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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
not a place for thoughts and observations
Because there are (nearly) normal people on lemmy.
Normal people are lazy, especially when it comes to using the brain for more than 2 seconds in a row.
Lemmy has both thoughts+observations, and links+questions+memes. It’s just a lot more of the later than the former.
There are a thousand potential reasons for that. I believe that a few of the ones that you mentioned have some impact, but there are two that you didn’t mention that might be extra relevant:
- Lemmy starting out as a federated replica of a link aggregator, also mostly about links, questions, and memes; this is bound to replicate a certain culture.
- The Zeitgeist of the internet of the 20s is considerably less kind to people who form their own thoughts.
On how to solve this: perhaps the first step could/should be to co-ordinate with other people who have the same desire, and nurture communities with that goal.
I used to use Reddit some, although I would never manage to stick with it well and become an accepted regular anywhere, but it was big enough that I never realized it was a link aggregator before all else, since people were just talking about whatever in communities. I actually had to look up some fediverse site yesterday when checking what’s out there for blogging and whatnot for it to label reddit and lemmy explicitly as link aggregators, for me to really get it.
Forming their own thoughts, is it the voting, is it the culture wars? I know I have the chilling effect of thinking that my response to some article will just get tons of downvotes so why bother. And I don’t think upvotes mean the same thing to me that they mean to the average person.
Coordinating with other people, I’ve had zero success with and must just not have any clue how to go about it.
Yup - Reddit is still mostly memes, questions, and links; this gets evident when you look at the top 5 subs: memes (r/funny), links (r/gaming, r/worldnews), questions (r/askreddit), “fluff” (r/aww). And yet Reddit is large enough that you can ignore those and find people sharing their minds in smaller comms.
That won’t last long though. The place is collapsing, and the first ones to kick the bucket will be the smaller subs, that’ll become ghost towns.
Forming their own thoughts […]
I think that it’s deeper: it’s the impact of social media in our societies, plus phones (that you mentioned in the OP), plus the voting system (that you mentioned now). Together they shape a culture that encourages short, shallow, uncontested, polarised worldviews.
And when people are exposing their thoughts on a matter, there’s a high chance that they actually thought about something that is longer, deeper, controversial, full of counterpoints. As they share it they get replies like:
- “WAAAAH TL;DR!!!”
- “U say dat 50 is not 100? than u think dat 50 is 0? dats dumb lol lmao”
- “If you’re saying that you like apples then you hate bananas! Fuck off banana hater! Why so hateful?”
- “I dun unrurrstand, why you think that [distorts what the other person said]? I’m so confused…”
Eventually you get weathered by that. Too much attrition to bother; you stop exposing your thoughts.
Coordinating with other people, I’ve had zero success with and must just not have any clue how to go about it.
Frankly? Ditto. But this is the sort of issue that we can’t solve individually, we need numbers for that.
It must be a great skill online to know how to write in a way that can’t turn into something else in someone’s head and trigger disproportionate reactions.
Since I remember Before Phones, I’m worried that people who grow up with phones don’t know how completely crappy a way that is to interact with the internet. It makes good consumers. I remember the shift in laptop display dimensions around 2010 so they would become Movie Watching devices. And phones take phone-shaped pictures.
I suppose I’ll have to start tracking what I wish to talk about to find out what communities could be needed. Today the only ones in my head are one of no importance at all that would fit in the existing casualconversation just fine and another that made me laugh but is nothing deep and I might feed it to asklemmy at some point.
I might have to ask asklemmy where questions that are a little more factual are supposed to go. Their sidebar says they want open-ended, although probably no one pays attention.
The Zeitgeist of the internet of the 20s is considerably less kind to people who form their own thoughts.
This rings true and it may come from the wider world. Seems to me that we have entered an era of fear and pessimism. Partly as a result of that, today’s younger generation had protected childhoods and now, given the state of the world, they themselves are afraid for their futures (with some justification). All this is creating an atmosphere of hypersensitivity, aversion to causing offense, a general lack of openness to new ideas and contradiction.
Nothing I say there is particularly original and I can’t offer data to support it. But my anecdotal experience on this forum and elsewhere backs up the hypothesis completely. Something has changed.
I agree.
Removed by mod
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.
You either want mastodon which has a higher proportion of thoughts and conversations, or a classic forum which is entirely dedicated to long form thoughts and discussions.
I can look at Mastodon more seriously, but I would have to figure out… I mean a regular person wants status, right, set themselves up as an expert at something, enjoy fame, and there’s careerism. So it’s natural to them to look at who’s a big name in their field, who they want to be noticed by, who they want to be associated with, and follow those people, and craft the right kind of comments so those people will respond to them in the right way to advance their goals.
A forum, yes, that could be it. There probably aren’t many that are so alive today.
Although I am skating past the point, aren’t I, that Reddit didn’t seem to be missing this puzzle piece to the extent that Lemmy is.
I agree that it can look like people are self-promoting and seeking prestige on social media. I find that following hashtags on Mastodon is a good habit for sidestepping this. It shifts the focus to topics rather than identities. The same goes for Pixelfed. I’ve got a beautiful feed on Pixelfed made up of different types of art and photography that I like.
Reddit didn’t seem to be missing this puzzle piece to the extent that Lemmy is.
With this comment it’s clear that you are lamenting userbase count, and thus “Lemmy” (there is no singular Lemmy) isn’t meeting the content expectations you built with reddit due to this far lower user count.
Be the change you want to see, set up an instance and craft it to this concept you’re after. If not, Mastodon exists as the comment you replied to mentioned.
Why is Lemmy not a place for thoughts and observations, rather than just links, questions, and memes?
First off, Lemmy isn’t “a place”, each instance is unique in their own way. You are quite welcome to set up an instance around this concept, it’s not hard.
That’s kind of like saying the United States isn’t a place, it’s a collection of States that are each unique in their own way. Yes, that’s true, but combined they make a place called The United States of America.
Our demographics don’t support uncertainty. Most of us are here because we are certain distributed is better than centralized, community run is better than corporate run, FOSS is better than proprietary, etc. The sign-up process discourages casual users, so most users have made up their minds to be here.
For better or worse, we’re highly opinionated, and we’ve decided some things are bad and others are good. Very few topics are open to discussion because we’ve already decided.
And if we haven’t decided on something, it’s usually because we’ve decided it doesn’t matter, so we’ll ignore it.
It isn’t a sustainable community, but I fit in, so I’m still here.
