Tl;dr: I think we have too much “empty” content and noise here and it drags down the place for 2 years now. Does PieFed include an approach to change the situation?

I’m sorry, this is going to be a bit of a rant. And about PieFed’s role in the “Lemmy” community and more broadly, what I think the place should be about. Feel free to skip this, unless you have a good amount of time to waste to read my long post and you want to think about the future of the community here.

To preface this: I’m mainly here on the Threadiverse for the comments. To have meaningful conversations with people. That could be the charm of this place. Yet, that’s regularly not what happens here.

The high-frequency posters use Lemmy to dump the news of the day and re-post memes. And that’s okay if people want that, I myself try to cut down a bit on news shaped by social media, so again it’s mainly the comment thread underneath that I deem useful, not the post itself, since we have the news at a bazillion other places and it’s not what sets this place apart. (Plus I think following the outcry of the day is corrosive and usually less informative than it seems, so I went further and actively unsubscribed from many of the big communities here.)

And the now more meaningful (to me) part isn’t huge by any means. I comment on things and write answers to questions, some communities work very well and it leads to a conversation or I can help someone with their Linux woes. Half the time at least I type something into the void and it feels like I’ve wasted my time since I don’t get any replies, maybe one or two upvotes at best and not even OP engages. So I wonder why they even made the post. Clearly not because they want to talk about something.

I think the interesting part of the Threadiverse needs to grow so I can have meaningful conversations here. When I look at the user count of Lemmy, I see how it stagnates at about 45k users for 2 years now. Sometimes we get an influx of a few thousand users but we’re not attractive to them, so we always lose them again. And the place just stays whatever it is. I think not really attracting people and at the same time losing that many people constantly (who actively volunteered to have a look at the place) tells us something.

I think we could do better than that and set the place apart from countless other platforms in many ways. But that seems to a minority opinion in the bigger Threadiverse. The Lemmy devs regularly say it doesn’t need to grow and it’ll maybe grow organically (which it doesn’t). Most users here tell me we need to dump more posts in an desperate attempt to kickstart engagement. I think we’ve tried that for 2 years now and it clearly doesn’t work. On the contrary, it’s kind of empty (or fabricated) content and I’ll find out once I try to engage, that these are lower quality, less engagement than some other posts. And it actively drowns the few people talking to each other in added noise. I think the idea to address the issue this way is exactly why Lemmy stagnates and why we always lose all the users that come here, sign up to have a look and then leave again, because this isn’t what they’ve been looking for. (And this is a multi-faceted issue, we have some other drama and issues here as well, but this post is long enough, so I’ll skip that here, feel free to add your perspective in the comments.)

Now this week I’ve complained a bit, since I saw piefed.social communities with really high-quality conversation. And then the same people come, determine we need more content, and they dump re-posts of the lemmy.ml equivalent over their heads. And then I’ve taken tens of minutes out of my day to reply to posts elsewhere (not a piefed community) and give a nuanced perspective, only to find out it’s unmarked Reddit re-posts, and I’ve basically wasted my time. It wasn’t a genuine question in need for my answer, I was betrayed, tricked into increasing the number of comments underneath something that wasn’t even genuine. When I could have spent that time interacting with high-quality conversations instead, which definitely exist as well. It’s just that those people drain that. And I can’t even tell which is which.

So it actively takes away from quality content. And I end up with a feeling like with the Reddit content bots, fabricating engagement. Which I dislike and specifically avoid. And it makes the entire place feel kind of empty to me, despite the many posts we have each day.

I think first of all people really need to stop dumping posts in an ill-conveived attempt to help. It’s a misconception. We need more comments here, not posts. Yet they do the opposite and their user profiles rarely have comments, just hundreds of posts. If you want to grow and foster the place, add comments.

PieFed

That’s my perspective, feel free to tell me how it feels to you. I’m definitely not against posts, just against fabricating them, and focusing on an unfit approach instead of doing the right thing.

Now my question: Does PieFed want to address that issue (if it really is an issue to more people than just me)? Is PieFed just a piece of technology, connecting me to the same community, just with an arguably better approach? Or does it go further? Push towards a certain atmosphere, change the community and behaviour? Do we do higher quality communities on piefed.social or are they basically the same thing as the ones before, just on a different domain? Do we go as far as to kick the re-posters so at least the posts aren’t just exactly the same?

That’d be mainly social engineering. And I’d really welcome if we had ideals and a clear vision of where to go. We kind of have that. In contrast to some other Fediverse software where I can’t see a clear vision.

And then we have technology. We could devise tools to address it. And PieFed already is about providing better tools to address some things. We have an ambivalent view of concepts like Karma. And algorithms to steer attention. I could try to address this with software. Calculate scores and devalue everyone who dumps posts and doesn’t contribute to the conversation. That’s likely going to give some advantage to conversation itself and foster genuine engagement. Do we want to do that?

And as a bonus question: What’s with the entire voting system? Seems I deem different things interesting than what’s popular. And that’s all the scores underneath posts and comments tell us. So it’s of little use to me. A post with 5 upvotes could be as interesting as one with 250 of them, and that happens each day to me. Once I switch the sorting method from “new” to something else, what it does is make lots of interesting content disappear from my feeds.

References:

I’ve “flaired” this “Feature request”. Mind this is an opinion piece containing my perspective (and preaching). I’d like to hear your’s and request the name PieFed to encompass a clear vision, to be not just technology but a broader approach to shape the nature of the society we want to create. And put in lots of effort to actively lead us towards accomplishing more than we do today.

And I definitely need some good ideas and tools to turn my feeds into something that caters to my own needs and wants. If there’s some overlap with other people, we could talk about some specifics.

  • sanity_is_maddening@piefed.socialEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    Thank you for the thoughtful reply and all the tags as well.

    I do think your comment was far more for the OP than myself as I agree 100% with you and was already arguing somewhat in alignment with what you wrote.

    As to the “Eternal September”… it’s inevitable. I just came off of Lemm.ee after all. Everything exists within cycles. And I’ve gone through quite a few, online and in the real world, as I’ve worked with cultural associations to create events and formimg communities. And the same happens. It is what it is. And I don’t feel resentful anymore for the disruption, specially towards the young or the newcomers to a platform or an event or space. If I ever do, is to the people who allow that to ruin what is there that we were enjoying all along. But I can’t even say that I haven’t been that person either. Because I have. Now I just know that when that is happening inside me is time to move on.

    But I completely agree with you that both can co-exist and have their moment or even exist separately alongside one another. There’s a place and a time for everything afer all. It’s all about one seeking moments and not forcing anything onto anyone, and that includes oneself as well.

    And In the case of most of the fediverse I do believe that it is relatively easy to manage the distance between what one wants to find and what one wants to avoid with the tools that we are given. At least for me it is. And the absence of an algorithm to raise engagement is the only way I accept to join any platform now. I want to see what I choose to see. The user has to be driving the experience.

    Although, even with all these tools and the absence of an algorithm, anything regarding the U.S. these days definitely isn’t so easy though. Not even for me as an European in Europe.

    And I thank you for having the courage to step forward and moderate communities in the first place. I never have. It’s one of the most delicate and difficult things to do in the digital world. Even the coders would say so. I’ve heard them say so. That it is easier to write code and build an app than it is to moderate the user base. I’m not a coder so I can’t make that claim. But I’ve heard it first hand.

    And by the way, stay safe over there in the U.S. What is happening there is terrifying to witness from here. I’ve seen this before in my lifetime, but never seen a descent as fast. It’s spiraling at a speed that I’ve never wittnessed. In the big picture it has been happening for a very long time, but anyone who doesn’t thing that what is happening is at the fastest rate now, it’s either not paying attention or in denial.

    So, stay safe.

    • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deOPEnglish
      2·
      23 hours ago

      Btw, thanks for your nuanced perspective. I just read it now since replying just sends notifications to the person that was directly in response to.

      I’ve also had some experience volunteering in groups. And the same experience with the cycles and periodic change.

      I believe social engineering is the main part when creating a society/community or managing people. And also the difficult part. I mean once you have a vision or a motivation to strive for a certain atmosphere or whatever, because group dynamics aren’t always good or conductive… At least that’s my experience. A group is better off reflecting and managing where they want to go.

      It’s a tough issue. And I think some/many developers have learned that technological tools are what they are. Tools. Not the thing itself. But people need them to shape the community, especially if the entire platform is online and a tool in itself (to connect people). And how these tools are designed and laid out detemines what can be done with them and in effect what gets done. And they shape the place indirectly.

      We have great tools. At the same time I regularly find them lacking. I can’t squeeze out exactly what I’m looking for. And I believe some nuance could benefit us. Both for the moderators and users it’s often down to one of two extremes, block or allow. But that’s kind of the spirit of PieFed to add more here. And -of course- it’s a collaborative effort and goes hand in hand. We need moderators here, the technology needs to be made, we need people who upload content… And most important is the userbase, because that’s who the place is for.

      So thanks again for all the discussion here, there’s quite some ideas, perspectives, opinions and some specific things to do in the now 85 replies.

    • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
      4·
      2 days ago

      Yes, after I tagged their name I started blending the two and then later as you said went more over to that side of things - I am glad that it sounds like it did not totally detract from the totality of what was said even though it would have been better if I had switched over to a desktop computer to type it in rather than remain on mobile (and even on desktop the little window to type replies into is tiny - I would rather see more of what I am writing in one glance, but meh, it is what it is, and social media does not lend itself to such long-form replies, though at least the software allows for it:-).

      And thank you for your insight. I hadn’t considered the difficulty of moderating but… yeah, for a larger community it can indeed be like herding cats, or wrangling toddlers, with 100 different things going on all at once and you are expected to mediate differences between all of them. So perhaps I should tone down my language, with that in mind. Although starting a community is a lot easier - especially one with like one post per month, or week, or even day - in one sense, even if a bit harder in others because instead of merely keeping an existing ball rolling (inertia, with established posters contributing content so you do have to mediate between them but not necessarily generate it yourself), you have to start it. Each type has its own challenges. Though the converse is true: if nobody does it then it simply will not get done.

      As far as the USA… yeah, sigh. WWIII may impact literally everyone though - and Russia will most definitely feel emboldened, possibly with the USA sending weapons towards defending it as opposed to the other way around. It was really a brilliant tactical maneuver, fully on par with Brexit and likely to far greater ultimate effect. There is no greater power than to convert a former foe into an ally, thereby not only denying the other side but enhancing your own as well. I hope that other nations learn from this: it can happen to anybody - those who refuse to learn from history will end up having to repeat it (https://youtu.be/uqsBx58GxYY ). I will add though that it is not happening nearly as quickly as it may seem: the structural cracks have been in place for many decades now (just merely a few), e.g. what was allowed to be called “news” was broadened to become so wide that it lead us to today, whereupon it wraps back around to form a circle where now the dissenting sources are silenced (but on the OTHER side of the divide!). Without a check in place for truth - how then are people supposed to know what even is “true” anymore? And by people I mean voters. Democracy requires EFFORT, which it seems that most Western nations are unwilling to put forth. (And kingdoms are vulnerable to different avenues of… let’s just call it “persuasion”, on behalf of those who may want to see the fall of their contemporaries, and who have access to tools to make it happen.)