we need more users
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We need comments, that is the problem. Small communities don't get any positive feedback via engagement, which causes them to die as the owner/sole poster feels like no one cares.
Simply link dumping (effectively what most posts are on content aggregators) is the easy part. Seeing even 1 comment inclines someone to open up the post to read the comment, which makes them in turn likely to reply and it builds from there to a hot/active conversation.
If you can just aim to write that first comment on or two posts a day in more niche communities, it will help achieve growth.
This is my analysis too. And why, instead of just upvoting posts that interest me, I try to think of something to say about them too. The dreaded "0 comments" is never a good look no matter how we much we tell ourselves that it doesn't matter.
For this reason I tend to believe that many communities just have too much primary content. Too many posts and not enough comments.
Thought experiment. 2 communities:
- /c/one has 15 posts per day, 5 of them with 3 comments, the other 10 with none
- /c/two has 3 posts per day with 5 comments each
Which is the healthier community?
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We need comments, that is the problem. Small communities don't get any positive feedback via engagement, which causes them to die as the owner/sole poster feels like no one cares.
Simply link dumping (effectively what most posts are on content aggregators) is the easy part. Seeing even 1 comment inclines someone to open up the post to read the comment, which makes them in turn likely to reply and it builds from there to a hot/active conversation.
If you can just aim to write that first comment on or two posts a day in more niche communities, it will help achieve growth.
So saying something without much effort under a post wothout comments actually helps that post to become more populated?
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I’m happy to promote it. I tried to get a few non-technical people to check it out. They felt it was too complicated. I’ve shared it with tech friends and coworkers who use Reddit. They’re aware of Lemmy to varying degrees, and are not enthused about moving to another platform despite hating Reddit.
I think it’s because despite Lemmy being a great alternative, it is more complicated and lacks the user base that users of other social media platforms have.
Bluesky is marginally more complicated than Twitter, but compared to Mastodon it is user friendly. Bluesky worked to create a dedicated, easy to use app that most users use.
Bluesky existed for a while before experiencing explosive growth. This occurred during moments of controversy with X. Bluesky capitalized on these moments, with champions on both platforms that led their followers to change, and there were mechanisms in place to bootstrap a user’s feed with the followers and topics that they had in the other place.
I think Lemmy needs to follow this model. There needs to be a Lemmy app that has a user experience as similar as possible with the Reddit app. It also needs champions that have main stream recognition (George Takei, Mark Hamill, etc.) that can be willing to make noise about switching from Reddit to Lemmy when the next controversy occurs. Repeat with more and more promotion by this evangelists, and Lemmy could grow.
too complicated
This is an Us problem. Download jerboa. Create an account on world. Done. Simple as Reddit. We make it complicated by explaining federation, options, different instances, etc. None of that matters to the masses.
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So saying something without much effort under a post wothout comments actually helps that post to become more populated?
As long as it's relevant, yes.
If you just posted say "I agree" or "Totally this" I don't think that would drive any further engagement.
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This is my analysis too. And why, instead of just upvoting posts that interest me, I try to think of something to say about them too. The dreaded "0 comments" is never a good look no matter how we much we tell ourselves that it doesn't matter.
For this reason I tend to believe that many communities just have too much primary content. Too many posts and not enough comments.
Thought experiment. 2 communities:
- /c/one has 15 posts per day, 5 of them with 3 comments, the other 10 with none
- /c/two has 3 posts per day with 5 comments each
Which is the healthier community?
My experience is that it's more like this:
- /c/one has 15 posts per day, 5 of them with 3 comments, the other 10 with none
- /c/two has 3 posts per day with 0 comments each
Not every post is a hit, so if you cast wide you're likely to get a greater return on comments as something is bound to attract attention. The way the sorting works is that the 5 posts with 3 comments will show at the top and the 0 posts will drop off view, showing an active community.
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I wonder if we can combine the related fediverse services (like piefed, which is getting more and more traction lately), mbin/kbin, and others.
Because according to this graph I dont exist for example. Im not a "lemmy" user, but I sure interact with a lot of lemmy.
There is also a number of instances that are chosing not to give their numbers anymore either because of AI scrappers getting really aggressive, or because they just dont want to be seen by the different tracking software out there.
Agreed. This seems like the lowest hanging fruit, the absolute minimal solution.
Given the emergence of Bluesky and the parallel rightwing echo chambers, the fediverse does not have the luxury of splittism IMO.
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I've been one of the people saying "we don't need more users. we need quality over quantity" and i was wrong.
the way it's going, lemmy needs active users who post content sothat the network stays relevant. networks like the fediverse benefit from network effects and that means that if we have more users, that improves the value and quality of the fediverse overall.
So please, everyone, when you can, make advertisement for the fediverse in your personal area. Go talk to friends, make attractive stickers and put them everywhere, stuff like that. We would all benefit from it.
edit: source for the graph
Fediverse is a leftist nest. Most people bounce away
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My experience is that it's more like this:
- /c/one has 15 posts per day, 5 of them with 3 comments, the other 10 with none
- /c/two has 3 posts per day with 0 comments each
Not every post is a hit, so if you cast wide you're likely to get a greater return on comments as something is bound to attract attention. The way the sorting works is that the 5 posts with 3 comments will show at the top and the 0 posts will drop off view, showing an active community.
I'm trying to think of something to say in riposte in order to boost the comment count.
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I've been one of the people saying "we don't need more users. we need quality over quantity" and i was wrong.
the way it's going, lemmy needs active users who post content sothat the network stays relevant. networks like the fediverse benefit from network effects and that means that if we have more users, that improves the value and quality of the fediverse overall.
So please, everyone, when you can, make advertisement for the fediverse in your personal area. Go talk to friends, make attractive stickers and put them everywhere, stuff like that. We would all benefit from it.
edit: source for the graph
A lot of those 'users' are bots or paid shills too.
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I'm trying to think of something to say in riposte in order to boost the comment count.
Riposte? What a fun word, I should incorporate that.
This thread is doing well for engagement, go sort by new and comment on something
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Just talk up Lemmy, the issue is most people doesn't realize there's another option to the popular toxic trash fires.
I just don't have conversations with people in which I proselytize internet aggregators. I just don't talk about this stuff to people.
Besides which, I disagree that the issue is that people don't know. They don't know because they haven't invested the 3 seconds to search "reddit alternatives" and they haven't done that because they're happy wherever they are.
Like "most" users think advertising is "good" because it might remind them about things they want. They think it's "good" that some algorithm might curate content they're more likely to be interested in. They think it's fine that there's a new AI chat bot.
Having an awareness that alternatives exist does not solve these fundamental impediments.
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Agreed. This seems like the lowest hanging fruit, the absolute minimal solution.
Given the emergence of Bluesky and the parallel rightwing echo chambers, the fediverse does not have the luxury of splittism IMO.
WDYM? That will just make the graph look less terrible but not address the problem.
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they should link to each other in the sidebar so people know how to find them
Lemmy communities could benefit from a webring concept.
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too complicated
This is an Us problem. Download jerboa. Create an account on world. Done. Simple as Reddit. We make it complicated by explaining federation, options, different instances, etc. None of that matters to the masses.
This. So much of this.
I see the same with any federated platform. People are excited to explain how complicated and clever and different services and integrations and... Shut the fuck up.
App, sign-up, post, like, subscribe. Done.
People will learn the rest if it is important enough to them to master
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too complicated
This is an Us problem. Download jerboa. Create an account on world. Done. Simple as Reddit. We make it complicated by explaining federation, options, different instances, etc. None of that matters to the masses.
We can make our decentralised network more popular by centralising it feels like an own goal...
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To be completely honest, Lemmy is kinda dead outside the politics subs and some of the tech ones. When I deleted my reddit account I came here and joined some of the communities I was using reddit for: Pathfinder 2e, RPG, memes, anime. Out of all of them I only see an occasional post from memes while the other ones are literal ghost towns.
Yep.
Even the politics stuff, it seems to lag behind reddit by a half day or so.
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Just wait and let Reddit have another controversy
You know, there was a great blog recently that wrote about this, that now is the perfect time to popularize the fediverse. That's because as tensions with the US are rising, more people in europe are looking for alternative internet platforms to communicate over. So the fediverse can jump in here and offer itself as an alternative.
We're actually seeing a rise in new user applications over at Feddit.dk. The hostile behavior of the US has gotten some Reddit users to seek alternatives to american platforms.
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I've been one of the people saying "we don't need more users. we need quality over quantity" and i was wrong.
the way it's going, lemmy needs active users who post content sothat the network stays relevant. networks like the fediverse benefit from network effects and that means that if we have more users, that improves the value and quality of the fediverse overall.
So please, everyone, when you can, make advertisement for the fediverse in your personal area. Go talk to friends, make attractive stickers and put them everywhere, stuff like that. We would all benefit from it.
edit: source for the graph
Why does the y axis not start at 0?
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I was meaning to buy a bunch of sticker for all sort of cool stuff I support (lemmy/fedi being one of those things) and stick it around the city. Know its not much, but its fun!
Isn't this not much better than graffiti? I think advocating for the fediverse is great, but let's not plaster unnecessary and potentially illegal posters/advertisements everywhere.
If you want to display an appreciation for the fediverse, perhaps there are T-shirts with the fediverse logo?
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I've been one of the people saying "we don't need more users. we need quality over quantity" and i was wrong.
the way it's going, lemmy needs active users who post content sothat the network stays relevant. networks like the fediverse benefit from network effects and that means that if we have more users, that improves the value and quality of the fediverse overall.
So please, everyone, when you can, make advertisement for the fediverse in your personal area. Go talk to friends, make attractive stickers and put them everywhere, stuff like that. We would all benefit from it.
edit: source for the graph
I think posting quality content (or at least trying to be quality content hahaha) and good comments keep the users visiting back.
I just try to post one or two posts a day (to not spam things), comment a little bit, it seems it grows some communities on our instance. Some communities were dead, now at least some people post at these places.
