ones which garner the most attention and commenting. In their hopes to create a safe space, one which is uniquely nice, they may unfortunately find themselves self-censoring, still hurt and feeling raw from experiences elsewhere on the internet.
Third, as has been mentioned here and is often mentioned on new platforms, tech saavy users are usually the first adopters, and they often have a restricted set of interests. This is why we see a lot more activity and discussion in tech and tech-related spaces. More activity in these spaces draws more users who are generally active in these spaces and you get a bit of an echo chamber going on. If we want activity more evenly spread out, we need to collectively prioritize it (try to find non-tech related things to share) as well as spread word of this place to non-techies and be willing to handhold them through the process of learning how to use a website like this.
Honestly the same can be said for the whole of the fediverse. So much is about the Fediverse itself or FOSS.
I think lemmy itself contributes to this as well. I know I nearly bounced off of lemmy when I signed up for lemmy.ml, and saw so many… unsavory comment threads.
Same. I quickly ditched my lemmy.ml account once I discovered Beehaw. Still sub to a few communities from lemmy.ml, but a handful of their power posters are straight up propogandists. Beehaw defederating with lemmygrad was the biggest selling point when looking at another lemmy instance.
seconding this part in specific. a big issue is ultimately that most of the people who post on lemmy period are tech-savvy, and their interests are primarily tech, so non-tech subjects are always at a disadvantage. a big reason i try to post non-tech news on here is to sort of compensate for that; otherwise i think the problem would be even more acute than it currently is
I agree. I often find myself not investing as much energy into coments here, because I know that at best a handful of people would even see them :/
FWIW, I would see them. I read every comment. And I may even engage in a discussion with you.
Aaaaw
Reporting in as regular reader too 🫡