Are some questions here just to simulate activity? : ask

[-] LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone 7 points 2 weeks ago

Hey Hendrik thanks for your comments! I like to make lemmy a nice place to hang out so I start threads. If you look at my post and comment history I do it a lot (I also have lazysoci.al and lemmyworld accounts). For this community I have a list of questions I add questions to when I think of them, the odd one I've got off reddit but I've NEVER copied one off lemmy for obvious reasons. I usually answer in comments but if I'm short of time I don't.

[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks, I know. I replied above

[-] LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks Hendrik the other comment chain seemed to vanish so I commented twice. How's your weekend going?

[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago

LadyButterfly just showed up. Now it’s a party!

[-] LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 weeks ago

Oh heeeeyyyyy

[+] halfapage@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

[deleted]

[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Uhm, maybe my phrasing wasn't the best. I meant how do I deal with that?
I've left other places on the internet because I don't like bots and fabricated engagement. So sometimes I struggle here a bit as well. (In various communities and for different reasons.) I'd rather have genuine conversations with people who asked a question because they'd like to read my answer. Or if I can help them or contribute something... I'm not really sure if this is what we do here or not.

[-] violetsoftness@piefed.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 weeks ago

even if the person who posted the starter thread isn't interested you can be assured that others opening the thread are at least a bit interested.

[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Thanks. I feel that's somehow part of the answer. But it still leaves a bad taste for me. Like I've been played. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work. I'll take 3mins to write an answer and no one picks up on it or votes, so it feels like I wrote it for the void or a bot.

[-] Blaze@piefed.zip 4 points 2 weeks ago

There are two main posters on this community.

@ladybutterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone usually answers in the comments, so I'm not sure why you have doubts about her being genuine

For @cm0002@lemmy.world , they usually show in the OP if the question is a repost from another ask community.

Does this help?

[-] LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 weeks ago

Love you lots like jelly tots Blaze!

[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I don't want to call anyone out. I think it's great if they make it transparent to us that it is a repost. They could have skipped that. But what's the point? That person is never going to read the answers. And the posts are already on AskLemmy, so why duplicate random ones of them? (And some of the quoted posts I couldn't even find. Some are there and attributed correctly.)

[-] LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 weeks ago

Hey Hendrik thanks for your comments! I like to make lemmy a nice place to hang out so I start threads. If you look at my post and comment history I do it a lot (I also have lazysoci.al and lemmyworld accounts). For this community I have a list of questions I add questions to when I think of them, the odd one I've got off reddit but I've NEVER copied one off lemmy for obvious reasons. I usually answer them, but sometimes if I'm short of time I don't.

[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Yes. Sorry, I didn't want to write down any names, so you were in the line. But I didn't mean you. I like your content. And you respond and engage a lot in the emerging discussions underneath. You're awesome 😊 And I can tell the questions and answers mean something to you. That's obvious. (And my comment is an opinion piece anyway. Maybe I'm wrong with all of this, that's why I asked.)

[-] LadyButterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 weeks ago

Thankyou for commenting on my awesomeness! And it's an interesting question

[-] Blaze@piefed.zip 4 points 2 weeks ago

You can have a look at this thread: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/47235271/19586923

I personally don't mind it as even if the original OP doesn't see the answers, it can still be an interesting discussion starter for other people.

[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Thanks for the link! I agree a lot with that OP's points. Those reposts feel a lot to me like I'm a dog and someone just half-heartedly threw a slice of cheese at my feet, expecting me to eat it. But maybe I wanted ham, idk. Plus they literally just scraped it off the floor in the kitchen and now it landed on the livingroom floor.

[-] Blaze@piefed.zip 4 points 2 weeks ago

The other perspective is that some instances are problematic, and we should try to reduce their influence on the platform as a whole. To fight the network effect that older communities use to get more activity, there needs to be some crossposting done at some point.

Both perspectives are understandable, it's a matter of personal preference.

[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I get that. But I think it mainly obscures the problem. And has negative side-effects. We could do something different here... Have lower frequency but higher quality posts.... Do it differently than LW. But we can't. We somehow need to import the cross-posts from a different place. Strip them of the comments and the person who the answers would matter to, and re-upload the same ones here.

[-] Blaze@piefed.zip 3 points 2 weeks ago

We've been trying to give an alternative to 3 very active communities:

While they are quite active, the .ml versions are still far more active (e.g. 6k MAU vs 3.7k MAU for !privacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com )

People just don't care enough to make the switch, or they prefer to post to the most active community.

It's an endless battle to try to fight network effect, and if people see that the established community with the most active users also has some content that the alternative doesn't get, there's just no way the alternative will ever succeed.

It's kind of similar to what Reddit is to Lemmy/Piefed as a whole. A lot of people crossposts content from Reddit, because to make Lemmy and Piefed potential alternatives, new joiners don't have to feel like they are missing out on content.

[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Yeah, maybe you're right and I'm the wrong person / have different needs. I'd rather take (for example) my news from a tech magazine, and use this place exclusively to talk to people and have discussions about things that matter to us. I have almost no fear of missing out when there isn't enough posts a day. Because I'm here for the comments. I rather they repost 5 posts less and write 15 comments to other people's posts instead. That'd grow the place in my opinion.

And I really strongly dislike it. Trying to make me engage with content to grow someone's platform or community, or use me and the users for some motivation is very close to what Reddit and other platforms do. And I've specifically left them for doing that. I get that this is meant to do good. But somehow it doesn't feel genuine to me. I don't get asked a question because someone would like to know my answer... I'm being used for another motive.

[-] Sunshine@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 weeks ago

The goal is to make og posts sprinkled with some cross posts until the threadverse is bigger. I often find interesting articles on reddit first to share here.

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[-] Blaze@piefed.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago

You're on Piefed, so thankfully when posts share the same link, the comments from all crossposts are showed in the same place, so that already helps with the duplication of communities.

That'd grow the place in my opinion.

Both are required I would say. You need someone to post the article or ask the first question, and you need other people to comment. As you said, you are here for the comments, but someone needs to create the post in the first place.

Trying to make me engage with content to grow someone's platform or community, or use me and the users for some motivation is very close to what Reddit and other platforms do.

The main difference is that here there's no single plaftorm. The communities that poster posts to are spread on LW, lemmy.dbzer0.com, lemdro.id, piefed.social, etc.

People can move communities to other instances if they want to. It's a quite different situation from Reddit. Nobody here is making any profit from interactions.

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[-] magnetosphere@fedia.io 1 points 1 week ago

Uhm, maybe my phrasing wasn't the best. I meant how do I deal with that?

Beyond simple proofreading and making sure you’ve expressed yourself clearly, you deal with it by not dealing with it. You can’t please everyone. Plus, some people have poor reading comprehension, some people are looking for any reason to start an argument, etc.

Don’t drive yourself crazy by worrying about “perfect” phrasing. There’s no such thing, and even if there is, somebody somewhere would be happy to pick it apart anyway.

You can only control your message. You can’t control how it will be received.

[-] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 weeks ago

I have a policy that I tend to follow. Mind you, it's policy, not dogma, there's exceptions and I'm not obligated to do shit.

But I come at every question with a few things in mind, if I intend to answer.

The one that's relevant here is that it doesn't matter if OP is trolling, reposting, posting bot generated questions, or is a bot themselves. Very little matters beyond whether or not I can say something.

Doesn't have to be useful, though I hope it would rise to entertaining or humorous.

Why? Because fuck OP. It ain't about them. It's about the community. OP could be an llm bot, but other humans are scrolling by. Maybe one of those gets a laugh, or finds something helpful, or whatever.

If OP happens to be a human asking a real question, even better! But it isn't necessary to be a contribution to the community.

There's trolls on lemmy that are known to fuck around, and I'll still respond to their posts if there's a point. Who cares if they're seeking some specific response or whatever? I don't, I care about spending some time writing stuff and reading stuff.

I'm fine with posts that are "busy work". The comment section is where all of the threadiverse really shines anyway. Same as reddit used to be. So the post is there to drive community activity, that's a good thing.

Now fakey comments, that's where shit can just go away.

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[-] magnetosphere@fedia.io 5 points 2 weeks ago

Answer what you want; ignore what you want. I don’t bother worrying about people’s motivation for asking a question. I’m just grateful to have something to do when I’m bored. Like now.

[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago

What are your hobbies?

[-] magnetosphere@fedia.io 2 points 1 week ago

I was at work, and bored. By the time I saw your question, I was back home and not bored anymore. Thanks, though!

[-] violetsoftness@piefed.blahaj.zone 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

i would say to sTimulate activity and it works nicely!

[-] WoolyNelson@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

...

Block the user and move on with your day?

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[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago

This is some meta shit right here

[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

It'd be really meta if I had posted this to bait people into engagement... But I don't think I did. I'd like to know, so it's just meta on one level. 😅

[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago

I was always under the impression that people made those posts because they wanted to announce to the world what they think the best of whatever thing it was, is, and why their opinion of said thing is the most correct. And that they didn’t really care what other people wrote after that in the comments. But that could just be my cynicism.

[-] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Thanks, that's thoughtful. I definitely need to factor that in (more) when speculating about other people's motivations on the internet 😅 But yeah, I occasionally do it, too.

[-] GrumpyDuckling@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago

That's funny because meta (Facebook) does this with their "ai" it goes into groups and poses random questions to generate engagement.

[-] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 weeks ago

Now it’s double meta

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[-] asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev 2 points 2 weeks ago

Obviously to stimulate activity. Not a fan of it, but it works.

[-] Blaze@piefed.zip 3 points 2 weeks ago

Nice new avatar

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