The vast majority of people only vote and don’t comment or submit. Lemmy is a bit more transparent about this than reddit is in that the sidebar will tell you how many people interacted in some way (usually just votes) with the community in the past day, week, month, 6 months. So, you and I are the 1% of users.
I also recognize myself in that. On Reddit, my main was mostly used for voting and, rarely commenting. Here, since we are a smaller community, I try to interact a bit more.
My main issue is that at work I am constantly communicating by text in one way or another. I find myself quite tired during the evenings and while sometimes I start writing comments, I mostly discard them and just upvote to indicate that someone did see the post and appreciated it.
Another factor is that 99.99% of my interactions are done through my mobile. While I have a large phone (Galaxy Fold 6), it still is not as efficient for typing as a full 104 keys keyboard. That’s the main reason for the shortness of most of my comments. The drop in my eyesight due to age also doesn’t really help.
I know I should do better. As Zapp Brannigann once said, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised..
I am extremely chatty in real life, but talking and writing are two very different things.
I remember spending a long time (probably 2-3 years) on Reddit as a lurker before starting to comment on things. Posting was an even bigger hurdle to get over.
There is no karma system, so there isn’t any “reward” for submitting posts other than getting to inform people and potentially spark discussions. Similarly, comments are basically only good if you actually get responses. When there’s such little activity going on, it gets pretty unlikely, unless a group of people just start forcing themselves to respond to others.
Yeah, I get it. My reddit account is 12 years old and in that time I made 2-3 dozen comments and just a handful of posts (most of those about Eve Online).
a group of people just start forcing themselves to respond to others
This has basically been my approach since I started moderating these communities. When I see a new user make a post, I make sure to check out the series and engage with it in some way. Since forcing myself to do that, I can at least say it was the final push I needed to drop some bad series to make room for some good ones people posted about (no more Rent a GF for me anymore!).
I do find myself commenting more on smaller communities, mostly because they’re more aligned with my niche interests. And larger communities get toxic really fast; politics and news just get so, so messy.
If I had to guess, half of my posts are just on the MtG instance, which doesn’t quite have critical mass for discussion yet.
I should probably tune in for weekly “What are you reading/playing/watching” threads a little more often.
The only realistic way I think is just to grow the total number of users so that the 1% grows as well. However, I am more than open to ideas if people in the community have them. I actually think this might be easier for the anime community than the manga community. An idea I have been kicking around in my brain is organizing a rewatch of a classic series or something like that.
Just a sidenote - I find it interesting that the number of anime community members is ~3X the number of manga members. This almost exactly matches the ratio between the two subreddits.
The vast majority of people only vote and don’t comment or submit. Lemmy is a bit more transparent about this than reddit is in that the sidebar will tell you how many people interacted in some way (usually just votes) with the community in the past day, week, month, 6 months. So, you and I are the 1% of users.
I also recognize myself in that. On Reddit, my main was mostly used for voting and, rarely commenting. Here, since we are a smaller community, I try to interact a bit more.
My main issue is that at work I am constantly communicating by text in one way or another. I find myself quite tired during the evenings and while sometimes I start writing comments, I mostly discard them and just upvote to indicate that someone did see the post and appreciated it.
Another factor is that 99.99% of my interactions are done through my mobile. While I have a large phone (Galaxy Fold 6), it still is not as efficient for typing as a full 104 keys keyboard. That’s the main reason for the shortness of most of my comments. The drop in my eyesight due to age also doesn’t really help.
I know I should do better. As Zapp Brannigann once said, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is spongy and bruised..
I am extremely chatty in real life, but talking and writing are two very different things.
I remember spending a long time (probably 2-3 years) on Reddit as a lurker before starting to comment on things. Posting was an even bigger hurdle to get over.
There is no karma system, so there isn’t any “reward” for submitting posts other than getting to inform people and potentially spark discussions. Similarly, comments are basically only good if you actually get responses. When there’s such little activity going on, it gets pretty unlikely, unless a group of people just start forcing themselves to respond to others.
Yeah, I get it. My reddit account is 12 years old and in that time I made 2-3 dozen comments and just a handful of posts (most of those about Eve Online).
This has basically been my approach since I started moderating these communities. When I see a new user make a post, I make sure to check out the series and engage with it in some way. Since forcing myself to do that, I can at least say it was the final push I needed to drop some bad series to make room for some good ones people posted about (no more Rent a GF for me anymore!).
I do find myself commenting more on smaller communities, mostly because they’re more aligned with my niche interests. And larger communities get toxic really fast; politics and news just get so, so messy.
If I had to guess, half of my posts are just on the MtG instance, which doesn’t quite have critical mass for discussion yet.
I should probably tune in for weekly “What are you reading/playing/watching” threads a little more often.
This makes sense. Is there any way you’d suggest that might drive engagement to change that?
The only realistic way I think is just to grow the total number of users so that the 1% grows as well. However, I am more than open to ideas if people in the community have them. I actually think this might be easier for the anime community than the manga community. An idea I have been kicking around in my brain is organizing a rewatch of a classic series or something like that.
Just a sidenote - I find it interesting that the number of anime community members is ~3X the number of manga members. This almost exactly matches the ratio between the two subreddits.