Itna sannata kyu hai bhai? [Why is it so silent here?]
Arrived here after reading the post on lemmy.ml.
However, the community is not as active as I hoped it would. Not many posts, and most posts have zero comments.
What do you think could drive more engagement here?
My initial thoughts on this.
The community could be more active if the rules and moderation policies are made known.
What are the rules for posting here? Are news articles allowed? Or is it just general articles? What about discussion posts? What topics are allowed for discussion?
For example, I wanted to post about the recent events around casteism in Madhya Pradesh. But I wasn’t sure if it met the policies and rules. Moreover, recent articles are about general topics or listicles, so I ended up dropping the idea.
deleted by creator
You make a very good point on accessibility.
Though I wasn’t as surprised about how popular Reddit was or how active Indians were on Reddit.
A lot of people, myself included, naturally started using Reddit as it was more convenient than being active on multiple forums/boards. We joined to participate in niche subreddits and participated in general subreddits like r/india as a side effect.
Of course, Reddit became more akin to traditional social media over the years, and it brought in even more people.
I think we should’ve vote on how the comments should be moderated.
It’s just not possible for a community to survive by allowing anything and everything. It’s very easy to get people rallied by spreading fake information especially those which are false in subtle manners and are suggestive of ill will.
But more importantly, mods have huge power in shaping the direction of the discord.
For example /r/India and /r/IndiaSpeaks are opposite leaning in most of the type of posts that are discussed and both sides feel disgusted with the other. The only difference between them is the moderation and the kind of posts that are allowed, correct me if I’m wrong.
I’d hope for a community that is:
- Scientifically oriented.
- Rationally minded.
- Wants to grow at individual level and at community level holistically. Ranging from intellectual growth to personality and behaviour improvement, with aim to increase life satisfaction.
- Open to all ideas without belittling those of different opinion. At the same time if enough evidence is present, support the thesis with confidence.
- Has healthy amount of self doubt and doesn’t judge absolutely unless supported by hard facts.
I’d suggest the non-goals be:
- To be so India specific that things which aren’t directly related to India gets deleted even if the community is interested in discussing it.
- Put rules above the wishes of community. For example, deleting a post because it’s somewhat related to a megathread that was posted a day back.
- Allow everything in the name of free speech. Facts and evidence (data) win over opinion.
- Be a link aggregation community rather than discourse oriented community. (E.g., Titles should encourage discussion and it should be OKAY have title be different from the article title.)
Indians best identify with the other Indians, hence my choice of posting these ideas on here.
/end of opinion
Thanks for the suggestions. These are valid points for the moderation. Appreciate your inputs to grow this community.
I’m an American and I loved lurking Indian subreddits, just fyi. But yeah, I think it’s the same issue that every other non gargantuan subreddit community posts, there’s only so many users, but only so many of that so many will post. And only so many of THAT so many will habitually post to keep the community growing. Just hoping this one takes off so I can continue that past time.
Yep. The 90-9-1 principle or the 1% rule. I am rooting for this and a few other communities to attain critical mass. :-)
One more thing is that only a few does comment and post, out of the ones reading the posts,same as in reddit.
I too have been a lurker in reddit, but here, i’ve started to engage more. Hope lemmy brings changes
I agree. I guess this community needs to attain that critical mass.
Though my suggestion on lack of posting rules still stand. I am still not clear if I should post about current affairs.
From this community’s introduction post’s comment from nonexterion( the creator of community and probably a moderator )
one thing we are trying our best is, as long as it doesn’t break this lemmy instance’s rules, we don’t interfere.
So i guess you can post current affairs as long as ot doesnt break rules of lemmy.run
Got it. Thanks.
This may be added to the sidebar if it’s the case. Hope the mods see this. :-)
Point noted, I will update the sidebar with this info so that it clears doubts.
Thanks for the prompt response, mod!
You are welcome
Feel free to post current affairs if its related to
India.We also have [email protected] for news related to
IndiaInteresting. Are these communities related or moderated by the same people? Asking as I feel it would make sense to have one community initially for all India related posts/discussions, and branch out as we grow or when things get difficult to moderate.
Regardless, thanks for pointing me to the relevant community. I will probably post news articles there, and limit the discussions on those within that community.
This can be a place to have overarching discussions/posts on phenomena or culture.
Yeap, and that is why we don’t stop you from posting news articles here as well.
Got it.
