I notice on a lot of mags, there is one or two people posting, and either 0, a handful, or quite a bit of upvotes, but no one is really engaging, most the time there are 0 comments.

I think in order to foster the growth of our community, we must try to engage more with the people generating the content, it’s helpful and encouraging for them, and also a positive sign for people who are coming into the fediverse. I post quite a bit, and comments always make me feel like it was worth it!

Also, keep upvoting! Someone responded to your post or comment, and you’re just grateful for that or agree with them? Upvote them! Engage! That’s all :)

  • HeartyBeast@kbin.social
    65·
    1 year ago

    You can’t force this stuff though. No-one wants a ton of vapid, low-effort comments put there just for the sake of it.

    • euphoria@kbin.socialOP
      11·
      1 year ago

      i’m certainly not asking for comments for the sake of comments, i am asking for less lurking and more generating. people usually have something to say, add, or discuss, it’s effort-level is subjective. i just want those people to feel encouraged to speak out, its safer to do so here than it was on reddit, and it’s also helpful

      • xuxebiko@kbin.social
        6·
        1 year ago

        It can get a bit frustating at times, but people do speak when they want to, and when they do its usually thoughtful. It helps to respond back.
        My take is to enjoy the silence for now. Once they warm up, we’ll be wishing they’d stayed silent ;)

      • brcl@artemis.camp
        2·
        1 year ago

        I wonder if she was two moves ahead of us the whole time knowing the song itself was ironic, not the situations in the song…

        • blivet@kbin.social
          2·
          1 year ago

          I like to think so, but a lot of intelligent people pick up on the meaning of words from context, and sometimes they get it wrong. I remember reading that Susan Sontag used the word “magma” as if it meant something like “foundation” or “basis”.

          • density@kbin.social
            1·
            1 year ago

            What does magma mean?

            All I know about sontag is the “disease as metaphor” stuff. so I know she is interested in using material situations (hi5/tb). so is it totally unpredictable that she’d use geology as metaphor?

            I tried searching for what you might be alluding to and found like this page where sontag is incidentally in the side bar: Sappho and the Fevered Heart: Anne Carson on Jealousy –

            This, indeed, is the raw nature of jealousy — beneath the narrative, beyond the magma of feeling, it is a projection, a self-construction, a self-response that reveals more about our relationship to love itself, which springs from our relationship to ourselves, than about any object of desire.

            And a few other similar hits… if you are saying that Sontag is wrong to use “magma” as “foundation”… I would have to say on what basis you claim that?

            • blivet@kbin.social
              1·
              1 year ago

              if you are saying that Sontag is wrong to use “magma” as “foundation”… I would have to say on what basis you claim that?

              A foundation is usually a stable structure, not a liquid.

              • density@kbin.social
                1·
                1 year ago

                I can imagine a context in which that would make sense depending what was being discussed. Maybe the implication was that there is no real foundation. Would need more info to be sure she is really totally misunderstanding rather than being a bit weird.

    • SamXavia@kbin.social
      2·
      1 year ago

      @HeartyBeast Yeah this makes sense, I sadly still see upvotes in posts people create asking questions. When the OC tried to ask a question it’s helpful to have an answer but yes not everyone should have to comment as it might not be useful and could clog up the feed.

      • euphoria@kbin.socialOP
        2·
        1 year ago

        the thing is, a lot of people wont answer or comment in the first place. maybe they think someone else will, but then that ends up not being the case

        • brcl@artemis.camp
          1·
          1 year ago

          I like to read other comments on the material and offer my viewpoints to their comments. Like this. But without comments, I have no one to offer a different viewpoint to.

        • SamXavia@kbin.social
          1·
          1 year ago

          @euphoria Yeah I do feel like it might just come down to a few people having to possibly go around and put something relevant in someones comments to really get things going.

  • HolidayGreed
    21·
    1 year ago

    Most of us were little fish in the big pond called Reddit and our comments wouldn’t even cause a ripple, but now we have a chance to be big fish in a small pond and create waves 🦈

    • stopthatgirl7@kbin.social
      4·
      1 year ago

      Same here. I starting making an effort to post more…but then ran across a weirdo angry I told him not to be a dick to someone after he told them to “fucking die,” and now they’re downvoting literally everything I post and comment, despite me blocking them.

      We can encourage commenting, but we’ve also got to strengthen tools to stop harassment and create a culture that discourages people from being toxic.

      • euphoria@kbin.socialOP
        4·
        1 year ago

        im sure @ernest is eventually gonna implement something to prevent going to someone’s page and mass downvoting, like reddit did, it’s been brought up a ton by now

        • stopthatgirl7@kbin.social
          3·
          1 year ago

          Fixing blocking first would be best, honestly. Blocking right now is a mess. If you block someone, they shouldn’t be able to see or interact with your posts and comments in any way.

  • Catch42@kbin.social
    6·
    1 year ago

    I’d like to encourage more upvoting and boosting too! I like leaving comments, but I know not everyone does. The points from upvoting themselves don’t mean anything, but it lets me know if my post is appreciated or if someone else’s post is worth reading past the headline.

    • euphoria@kbin.socialOP
      3·
      1 year ago

      exactly right! i understand not everyone is a content creator and would rather lurk, but those same people tend to complain about lack of content 👀 even a single post or a single comment from nearly every user would make a world of a difference, it adds up. we have to be the change we want to see

    • euphoria@kbin.socialOP
      7·
      1 year ago

      been there, making a mag that grows but youre the only one posting and no one is engaging and its like uhuhughugh. i wanna contribute and i do, but sometimes it feels like i am talking to myself

      • livus@kbin.social
        3·
        1 year ago

        Just checked your mags and saw @MagHub !

        I had been wanting a place right here on kbin to help me discover more local communities, this is perfect!

        • euphoria@kbin.socialOP
          2·
          1 year ago

          Just checked your mags

          now im embarrassed about a specific one i have in there lmfaooo. but anyway, thanks! :)

      • SamXavia@kbin.social
        2·
        1 year ago

        @euphoria Yeah I try to find already made mags such as gaming ones but it seems like a lot of single-game topic ones such as for GTA seem to be pretty dead or the OC of the Mag seems to not be active on Kbin anymore making it feel like it might end up just being another unmoderated dead-end in the Fediverse.

        It’s good that we have room to grow especially as it seems it would be good for gaming alone but it doesn’t show we are a good system to move to if Reddit and even smaller platforms seem to have better engagement on the Forums than something that is interconnected between Instances.

  • Arotrios@kbin.social
    5·
    1 year ago

    Agreed, although I must say the quality of the commentary here is far and above what I’ve seen on other social media, and I’d like that trend to continue.

    I want to note that the value of Kbin increases exponentially as you engage and follow each other, and that Boosting can be particularly effective in bringing in more engagement from the Mastodon world.

    Also (not sure if this is a bug @ernest), you should know how to get around the magazine filter in the drop-down on your threads and links submission page. If you click when in a kbin magazine or default kbin screen, the menu will only allow you to submit to kbin.social magazines on the instance, not any off-instance communities.

    To get around this, go to the off-instance magazine you want to submit to, and it will auto-populate the correct target community on the other instance.

    While I know that most of us are focused on expanding kbin.social in particular, spreading the load helps the servers and widens your audience, as well as potential followers, which draws them back to kbin.

  • Potatomache@kbin.social
    4·
    1 year ago

    I think it’s a matter of content type. We have a lot of links to interesting articles or pictures of memes with no additional input from the poster. Those make me less inclined to comment. I just tend to upvote/boost and move on.

    I think for more discussion/opinions, people need a spring board to jump off of.

  • Peacemeal12@kbin.social
    3·
    1 year ago

    Here is where I disagree with a lot of you guys’ points. Even if the comment is lower effort, I still would read them and prefer it to be there than not. Even if it’s less substantiated. I primarily acted as a lurker on Reddit for various reason and still enjoyed reading people’s opinions and perspectives even if it wasn’t “high quality”. Even if it’s just to get a picture of what people feel about something it still has value. I post comments, and posts that get upvotes and views, and that proves that it still has value.

  • teydam@kbin.social
    2·
    1 year ago

    The comment at bottom of thread prevents me from commenting on a lot of threads simply because I don’t want to scroll that far.

  • quortez@kbin.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    Sometimes you just don’t know what to say that feels like it actually meaningfully contributes, y’know? Also complicates things that I have like 5 other small scale social medias im trying to nurture on top of my ADHD (and not all of them are even federated…). But I still try to chip in to add some spice.

  • HubertManne@kbin.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    I feel a bit guilty about this as I comment on a lot of useless stuff but I follow a guy who posts great articles but I generally don’t have much to say as the articles are that good. I end up posting something maybe every half dozen articles but they are all great.

      • HubertManne@kbin.social
        1·
        1 year ago

        im not sure at this point as I did not save the info from the posting but I do a search for keeshond which was its name and nothing comes up. I know I have subbed other magazines if the url was giving me issues by simply searching the main part of its name and it worked for those.

  • HipPriest@kbin.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    I think it’s quality not quantity. I’d rather be in a sub community where a post is made once a week but a really good conversation comes out of it than in a situation where things are being posted for the sake of posting anything.