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Are some questions here just to simulate activity? (palaver.p3x.de)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Sometimes I can't tell whether a question here is genuine and the author is interested in the answers, or whether they just copy-paste something to keep people busy. How am I supposed to approach that?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

I agree a lot with @[email protected]
They said:

Preach!

What makes hackernews, metafilter, lobsters great is the community and not the posts.

And I know, we occasionally climb above 50k. But it's never lasting. After that we drop back to 45k and it's always been that way. I think it's because people come here to see, and find out we're not that attractive and then they leave again. And we don't really address the issue with the community. We still add posts instead like we always have. The community all the while is the same, and that'd be the one thing that'd make the people stick around.

I think Piefed is now our one opportunity to try a different approach. Cut down on frequency, up the quality. Foster the community, tone down the detrimental old behaviour like adding noise. It didn't do us any good. I think that's the main takeway from the MAU numbers. 10k people came here and we lost them. We'd need to change our approach if we ever want to change that around. I'll just keep being this way if we don't.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

On top of everything I said above (comments fragmentation, moderation tools), there is one last aspect: text based forum aren't that popular anymore.

Most people nowadays are used to consume short videos for entertainment. Reading comments on a forum isn't that common, especially among the younger generations.

Reddit numbers are always overestimated, but even they suffer from the same issue.

Discuit has a nicer atmosphere, but it only has 174 weekly commenters: https://discuit.net/DiscuitMeta/post/FHtQTJYj

https://tildes.net/ is a very slow pace platform, a few posts on the front page have less than 10 comments. There might not be that many users interested in this type of format.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Thanks for all the nuanced perspective and information from your side.

[...] text based forum aren't that popular anymore.

I think I disagree with that. I have some pretty active Discord servers, and even some singular PC magazine websites with attached forums which are quite alive and have some nice internet culture. And some are more active than Lemmy underneath a certain article. I think it's still very much in demand.

Let me sum up my main point a bit differently: I think the retention rate showcases a big issue with us. And it might no even be the network effect. Thousands of people actively volunteer, sign up and have a look around. But we're not what they're looking for and we lose them. Again and again, and that tells us something. Also 5k or 10k is kind of a big number for us, so there's a lot we don't do right.

And who do we cater to? Is it the people who want a lot of posts each day? Because I think we can't even attract them. They're better off on Reddit. It'll always have more content than we do. And then there are people who come here for different motives. And those are the only(!) ones we could attract. Idk, with genuine conversation, which Reddit is lacking. A better atmosphere. Less bots and corporate decisions. Being refreshingly different. Whatever they're looking for, we absolutely need to focus on that.

The "more posts" part is part of the equation, but I think after years now we need to take a step back and re-evaluate. More posts tries to cater to the first group, which we're never able to attract, since they're better off on Reddit. So it's kind of a waste, plus we've already done it. Now (if I'm right) we need to let go and focus on the people who we could attract. And I bet a lot of them come here well aware that Lemmy isn't as big. That's not what they're looking for... But we kind of fail them. And that should be our main focus. The other thing (just more posts) obscures the problem.

It's really a multi-faceted issue. And not just one thing. But I think this distinction is really important. One vision is kind of a worse copycat of Reddit, focused on quantity first, the other one is a genuine platform with a nice culture, and everyone is focused on that. And I bet the people leaving right now are looking for the latter. And since they don't stay, we're obviously not that at all.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

I'll let you reply the other comment where I mention "shouting in the void" issue for single posters, we can probably resume there

https://piefed.zip/post/154573#comment_244487