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Why are so many people so fixated on Lemmy's growth? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by AstralPath@lemmy.ca to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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...relative to Reddit's size?

I see so many posts and comments voicing disappointment with Lemmy's lack of massive expansion.

I too want to see Lemmy gain more users, but I do not want it to grow to Reddit's size. If Reddit is the yardstick, I'd say that a population that large attracts a lot of negative behaviours; degeneration of discourse, amplification of echo chambers and hive mind behaviour, etc...

I started on Reddit in 2010 and found that by 2016 things were really bad in comparison. A fun and engaging site was experiencing an obvious devolution that persists to this day, accelerated by Spez's enshittification of the platform. Obviously the fediverse insulates us from that occurring here but I think you get what I mean.

Do you you think Lemmy is too small? I don't. I've been here since the great migration last year and have had a really good time. I see a lot of familiar names in the comments on a daily basis. It actually feels like a community here. I guess I just don't understand the fixation on the size of Lemmy's user base. Curious to hear your thoughts.

[EDIT] Thanks for all the responses, everyone! Lots of perspectives I hadn't yet considered.

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[-] v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 21 points 4 months ago

As a mod of three niche Soulslike communities, one of which that probably has less than 10 active users at best, it's really hard to put out quality content and keep a community alive all on your own. I had to resort to a bot filling two of the communities with regular posts so there is some semblance of life in the communities, but reception has been mixed so far and the engagement didn't grow as much as I had hoped.

Unfortunately, I don't see any other way for these communities to be sustainable if like 95% of users on here are lurkers. Plus, I'm not the best fit for moderation and pumping out posts asking for engagement constantly since I'm a lurker at heart myself.

'All' is pretty good, though. It's where I spend most my time on Lemmy.

[-] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 6 points 4 months ago

Feel free to join on !fedigrow@lemm.ee

[-] v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Am subscribed already, haven't really checked it out yet. Thanks for the reminder

[-] Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 months ago

I think itd make more sense to not have /c/ommunities dedicated to certain games, just post that stuff on /c/games

[-] v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 5 points 4 months ago

I get the idea, but I think general all-purpose games communities are just too general

[-] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 4 points 4 months ago

Maybe one community for Soulslike that you would promote on the weekly !newcommunities@lemmy.world thread would be a good compromise?

[-] v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 months ago

I already did that for all three communities back when I created them. Reception for the last one was quite good, I thought!

[-] Blaze@sopuli.xyz 3 points 4 months ago

Feel free to promote them weekly, there are always new people joining

[-] v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 months ago

Gotcha 👍🏻

this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024

309 points (93.8% liked)

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