I wouldn’t take it too personally. 300 sounds like a lot of subscribers, but it really isn’t, especially if people are subscribed to a lot of different communities and aren’t used to sorting by new. I admire your dedication to this artform and the quality of your posts. Perhaps they’d be better appreciated if they were posted to a general comics community?

Dropped in from browsing all, you are complaining because your post only got 3 upvotes? I’ve been building content on a community for months posting pretty much every day (on a different account) and the majority of my posts either stay at 1 or drop to 0 with pretty much zero engagement in comments bar a couple over my 100+ posts.

You have multiple posts with 20+ votes meaning people are looking at and engaging with what you are posting in some form or another, just because one post sees less engagement suddenly you are throwing your toys out?

I get that it can be some what demoralising over time as I fully know how it feels to constantly be posting and trying to build some content for the future but it is exactly that, for the future. At least you have people actually looking at what you have done so far, as far as I know no one is looking at what I am doing but that isn’t why I am doing it.

Take a step back if you feel you need to but I think you need to temper your expectations for what is still a fairly low traffic place, maybe dial back how much time you are putting in. If you are spending that much time do you need to post every single day?

I really appreciate the effort you’re putting in here. To be completely honest, I haven’t found the time to scroll through a lot of the content here.

I agree that 300 subscribers seems like a lot but it’s actually not because people are subscribed to a bunch of other communities at the same time. I mod !imageai@sh.itjust.works and we have like 5k subscribers and you can see that the weekly community challenges only get like 10 upvotes. I found it a little bit discouraging at first, but even if it’s just a few people participating or appreciating the content, I’ve realized that it’s equally rewarding.

I think the 90/9/1 rule is pretty accurate; on average, 90% of users/subscribers are lurkers that don’t participate. Don’t beat yourself up, it’s not on you at all, there just aren’t enough people in this community quite yet.

Lemmy is having some growth pains. I think there’s a litany of issues that are ultimately harmful to the reducers and are preventing natural user growth.

These things take time. We’re all just sorta tending our little campfires on the fediverse. I decided to chip in and moderate a writing sub, and we have some people posting, even though sometimes I feel awkward being one of the only regular posters. I think the trick is to build 1:1 relationships first, and hope those accumulate naturally into a small community. Wishing you luck.

Just going to chip in, I saw the post you mention. I neither commented nor voted either way on it because TBH it reminded me of an art history class, and the chosen first image without context made me think the subject matter was probably sexist (unfair perhaps, but just the vibe it gave me).

I love some comics that mix up art styles, but I’m generally looking at them in the same way that I look at how movies are directed, I want the kind of thoughtfulness where sometimes just a few lines can tell you so much more than any text. If the art is playing off the story I can enjoy it, but without that the art has to stand on it’s own; in this case it didn’t evoke anything positive or curious for me, so I would didn’t delve further.

Thank you folks, i.e. the ones who gave understanding and helpful advice. :-)

Perhaps they’d be better appreciated if they were posted to a general comics community? - @HumanBehaviorByBjork@hexbear.net

It’s an interesting idea that might be worth doing in future. After all, there’s a lot of wonderful Euro comics that no doubt plenty of comics readers aren’t aware of. Actually, I welcome anyone to crosspost our content to other comics subs. In terms of active, thriving communities, looks like !comics@lemmy.ml would be the first choice.

Lemmy is having some growth pains. I think there’s a litany of issues that are ultimately harmful to the reducers and are preventing natural user growth. –@TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee

For sure, and I agree that contributors need to be mindful of such. At the same time, I feel very fortunate right now, because due to the slow flow of new content in general, content posted here and at other communities has a much higher chance of being seen in the ‘ALL’ stream, something which is near-impossible on Reddit unless it catches a wave, so to speak.

I mod !imageai@sh.itjust.works and we have like 5k subscribers and you can see that the weekly community challenges only get like 10 upvotes. I found it a little bit discouraging at first, but even if it’s just a few people participating or appreciating the content, I’ve realized that it’s equally rewarding. – @imaqtpie@sh.itjust.works

Thanks for the context, and to be clear-- I’m perfectly fine with only a few upvotes. That’s just how it is sometimes, and the world certainly doesn’t revolve around me. It was the fact that there were more downvotes than upvotes, giving the Even’s post a negative score, that really discouraged me. Anyway, thanks for mentioning your sub. Looks cool, and I’m subscribed now. ^^

I think the trick is to build 1:1 relationships first, and hope those accumulate naturally into a small community. Wishing you luck. –@Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world

Interesting. Can you give me a successful example of such? Btw, I’ve subscribed to your world building community; thanks for mentioning it!

you are complaining because your post only got 3 upvotes? … just because one post sees less engagement suddenly you are throwing your toys out? – @theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com

I don’t feel I’m ‘complaining,’ here. My first thought was simply to take a break and disappear for a while. Then I thought better of it, and decided to try to communicate in an honest, respectful way, and I believe I made the right choice based on the body of responses. Which is why I don’t appreciate you mischaracterising the situation and needlessly insulting me.

Again, after a full day, the post which had been days in the making had a zero score with more negs than upvotes. Also, this is a different community than yours, with a different level of engagement and voting style, so your comparison between the two really doesn’t help, sorry. Overall, I can appreciate the bit of helpful advice that you offered, but frankly, it was stated more usefully by others.

I understand that you are disappointed but you are focusing on that one post way too much. Actually you get lots of upvotes all the time, often even more than my Moebius posts ;) I think Evens might just be a little too artsy for some but I liked the post.

You should only put as much time into this community as feels good for you my dude. Take a break when you need one.

At some point our users will start posting material too. Obviously the community won’t get very far with just the two of us posting content and I am sure our users have a lot of great stuff to post. Lurkers rise up!

If I helps I think you are doing great things for this community. I may not always comment or make posts of my own but from time to time I always check the community and go over all the new posts I have not read.