I think one of the best things we have are users like @craftyindividual@lemm.ee and @anon6789@lemmy.world who almost single-handedly curate fantastic communities of content they’re passionate about.

It’s a huge job, and not something one could easily ask of anyone. So I don’t have a quick fix how to attract more people like them or anything like that. But I think people doing these kinds of efforts deserve a shout-out.

I’m not very worried personally. I like it here, and it seems healthy enough in my eyes. I see people ask quite specific questions about many diverse topics and get incredibly helpeful answers, and I’ve been in that position myself as well. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth discussing the state of the community though, and I’m curious what people have on their minds. :)

When I first joined Lemmy, I made a really big effort to make my interactions more positive than they were on Reddit. But the problem is that this required effort, and I am afraid over time my resolve might have eroded as the fediverse became just another online space instead of something new and distinct. This is a good reminder, but I wonder if this solution of just trying to be better is really sustainable for me or others? I’ll keep trying but we may need a more concrete change to get where we want to go.

I am curious if it’s time to evolve user engagement beyond up and downvotes. While they were relatively innovative at the time they were introduced, it’s been some years and we’re still here using the same system.

The biggest problem with voting as content curation is that people vote to communicate very different ideas and reactions in different circumstances. So people are sending the same signal to a well-researched, respectful but dissident perspective and to content that is rude, violent, hateful, incorrect etc.

This could be solved by allowing more diverse reactions. People will always want an agree or disagree button, so give them that. But we could also vote on how factual a post is, how polite a post is, how uplifting a post is, etc. We could then build algorithms that prioritize quality content instead of just the current popularity contest. Ideally I’d like multiple transparent algorithms that the user can choose from (or leave a default chosen by their instance) so that users can choose what kind of content is most valuable to them.

One concern is whether this would be too complicated for people to understand or engage with properly. I’d be curious to hear what others think: would this just devolve into upvotes and downvotes again or could this be a better system?

I’d like to note that while to you it may seem there is little interaction on lemmy, ie. votes and comments. I can assure you the median engagement on posts is far higher than reddit. The bottification of reddit has made it so that the few bot/troll posts get lots of engagement, and anything organic gets pretty much none.

I don’t have time to respond everything, but just about the growth part: Before the Reddit blackout happened, Lemmy was stuck with around 1000 monthly users for at least a year. It was quite boring compared to now, in 15 or 30 minutes you could read all new posts and comments for a day. It was also easy to recognize the handful of regular posters (cheers). At that time you could easily think the same, that Lemmy will never grow and people will leave. But then the Reddit migration happened and we got completely overwhelmed with a 70x increase in active users.

It seems to me that growth on the internet always happens with short spurts and long quiet periods. There will probably be a time when people come to Lemmy again and we reach hundreds of thousands or millions of active users. Then we will fondly remember the time when it was so small.

Continuing my post here due to the character limit:

What can we do?

Votes

I think we all know votes are broken. They just show the agreement level of the mob. Not necessarily connected with quality or if something is interesting to read. I think ultimately that’s unfixable. But I’d like to invite you all to vote more. People who write posts or comments need to see it’s worth typing it. There has to be some interaction or we’re just wearing out people who contribute. And remember to vote on comments, too. Be generous.

Posting the news

I’d say don’t do it too much since we already have RSS readers and news sites. But I’m willing to yield with my personal opinion. But(!) Please only post articles that you’ve read yourself. If it’s too boring for you to read, it’s probably also too boring for the other people to read any you’re just contributing to make this place be littered with random noise.

Posting links with no attached (body) text

Connected to my previous point: Ask yourself: “Why am I posting this?” Is it because you want to discuss something? If yes: Put in a minimum of effort and contribute something yourself. At least write one or two sentences in your post and don’t just dump a single link. IMO you should also write a short summary for your audience so they know if they want to click on the link. If you respect them and their time.

Reacting emotionally

We all do that. Just take a step back every now and then and see if your reactions are balanced in a way that you’re comfortable with. Remember you can always down-vote someone and be done with it and not start an argument. But you don’t need to keep silent. Especially if you’re reading a text like this and making an effort, you’re probably on the good side, so I don’t want you to surrender this place to the people with less approvable behavior.

Be nice

I’d say everyone of us shapes this place by their behavior. If you want it to become a nice place, be nice yourself. We all know that’s easier said than done, but we can make an effort.

Diversity

I think diversity is baked in to the Fediverse. We can have different instances with different focus, different moderation policies and a different tone of conversation. The technology isn’t there yet to give everyone what they want, but I think we should embrace our diversity. And do something constructive with it. That’s not easy. Some people like to have “free speech” and no moderation. Some like to have civil discussions without trolls and people who are constantly wrong, yet very aggressive and argumentative. Some are meme-lords or whatever and everyone is here for their individual reasons. I don’t think we need to completely unite or agree on things. But we have to find a way to get along… Be liberal with other people who might be using this place differently. But don’t tolerate unacceptable behavior.

Moderators and developers

You have quite some impact here. Use it wisely. Be fair, open-minded and make this a nice place for us.

Netiquette

People figured out in the 1990s, communicating over the internet is slightly different from communicating in the offline world. They wrote an unofficial code of policies that encourage good behavior on the Internet. Used to regulate respect and polite behavior online. It’s called the Netiquette (If anyone has a better link, feel free to provide it to me.) It’s a bit outdated so let me copy some guidelines and paraphrase:

• Never forget that there’s a human being on the other side!

• Read and think before posting

• Share something new

• Your posts represent you - Be proud of them

• Consider your audience

• Be careful with humor, irony, and sarcasm!

• Be conservative in what you send and liberal in what you receive.

• Take your time when writing a post

• Make things easy for the recipient.

• Don’t waste people’s time. You should put in a bit more effort and in return save hundreds of people from spending extra time.

• People’s culture, language, and humor may have different points of reference from your own

• Avoid posting “Me Too” messages, (use an up-vote instead)

• Consider using Reference sources (Documentation, Newspapers, Google, …) before posting a question.

• Use spoilers when applicable

• Don’t get involved in flame wars. Neither post nor respond to incendiary material.

• Don’t feed trolls!

• Deal with the issue, don’t attack the person

• Utilize the moderators. Flag/Report unacceptable content

I feel it is pretty stable here. I post every day, and it’s been a tad slower lately, much like I believe Blaze said, feels due to people going away for trips. Weekends are a decent bit slower, where usually they have been busy. That’s where I notice it the most. My subs are lower than at the start of the year, but they’re still going up slow but steady. Interactions are still steady, which is my main concern. As you’ve mentioned, people want to see that interaction. I don’t want to say my content is useless, because people don’t need owl pics and animal rescue facts every day, but I typically get 100+ likes per post, and a handful of comments.

The key I feel though, is I have the same people coming in regularly every day, or every other day, and they are also participating. They make the place look alive more than me just throwing things out there. But that is a specific thing I work on, as much as the post content itself. When people come and make comments, I give them my full attention. I talk back to them, I laugh at their jokes and puns, I take time to answer their questions, I pay attention to what content they like or don’t like, how I post links. I treat them like they were clients. And now in return, they see that the community is a fun place to hang, and they come back regularly, even though I’m not giving them anything they couldn’t find, but I am adding value to their days. I make them smile, I make them feel like their effort commenting matters, I make them feel like they motivate me to keep posting (because they do!), and I teach them about things they never expected to care about.

But it’s a lot of hard work! I try not to think about the time I put into this just for fun. Many of us have been here before the API exodus or before and have put in hours posting to nobody or a dozen people until we’ve built up momentum. Most people won’t even upvote, let alone comment or post, so it’s going to come in waves building up this place. You’re still in the wilderness here. We’re still pretty much the first wave of Fediverse settlers. We’re here while it is rough, setting the foundations of what will hopefully come, keeping us from fading to nothing. I don’t think new people appreciate that point. It’s not like 25% of Reddit broke off and came here with all the posters and the audience, we’re starting from scratch. I think what we have is amazing for a bunch of nobodies with no corporate cash. We’re all volunteers, building the social media we want to have. We should be proud of it, no matter what stage it’s at.

Moderation is an area I feel could be stronger. Most threads are pretty good, but some could use a bit more reigning in. Part of the problem I see with that though, is the vocal part of the community is already hating on “heavy handed mods”, and you missed all the trashing of Beehaw for doing what I considered to be appropriate moderation. The Fed is full of a pretty diverse group of people. I talk to people from multiple countries, and the amount of LGBT I’ve gotten to get insight from has been amazing. It’s really helped me grow in my understanding of some things just being around all these people. But we need to ensure everyone is treated equally and respectfully, and there are many that want to bring Reddit behavior over here, and it’s up to the mods and commenters to decide if that’s what we want or not. I don’t want it, but many see no issue. I’m glad when people comment on it, because if people just accept it without speaking up, no one will know.

There is a lot of good here, and even with 50k users, there’s going to be much more mid and crap than gold, but it’s here. Your comments look good, and you seem to stick to things you enjoy and avoid some that drag you down, and it’s important to notice your own behavior if you click stuff that is going to annoy you. I hit delete on a lot of comments when I wade into some of these topics. Some stuff I just don’t want to get involved in, especially as someone that is at least somewhat “known” around here now and is too lazy to make an alt. But I remind myself I’m here to have fun, and if I want news without the potential drama, I’ll leave here and go to AP or whatever. I’d hope posters would make stuff to help you have a good time, but it’s our job to cultivate our own experience ultimately.

I could go on forever talking about this stuff, but I’ll stop for now. Just give it time and explore more, and since you seem to comment, keep doing that. It’s the best thing for this place. Post, comment, give feedback, repeat.

As a random observation, it’s August at the moment, a lot of people in Europe are on vacation/holidays, so that might explain the fewer comments.

Overall, very nice thread, I might crosspost it to !fedigrow@lemm.ee

I think something which would benefit the tone or ‘culture’ here would be to make it immediately and publicly clear that a negative interaction is unwelcome. Rather than get into a pointless debate with a troll, simply reply “This is a rude and/or low-effort comment which nobody wants here.” It might not make much difference to the troll but for anyone else who reads it it creates and reinforces expectations about behaviour. The same thing goes for positive contributions; make sure to comment letting people know when you value their contribution.

I wouldn’t mind if moderation was more heavyhanded too. If someone is rude and abusive, block them from posting on the community, regardless of the point they may be trying to make. In that respect I would like to see more moderators from the community

I’m sure technical things could be done to help too. Perhaps letting users switch off visibility for posts/comments that have received a certain proportion of downvotes for example.

Reddit has been declining for years as well and basically just lives on momentum from earlier days when forums or forum-likes had their heyday.

Lemmy is trying to get a cut of a shrinking user base and is doing so by being a very close copy of Reddit. It’s not exactly surprising that it only “grows” when there is a wave of people annoyed with Reddit for some reason.

Your suggestions are fine, but the internet as a whole is moving to semi-private communities and Lemmy is not going to stop that overall trend.

I feel like some software/platform features that encourage and foster more community-based and discussion could go a long way.

Some quick thoughts:

• user-specific multi-communities
• Being able to notifications for certain events or activities (incl special notifications from a community or ongoing discussion in a thread)
• Opt-in post visibility, such as excluding a post from the All/local feeds (similar to the private communities feature coming to lemmy)
• Perhaps controversial … but expanding into a quasi-blogging direction where people can have their own personal communities into which only they can post, a little like microblogging, but more like an actual blog given the character limit here. Along with multi-communities, it could be quite a nice complement and allow for communities to evolve around people with interesting ideas/thoughts.

Comments help. I feel like there are a lot of lurkers who’d engage more but a lot of posts never get any sort of comments so people are less likely to read/participate and it makes the place feel more empty than it actually is.

But I think back to posting on web forums and whatnot and it was always a fairly familiar set if folks and that’s not a bad thing so long as people are engaging.

Have you interacted with BeeHaw much? Because they do most the things you ask pretty well.

Defederating from threads seems like the best way to make it nice. That way there’s less influence from psychopathic billionaires who happily stoke genocide for clicks.

I don’t think the timing is quite right.

I don’t really have anything meaningful to contribute to the feeds and most of the discussions are a bit pointless. They’re not really changing anything. So, in part those other platforms are fueled by outrage culture. Which I know is bad, so not having it is good, but then we also don’t have the growth from it.

The technology is there and that should help. Apparently people aren’t going to mass migrate from reddit quite yet, even though the push last year probably helped a lot.

It is a network problem. I think the slow growth will / should happen eventually, because the fediverse is an objectively good place to start a community. It’s just not going to be fast and other platforms adding push factors would help obviously. We’ll see where reddit goes with their paid subs.

I don’t think the low effort posts are a problem, there is hardly motivation to interact with an empty page and there is slightly more if there are “boring topics”. At least it’s a place.

I’m not 100% sure, maybe someone can correct me but the fediverse and Threadiverse, unlike Reddit, don’t show up in search results. Nowadays when you Google something you get to see Reddit posts and comments talking about your issue which generates traffic for Reddit and also makes users sign up for an account and contribute.