In the monthly server updates for lemmy.zip/piefed.zip there’s a mantra that’s repeated every month. I think it’s wonderful and can be applied to the Fediverse as a whole.

If you’re new here - WELCOME! I hope you’re enjoying your time here :)

Just one small teeny-tiny request. The greatest gift you can give the Fediverse (Original: Lemmy.zip and Piefed.zip) isn’t money, praise, or interpretive dance (although we would absolutely accept the last one). Its participation.

Upvote the things you like. Start a discussion, debate, or ponder about whether water is wet or merely makes things wet. Make new communities if you don’t see one that fits your oddly specific niche obsession.
(We don’t judge. Well, we try not to judge anyway.)

The fediverse naturally ebbs and flows, tides of people come and go. But if you’ve found yourself oddly attached to this strange little corner of the internet? Wonderful. Help it breathe. Help it grow. Help it be just a tiny bit weirder in the best possible way.

So if you’ve gone to the effort of clicking Sign Up and proving you’re not a robot (unless you are, in which case hello and welcome to our new AI overlords), then please, I beg of you:

Stick around. Add your voice. It really does make this place better.

Original post by @[email protected]

  • Capt_Trav@reddthat.comEnglish
    4·
    6 hours ago

    I’m still just figuring out how fediverse / lemmy work, but I do get bored sometimes because of the lack of content, so I guess I’m part of the problem. I’ll try to be more involved.

    I’ve been trying to think of a good (for the lack of knowing the correct verbiage) ‘subreddit’ to start, but they all seem too specific for the amount of users on Lemmy. Also I wouldn’t know how to start one. Comment down below any tips. Thanks!

    • Gorgritch_Umie_Killa@aussie.zoneEnglish
      1·
      3 hours ago

      I started posting by picking the communuty for the place i live and trying to post local and independent media and special interest groups articles about/in the context of that place.

      Its benefits are,

      • It creates activity on the fediverse that is unique, and the more interesting for it.
      • You’ll be promoting the voices of those less often heard.
      • You can also help local and independent media with readers and exposure. Its seen as more of an offline problem of media concentration, but i think theres online solutions for the surviving publications.

      If you look through my history you’ll see my posts to c/Perth/WesternAustralia there are ebbs and flows in interest but the key point is when something happens, say a protest, or a pub banning some nazis the community is there ready for the users, active and established.

      If you go to the sidebar of that community, and all the communities i moderate i have gathered in each a host of resources for people to refer to for articles and information in regards each of those communities. It also helps me to have easy access to those publishers as i look for something i find interesting.

      So i don’t know what city or State you live in, but if theres a place based server, or a generalist server that hosts a community for it, i’d start posting there. If it looks abandoned maybe jump onto that servers c/meta and request to become the moderator. That’ll give you the ability to change things like the sidebar and participate in managing misbehaviour if/when users post things off topic/against the rules for the community.

      See you in fediverse ;)

      Edit: oh, also posting is a piece of active fun, instead of waiting passivley for something to entertain you. So its fun in a different way to scrolling feeds, or commenting.

    • Little8Lost@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      5 hours ago

      Sorting by scaled is pretty nice because its like active but with community size so its not only shitposts, memes and news (still a lot but its still a larger veriety)

  • CoffeeTails@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    7 hours ago

    I often upvite posts. I try to make an effort to leave comment now and then. I rarely find anything to make a post about tho.

  • Jayjader@jlai.luEnglish
    6·
    8 hours ago

    I see a new post.
    I click, I read, I scroll on.
    I am the lurker.

    #haiku (<- test to see how far this propagates in the mastodon / microblogging part of the fediverse)

  • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.worldEnglish
    91·
    6 hours ago

    Contribtions to the fediverse are unwelcome in most popular spaces.

    Unless you are just upvoting things.

    If you are new you will be heavily scrutinized, and if the community owners don’t love you instantly then your account goes in the “bot pile”

    Makes it hard to want to participate when most relevant posts you make get removed and the mods ban you because they decide they don’t like being embarrased when they’re shitty.

    • ripcord@lemmy.worldEnglish
      81·
      7 hours ago

      This is not my experience at all.

      If you are being shitty that may be different. I do not see much of this for people who are engaging, particularly ones engaging like adults or at least good-natured.

      • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        5 hours ago

        Well idk what to tell you.

        Being shitty is subjective and if a mod doesn’t like someone using a space for what it’s for then it breeds this environment.

        Dismissing and invalidating people with genuine concerns is also not how we get more people to contribute.

        • 🔍🦘🛎@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          4 hours ago

          Yeah there are also spaces with specific rules, like womenstuff that only lets women comment. Also some places have wildly different moderation philosophy. Or just, highlyOn one hand, it’s fine to make a mistake and learn from it. But on the other, you can accidentally catch a blanket instance ban with no recourse.

  • Skullgrid@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1202·
    17 hours ago

    There’s like 5 people that are firehoses of content that are keeping lemmy alive.

    • Gorgritch_Umie_Killa@aussie.zoneEnglish
      1·
      2 hours ago

      I’m not a big fan of those absolute firehoses though. It would be impossible to read as much as they post, and therefore they can’t have much invested or interest in the subjects which is bad for discussion and reminds me of the reasons for disliking AI slop.

    • eta@feddit.orgEnglish
      52·
      17 hours ago

      Yeah they’re doing a huge service to the Fediverse. I’ve had a few times where I saw posts from the same people across totally different communities to the point where I’m wondering if they’re actually interested in all these subjects or just posting for the sake of it.

      • anon6789@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13·
        13 hours ago

        I don’t know how those people do it. Putting out stuff every day for one community keeps me as busy as I’d want to be.

      • Scrollone@feddit.itEnglish
        23·
        16 hours ago

        After a while, it doesn’t even matter. It creates a sense of community, making this place nice for new people to join. So it’s good.

        • Dozzi92@lemmy.worldEnglish
          22·
          16 hours ago

          I see a lot of the same people, recognize the names. I argue with some, know I’ll agree with others. I like it. It harkens back to old forum days for me. Reddit may as well be anonymous1 talking to anonymous2, maybe outside of some more niche subs, but here, I can comment on a post about corn and recognize a few of the names who are also commenting.

          • greybeard@feddit.onlineEnglish
            8·
            14 hours ago

            I certainly can become a problem. Reaching back to Digg, MrBabyMan had way too much power and influence, even though he basically just spammed news articles 24/7. Thankfully, the threadiverse doesn’t seem to be designed to promote people over content.

    • hansolo@lemmy.todayEnglish
      8·
      13 hours ago

      I genuinely worry about Picard Maneuver and Lady Butterfly. What of one of them got hit by a car!?

      • Skullgrid@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13·
        13 hours ago

        Picard Maneuver went and came back. I appreciate their work though, they’re one of the pillars.

        I worry about Stamets.

  • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.worldEnglish
    62·
    9 hours ago

    All decent advice. Here’s a thought experiment.

    Start a discussion, debate, or ponder about [etc]

    By the same token it would be bad to stop such a discussion, right? Right.

    Make new communities if you don’t see one that fits

    Therefore it would be bad to *destroy" such communities, right? Indeed.

    Upvote the things you like

    So, it would be bad to downvote the things you - personally, subjectively - don’t like - right? It wouldn’t? Why so?

    Don’t downvote other people’s good-faith opinions. It’s petty, it’s juvenile, it’s toxic. Even if you don’t see it that way. It’s precisely what will discourage the participation we all want to see.

    • ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      6 hours ago

      Because the fediverse is still fairly small, downvotes stick out a lot more. A number of them I think, “How could anybody downvote that?” and just wonder because often they seem to be “I had a shitty day and I particularly don’t like YOU” downvotes.

      I often sort a thread by Top, and even the highest voted posts are often +(big number) -1. Because I personally do not downvote without cause, I assume they are sincere, but then it becomes a question of why, and I could never figure it out. Okay, whatever, no biggie.

      But recently I had some time on my hands and I am aware of lemvotes.org, so one day I saw this again and decided to just informally start looking up these weird ass loner downvotes. Nothing sustained, just whenever one stuck out to me as being why??? I’d go and look it up. I’ve been doing this for roughly 2-3 months now, no schedule or commitment other than whenever I felt like it, across the board, no attention paid to community or post content (other than anything political pretty much not being worth the trouble, lol).

      What I expected was a variety of usernames attached to these single downvotes.

      But what I saw was a core handful of users across the board, with the occasional outlier.

      Kinda pathetic, honestly.

      • neekz0r@lemmy.mlEnglish
        5·
        12 hours ago

        I feel attacked… i like to lurk. except now i’m not lurking, because i feel guilty for lurking. damit.

        • ripcord@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          7 hours ago

          This was in reference to people that feel like they should contribute to the fediverse.

          But heck, even just upvoting things helps.