Does it have something to do with the rise of smartphones and no one typing on real keyboards? (Maybe why blogs died.)
Is it a consequence of voting, which blogs didn’t have?
What happens to your thoughts? Do you turn them all in the form of a question? Do you tear them down into a Mastodon one-liner and hope a popular person notices it?
If Lemmy had more of ourselves in this way, maybe it would be a healthier place.
Being idle until the media put out an article on something for us to talk about gives them too much power over us.
There’s an actual_discussion community, which isn’t exactly lively. There’s a casualconversation community, and even that’s all in the form of a question.
When a headline or thread starts with “Why…” you can often reply to it simply by repeating the question without the first word and emphasising the new first word, eg:
Is Lemmy not a place for thoughts and observations, rather than just links, questions, and memes?
I’m not sure that’s true as a starting point. So not point trying to answer “why” it might be the case.
You want a deep conversations, you never ask on what. Why pontificate on the reason Baja blast gelato is the color it is and not the fact it’s only available through the app and capitalism in general. Where are you subscribed to what are you seeing and what in general are you truly looking for?
I’m not thinking specifically of deep thoughts or shallow thoughts, but when I happen to think of anything, it could be nice to communicate it to other people where it might spur thoughts for them or conversation or even just put it down in writing even if no one cares. If it’s casual enough, there is casualconversation, but if it doesn’t fit in the box well, it doesn’t fit in the box well. Or not even thoughts exactly as I might want to talk about what I did today or saw today.
Perhaps a new community is called for; something which encourages earnest thinking and open discussion but is not hardcore technical philosophy. I think it should be called ‘interestingthoughts’ or ‘thatsinteresting’ or maybe even just ‘thoughtful’. There is already ‘showerthoughts’ but that seems to be a bit more humour-based than what you’re talking about.
I would enjoy reading and replying to posts on it and posting to it myself too. I haven’t started a community on Lemmy before and I’ve got quite a bit on my plate at the moment, so I don’t think I could take it on as a mod alone but if you want we could try doing it together. Let me know what you think :)
It sounds like you are describing a blog. If you want to stay in the fediverse, there is WriteFreely. I have an account on paper.wf, but I haven’t used it yet tbh.
I tried to have blogs back in the day. People were not terribly interested, and the prospect of having to cultivate being-known so that anyone will see the thing I found unpleasant. It’s strange to think how many people are very driven to promote themselves. Self-promotion feels dirty, and writing for no one feels foolish.
Building an audience over time is exactly how blogs, and publishing in general, work unless you start off with a lot of advertising or endorsements. For better or worse, there’s far more content than there is time for a large audience to read it all.
This gives you three choices:
- specialize and post in an existing community that’s aligned with that specialization. People will nearly always engage, especially if the content is good
- specialize and start your own blog. You could even try seeding it by referring people to it from already existing specialized communities. People will know what to expect content wise and keep coming back if the subject you’re talking about is interesting to them and the content is good
- don’t specialize and strike out on your own. If the content is good and you stick with it your audience will eventually grow. This will probably take more time because your audience will initially be looking for content that relates to what they’ve seen in the past, but what you’re really offering is your personality, writing style, world view, etc
Personally, if I’m looking for engagement I choose the first option.
Be the change you want to see.
I expect it would be too much for me alone. And do I put them all in one poorly-named general community that I make that ends up a grab-bag, or do I make lots of communities that I only touch once in six months when I happen to have a thought or experience in some topic and I also happen to remember that I even have that community to write in?
Best to give up then
Hey things should be better!
Sweet, let’s get started, go make something better
Nah, gonna give up instead.
k
That’s the spirit!
The former, because nobody will subscribe to the latter, and therein lies the problem.
Hello’s right.
Mastodon, Lemmy, and the Fediverse in general are what you make of it. I want there to be more content, so most days I post an article or two.
If you want more discussion, do the same, engage with people.
One large reason I haven’t rushed to start communities is that there are some personality types that live to be a moderator, and some that totally don’t. But I guess you do it and if it reaches the point where you have to moderate and you hate it, someone else must be around who can take it on.
As to your title, who says it isn’t? Just because it isn’t as commonly used that way doesn’t mean it isn’t for that. Also, my understanding is that Lemmy was created as a federated alternative to Reddit, and while I would say that Reddit did have more engagement for general discussion, it was/is probably better known for questions, links, and memes just as you’re seeing on Lemmy.
What happens to your thoughts? Do you turn them all in the form of a question?
This next part is just my opinion, but regarding this quote and your title contrasting commentary to questions, in my opinion posts with questions are likely to be more engaging as they give a direct point for responses. If you’re just posting your thoughts and ideas into the void, people are less likely to engage with them unless you are saying something particularly compelling or controversial.
If Lemmy had more of ourselves in this way, maybe it would be a healthier place.
Healthier in what way? Size of userbase? Number of posts/comments? Or are you referring to the quality of discourse and level of courtesy or toxicity between users?
I get that a question brings more engagement, but if I don’t have a question, I don’t have a question. And I might have a thought I want to put down in writing, and maybe someone will read it. Even if no one happens to read it, putting it where someone could read it and not just on paper or a nowhere unknown blog can feel better.
Healthier, maybe less combative from getting a better understanding of who someone is.
I don’t know if you’ve seen them, but since no one else has mentioned them, there’s a few other communities that might work for posting your thoughts besides casualconversation:
- [email protected] (tends to be shorter form, perhaps more absurd or sillier in tone than you want. Alternate option at [email protected])
- [email protected] (mostly memes/links but occasionally someone does a text post)
- [email protected] (other posts might be less neutral than you’re looking for but your post doesn’t have to be a rant or vent or w/e)
- [email protected]
In one of your other comments on this post you mentioned somewhere to ask fact oriented questions rather than open ended questions as encouraged by asklemmy. For those, you might consider:
- [email protected] (some people might suggest just using google/search-engine-of-your-choice, ignore/block them if they’re jerks about it. Alternate option at [email protected])
- [email protected] if it’s science related
Otherwise just post your question in a community appropriate to the topic. Hope you find what you’re looking for from Lemmy.
Thank you, I didn’t know about goodoffmychest or general.
I’m pretty much happy with conversations I see here. Plenty of quality discussion threads in AskLemmy, Gaming and Technology and Anime. Would be nice to see even more ofc, but Lemmy’s not that big yet I guess. Questions is something that often starts interesting discussions.
Isn’t that what Mastodon is for?
My understanding is that on Mastodon, you keep it pretty short, and that you have to be followed by people by having gotten reposted by the right popular people or no one will ever know you exist. I’m not very comfortable with chasing popularity. And when I looked at Mastodon, it didn’t look very light.
Good point. I have an account there, but I don’t really like or use it, I think for exactly the reasons you mentioned.
the fediverse is young, and still incorporating itself into something awesome… something more structured. in the meantime, ive found myself falling backwards into some amazing conversations with clearly very intelligent people.
im not sure why your experience is different, but im having a blast
I’ll feel like it would be nice to interact with some people, and maybe I want to write some, but I won’t have any questions, and I don’t feel like reacting to what happened in politics today perhaps, and I don’t enjoy memes.
Seconding this. I find that sometimes in the comment sections, there is an actual worthwhile exchange of interesting ideas and information, and when I participate in this I sometimes manage to fool people into thinking I’m intelligent.
Most of the threads I’ve started (on other accounts) have been about ideas rather than events or people and they’ve reliably made it to the front page, so there’s definitely demand for it. There’s probably several reasons for why threads like that are so rare, but I’d imagine a big one is fear. The reception on Lemmy to a post like that can, and usually will be quite hostile. People do have opinions and they’re quick to hop in and tell you’re wrong about something but at the same time they’ll think twice before putting their own ideas under public scrutiny.
People do have opinions and they’re quick to hop in and tell you’re wrong about something
Are you sure about that? I don’t see very many unique opinions any more. Everyone seems to have the same conditioned replies to everything. I used to constantly be exposed to unique and interesting perspectives on the internet. Nowadays, I rarely see people saying anything that hasn’t been said a thousand times over. It’s all just angry parroting at everything that exists.
This is a problem on the internet in general now. People used to have active conversations on the internet, and type multi-paragraph long replies to each other. Each new platform has shortened the attention span of people on the internet, spoon fed more nibble sized content to people, and reduced their reactions to the tap of a button. It’s really sad, because I love talking to people online, and it doesn’t really happen now. I think part of it is that we’re almost all using phone keyboards like you said, but a lot of it is probably due to the changing internet landscape. We’re not participants anymore. This isn’t our Internet. It belongs to the corporations, and we’re consumers.
And to think in the 90s, there was the belief that the internet was going to free us from corporations (because the corporations were going to be too stupid for cyberspace or the information superhighway, etc.). I’m not sure whether that was young-person naivete or whether it ultimately came from dot-com marketers, but it was around.
TL;DR?!
Phone keyboards bad
Corporations bad
Old Internet gone
People lazy
Thanks. I originally meant that as a joke but thanks anyway 😅
I sometimes post thoughts/questions and usually get some interesting discussion, so it is worth it. I think I also prefer seeing other posts like this. I think that the reason for seeing more posts which are links is because a) it’s easier and b) most online content is somewhere on the clickbait spectrum and the result of that is manifested here on Lemmy much the same as it would be anywhere else.
Edit: Also, I’m upvoting your post because I think you are essentially calling for firsthand thoughtful discussion, which is a good thing for everyone.
Thank you. Whatever I’ve done online has always been more or less unwelcome. I saw that my post has a 0, which must really be some negative value. I knew at least some people would be defensive, group membership, tribalism, the angry insecure thrill of attacking outsiders, but I wasn’t sure whether it would lean that way overall.
Don’t take it to heart and remember that there are other posts/comments that received way more downvotes, my own included! I’m sorry to hear you’ve had a rough time online. I’ve appreciated this post though and you’ve had some upvotes, so I’m sure others have too.
you should check out tildes or metafilter both are link aggregators that are highly curated to foster discussion
Didn’t they say they don’t want to wait for a link to be posted to have a discussion about something?
Be the change you want to see…
Someone else said that and I wrote something about how it’s a big task for one person and a culture may be resistant to it.
Believe me, no one here is going to be upset if you write some interesting content. The real challenge will be whether or not your content find traction with the masses.
Both Lemmy and Reddit also favor new content over existing content, so expect decreasing engagement with a post as time wears on. This is different than a traditional forum, where a new comment will bump the whole thread.
I’ve kicked off a few good conversations here with OC, granted my posts tend to be more project/image based than what you’re thinking.
I wouldn’t expect to find much traction. And now I’ve spent so much of today writing about this that I’ve mentally lost track of the shape of whatever I felt unable to do yesterday. I’m sure it would have been more about wanting to talk and wanting to express myself than expecting to be interesting or appealing.
You can always talk and express yourself! Absolutely no one will be upset if you do, assuming you don’t have wildly unpopular opinions and/or aren’t interested in rehashing politically fraught issues for the upteenth time. Find a vaguely appropriate community here and go nuts.
Have you never been to [email protected]?
I have look at it, and if I have something that’s solidly casual, it could fit there, although I’m also thinking that if I have three casual thoughts in a day, now I’m already almost flooding the place. Would have to start slowly in that case.
We wouldn’t mind no matter how many thoughts a day you have that you’d like to share. Share as many as you’d like.
Thank you for being welcoming.
I don’t wanna socialise with anyone, that’s it. And my life is too “un complicated” and meh, I don’t have much to say or add.
Of course that depends where you read and post on Lemmy. I don’t really agree with the premise of your question, so I can’t give you a good answer except to say look around. Depending on the topic, you can find people who are going into great detail about their own thoughts and presenting arguments and facts and whatnot, all as might be appropriate to the topic at hand. I’m not really sure what you’re looking for. It sounds like maybe you want to start a blog, and if you want to start a blog, go start one. You can even post the links here, for an extra touch of irony.
Start a blog is a little like “If you don’t like the huge corporation, you have to start your own huge corporation to crush them”. Make a blog, never be seen again.
As for people giving their thoughts, it seems held back until you free it with a link or a question.
