this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2025
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Fedigrow

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cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/9451996

Thoughts on features to boost intent for posting more?

Like a karma system of that other forum website.

I currently miss a point system to motivate me that shows people via my profile how much I could help by posting/commenting. There's no system to create such feedback currently on Lemmy.

Are there statements by the creators of this platform about that?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Karma? The system that encouraged people to make the most milquetoast posts to appeal as many users as possible? Karma farming heavily reduced quality on reddit.

No thank you. We need some sort of encouragement but karma is not it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

thats where I wanted the discussion to go! What could that be?

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Karma is not a good system.

I do agree however that additional features to encourage posting and engagement would be good for Lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

what do you have in mind whne mentioning this?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Seeing a lot of upvotes on a post or comment feels nice, seeing that mass social approval of whatever my contribution was. But I also never had any interest in engaging in low-effort posts to get that same reward. I also think the Lemmy hivemind disapproves of low-effort posts like that so such behavior would not be rewarded.

I do wonder what motivated people who made low-effort posts for karma, and why I don't seem to see it here even though we share an upvote/downvote system. Identifying that might help us at least figure out what not to do so that we do not set up a system that encourages that behavior. We do still clearly have the ability to see upvotes on posts and comments.

It is also possible I'm seeing low-effort posts but they are not rewarded as heavily and I mentally dismiss it as "just someone trying to get any activity going on the Fediverse at all." I sometimes just post a link and let it be because it's relevant to the community, I thought it was cool, and I'd like to see some Fediverse activity there but don't really have anything original to say. It's possible the low-effort posts are not rewarded not because the Lemmy hivemind disapproves of low effort but because they just don't see it in the tiny little community I posted in that receives maybe an average of 3 upvotes per post.

For what it's worth, I'm not using "Lemmy hivemind" in a derogatory fashion here, I just mean it as "the general sentiment of most Lemmy users".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

maybe there could be different types of communites. Some where people contribute original stuff (main communities/most of the platform in numbers) where irregulatity doesnt matter

And some selected Rss-feed like communities with repost bots of top articles. To give you regular updates on certain topics and offer discussion for everyone in there ... I quite liked my local news sub for that (r/de): Rather than just algorithm based news apps that try to influence you the most with their headlines, I got to see what people thought of certain quoted parts in the article

.. but I see how the platform got destroyed by that too.. Idk

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I like contributing to a community and see it climb the ladder https://lemmyverse.net/communities?order=active

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (2 children)

The Alexandrite front end for Lemmy has a feature called "Vibe Check" that shows a user's positive or negative score in each community they post within. It is a nice check for spotting trolls quickly, or even if a person "trolls" in one community but not others. If you scroll down their profile past around the first ~30 comments/posts (Alexandrite is infinite scrolling), it will score the vibe check on however many comments/posts are loaded which is usually 100 loaded when past this ~30 mark.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

like here? I dont see it yet

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

You must be logged in. I think it is incorporating the user's block list but there may be other factors. I have not looked at the code used to implement the feature.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

Wow, Alexandrite is really good now! I wish I could try that Vibe Check tool, but it only appears when logged in, and I'm an Mbin user.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

IDK, if you want to post, you post. I don't feel that encouragement is really needed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (2 children)

many posts have alot of likes but no comments altough its like questions or a discussion based post

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Yep, this happens to me and it's kind of frustrating.

When I see a discussion-based post or question I do try to answer because I know the Fediverse needs engagement and I know what it is like being on the other side. But sometimes I truly just have nothing to offer and the fact I don't have a good answer isn't interesting enough to be worth posting (for example, "What is your favorite football team and why?" in some general ask community. I do not have one so I can't participate in the intended discussion, but that it isn't special or unique to not have a favorite football team either, so talking about that wouldn't add a fresh perspective to the discussion. I'd just feel like a party pooper typing that I don't have one as a response to that hypothetical post). So I say nothing. Or people are arguing and getting hostile over it, and I am not interested in getting in a fight myself. Or what I do have to offer feels very very spammy and generic ("picture looks good!").

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Don't worry, you have the good approach. If anything, that's a sign we need more generic communities so that everyone can contribute

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Yea its really hard to not compare here. But comparing while in the 'growing' stage of the platform is very wrong.

Ive noticed too and after some time I will maybe understand more in how to see and use lemmy. I just wish it was instantly as fullfilling as reddit was in terms of content

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Well, yeah, that happens.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I don't miss karma being a thing (and people focusing on growing it by pleasing as many as possible, instead of focusing on content) but I'm also past the age of getting good/bad grades for doing my homework or for participating in class ;)

I'm pretty sure introducing karma will boost low effort reddit-like posts. And those don't need any encouragement, imho.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (3 children)

low effort reddit-like posts

Let's say Lemmy becomes the biggest platform for forum like exchange. Will a lack in karma system change low effort issues since we still have a upvote based community systems? Where bots could influence certain opinions that show up on your feed

My current impressions:

Art communities sadly seem so lackluster - "like why share" is the vibe Im getting. I just want a strong unique selling point (USP) compared to reddit, because lemmy could replace (not saying it should copy) reddit, like the good parts, and show how reddit is in essence flawed like x and meta for example.

Or communities showing political/global media of what people recorded (i.e. some protest in istanbul right now, or serbia using sonic weaponry at a demonstration), even more regional like r/de always gives you a very complete feeling slice of german articles out there and its always rated so regularly. You can see like the top 5 publications of the day and then discuss it/see how people feel about certain things, that you wouldnt think about just reading the article.

I just fear the personal motivation for users might be too low for such feed activity, and often I notive like 10 people upvoting and not a single comment, so more reactionary - maybe its just total users tho what im missing..

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

About the artist thing specifically—I see artists more often on Mastodon and BlueSky. I think it is because Twitter was their home platform, so naturally they flee towards other microblogging platforms.

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

haha thats what I thought about too over the night today. Like maybe its better that art platforms are more on photo platforms.

I wish there was a strong competitor for instagram, platform was so destroyed and alienated. Ive seen flashes by bluesky devs is coming, but looks like the algorithm will decide how good it will be... and of course... lots of users on instagram which will be a while until the variety of content will be competitive with

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

what art/digital art/oil painting pages to follow there?

I kinda tried and was not convinced for art sources :( instagram i.e. is like veeeeery unmatched here in terms of helpfullness.. so many unique and helpful artists there trying very hard

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

like r/de always gives you a very complete feeling slice of german articles out there and its always rated so regularly.

[email protected] is quite active, same for [email protected] , but you need to enable German and French in your settings

Same for [email protected] . I'm not sure news is what we are missing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

lots of holes compared to the subs on reddit. I feel like important headlines are just missing and its more niche posts here. which is sad because I really like photon/lemmy so far!

Maybe these sites need a repost bot for at least like the top10 daily posts from the sub - I know its a very heated topic, just wanted to see how others would feel about different approaches

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

I follow /r/buyfromEU quite closely, and repost to [email protected] , I can tell you most of the important stuff is here

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

r/de has alot of daily "impactful" headlines/news/articles that I dont see on dach and am not too engaged in to post (am not confident enough into politics to create post/find articles)

and like international media posts like videos of current demonstrations in i.e. serbia is what Im personally missing after a couple days of using this platform (pretty intensly tho)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Thank :)

For me, the most active community in jlai.lu is [email protected] is way more cosy, a chill place where we talk about daily life, game, book, movie...this knitting community is quite cool to : [email protected] :D

But if you are looking for news : [email protected] and [email protected] but i stopped posting news there, it depress me a lot. :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

I just want a strong unique selling point (USP) compared to reddit

The unique selling point of Lemmy at the moment is not getting site banned for upvotes like on Reddit

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Jfc, no.

Karma was part of the problem with reddit, we don't need or want it here

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Maybe try to get used to how lemmy is instead of immediately trying to change it into a carbon copy of reddit.

I prefer being able to separately see the number of down votes.

Also your redditisms are a great reminder of how people here talk normally instead of exclusively in quips

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What Redditisms are you speaking of? The OP seems to be talking normally, I don't really see any quips.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Ye I just see the content holes and a big reactive userbase.. Also I browse alot and dont see that much media/links in communities that are based on giving you regular posts/slice of currents, does that make sense?

I know karma has its problems, I just want the discussion to be about what features could help combat this conflict.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Currency is not inspiration.

I'd rather have cooperation instead of competition as primary incentive: "If I post quality content, others might want to post quality content as well"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

fair take, so you say additional no features at all or could you see something have potential to encourage regular posts?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

I just accidentally deleted a long text (Lemmy-UI has bad button placing), but the gist is social problems of the following communities as examples:

The existing users are afraid to tell stories of their own, which would create positive feedback loop of engagement.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Some instances disable downvotes. This is an important thing to consider for anything related to post/comment scores.

Edit: I also fear that a karma system would encourage just sticking with the overall Lemmy, instance or community mainstream, more than it is now already the case with up/downvotes and how they affect the sorting of posts/comments.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

you mean like small communites would have it harder with that system?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

I'm mostly referring to possibly controversial posts or comments. Some users might not want to risk losing "karma" and therefore avoid making such posts or comments, even if they don't break rules and are an interesting contribution to a community or discussion.

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