sanitation

lots of people. thats why lemmy is 35K mau stagnant

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time. thats another thing im arguing - having to relitigate all the same things time and time again is exhausting and time consuming.

I guess thats another reason people just quit posting.

I suspect most of it is reddit agents however

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sanitation @lemmy.today 2w ago

im running out of time. genuinely tried to make this work but I Think lemmy is just going to stay tiny reddit controlled app

sanitation @lemmy.today 2w ago

haha. fuck yes - I made this.lets take everything they have and then add original content on top.have a cake and eat it too

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sanitation @lemmy.today 2w ago

"Read the room" is exactly the mentality I'm questioning.

The room is 35k MAU and stagnant. Maybe optimizing everything around the preferences of the people already in the room is part of why nobody new is walking through the door.

And "everything is worse because of AI" isn't an argument. It's an opinion. I'm using AI as a tool for filtering, moderation, and automation. Judge the results.

If Lemmy only welcomes people who already agree with the existing culture on AI, content, reposting, and what the Fediverse is supposed to be, don't be surprised when it remains a tiny echo chamber. and at the moment - its exactly what it is - a tiny 35k MAU stagnant echo chamber

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sanitation @lemmy.today 2w ago

I actually agree with part of this. Noise is a problem. But reposting does not automatically equal noise.

That's exactly why I'm not blindly mirroring feeds. Posts have to meet upvote thresholds, be recent, not already exist on Lemmy, fit the community, and pass additional filtering and moderation rules. The entire point is to select the stuff I think is actually worth seeing.

And "original" doesn't automatically mean "good" either. A mediocre original post isn't more valuable to me than an excellent article, meme, video, or discussion somebody discovered elsewhere.

The real question should be: is this something people in this community would actually want to see? Not: did this URL or meme ever appear on another website?

If the volume is too high, that's a legitimate discussion. Set reasonable posting limits or adjust the algorithms. But deliberately keeping communities nearly empty because everything must be original seems like a much bigger disservice.

I would rather have a smaller amount of carefully selected outside content mixed with genuine Lemmy content than stare at communities where the newest post is three weeks old.

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sanitation @lemmy.today 2w ago

I think this is exactly the disconnect: not everyone shares your vision of what the internet should become.

Saying "RSS is making a comeback" as an answer to stagnant social network growth is honestly kind of absurd. RSS is useful, but the average person isn't abandoning Reddit, Facebook, or TikTok to curate RSS feeds and hang out on specialized forums.

And "the Fediverse has 50x more users" doesn't solve Lemmy's problem. Someone wanting a Reddit-style discussion platform isn't interchangeable with someone posting on Mastodon or using another ActivityPub service.

I'm not asking to recreate some imaginary Reddit utopia. I want the good parts of Reddit: active communities, constant content, and discussion, without the centralized corporate platform, censorship, and control. A federated Reddit alternative is valuable precisely because it can provide that experience differently without corporate overlords banning whatever they want.

You may personally want something completely different from social media. That's fine. But that's your vision, not necessarily what everyone who might use Lemmy wants.

If Lemmy is stagnant and huge numbers of communities are nearly empty, telling potential users to "let go" and accept that they shouldn't want a Reddit-like experience clearly isn't working.

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sanitation @lemmy.today 2w ago

im actually putting my money where my mouth is. credits are not cheap.

You can fight AI all you want, but that ship has sailed. AI is already embedded in search, moderation, coding, translation, recommendation systems, spam detection, and content workflows across the internet.

I'm using it here as a filtering and moderation tool - checking community rules, duplicates, age, relevance, and other criteria before something gets posted. That's almost the opposite of blindly dumping content.

You can dislike AI on principle, but "AI was involved" isn't an argument that the resulting post is bad. Judge the content and whether it follows the community's rules.

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sanitation @lemmy.today 2w ago

But it doesn't have to be either/or. We can have both.

I didn't leave Reddit because every piece of content there suddenly became worthless. I left because of the platform around that content - moderation, censorship, bans, corporate control, and decisions about what you're allowed to see or say.

The same interesting link, meme, news story, or discussion can exist on Lemmy without Reddit's moderation and platform rules attached to it. That's actually part of the value of Lemmy.

And obviously Lemmy should develop its own original content and communities too. Reposting doesn't prevent that. It gives otherwise-empty communities something to discuss while that organic ecosystem develops.

Take the good content, leave Reddit's platform behind, and build original Lemmy content alongside it. Those things aren't mutually exclusive.

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sanitation @lemmy.today 2w ago

I appreciate the explanation, and honestly this "we dont want to be reddit" idea was brought up several times.

But I think there's a fundamental disagreement here: not everyone shares your idea of what Lemmy should be. The existing 35k-ish MAU shouldn't get to permanently define what Lemmy is allowed to become.

If the current philosophy were working, we'd see it in the results. Instead, Lemmy's active user base has largely stagnated, and enormous numbers of communities are empty or get a couple of posts a week. Whatever we're doing now isn't producing meaningful growth.

And "we left Reddit" doesn't necessarily mean "we never want to see anything that appeared on Reddit." I left Reddit too. I wanted an alternative platform, not an alternative universe where interesting links, memes, news and discussions become contaminated because somebody also posted them on Reddit.

If my volume overwhelms New/All, that's completely fair criticism. That's something we can solve with posting limits, better filtering, community subscriptions, blocks, or better tooling.

But "the existing users don't like this, therefore this isn't what the Fediverse is for" becomes circular. The people who don't like the existing culture may simply leave, so naturally the remaining population increasingly reflects that culture.

I'm trying a different approach because I want Lemmy to actually grow beyond its current niche. If most communities are empty and the active-user count isn't meaningfully growing, I don't think we should treat the status quo as proof that we've already figured out what users want.

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sanitation @lemmy.today 2w ago

That's a fair concern. I agree that a wall of obvious bot spam can make a community look more dead.

The problem is the 99% problem: roughly 99% of users aren't creating posts at all, much less original content specifically for Lemmy.

Even Reddit runs heavily on people finding interesting stuff elsewhere and sharing it. That's what I'm automating - curation, not a blind feed. Popularity thresholds, age limits, community rules and content filtering are all applied.

Original content is obviously better. But you need an active community before you can realistically expect enough people to create it.

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sanitation @lemmy.today 2w ago

You're arguing against something I didn't say. I didn't say people only join platforms that already have a fuckton of users. I said people leave or don't stick around when there's not enough content they're interested in.

Those are completely different things.

You can have a smaller community and still have an active, interesting feed. But if someone opens Lemmy, searches for their interests, finds communities with a handful of posts from weeks ago, and goes back to Reddit where those same interests have fresh discussions every day - that's a content problem, not a "must have millions of users" problem.

And yes, I understand federation. Saying "the Fediverse isn't just Lemmy" doesn't change the argument. Federation doesn't magically create posts in an inactive Lemmy community.

People need something to read before most of them will have something to comment on. That's the entire point.

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sanitation @lemmy.today 2w ago

But how do you know the large majority of users rejected it? You're measuring the people who complained, not the thousands of lurkers who never say anything.

The fact that I'm here specifically because I wanted more content is itself evidence that there is demand. I'm obviously not the only person who opens Lemmy, sees a mostly empty community, and wishes there were more things to read and discuss.

And this is exactly why I question who is driving the opposition. Is it actually representative of Lemmy's users? A small but vocal group of existing users? Or potentially people with an interest in keeping Reddit's competitors small?

I'm not claiming I can prove Reddit agents are involved. But when a platform desperately needs content, and the loudest voices consistently attack the people bringing content onto it, I think it's reasonable to at least ask who benefits.

sanitation @lemmy.today 2w ago

But it's not a blind feed sync. That's the important distinction.

There are filters for upvote thresholds, post age, community-specific rules, content requirements, and AI-assisted moderation before anything gets posted.

The end result is essentially the same content I would have selected and posted manually. I've just automated the repetitive work of finding, filtering, checking, and submitting it.

Automation changes the amount of manual effort required, not the intent or selection criteria. in fact lemmy.world specifically has a rule allowing automation.

You can disagree with my thresholds or posting volume, but calling it "syncing two newsfeeds" makes it sound like I'm blindly mirroring Reddit. I'm automating the curation I would otherwise be doing by hand.

sanitation @lemmy.today 2w ago

You WANT to turn lemmy into reddit? Fuck, now I've heard it all. Every comment you make just makes it worse. Everyone here is trying to get away from reddit. Christ.

me too - I hate reddit, been banned so many times. doesnt mean that we should not be able to share content from other networks. we should do it until lemmy can craete own organic content.your response is just pure naivity and ignores hard lemmy MAU numbers

sanitation @lemmy.today 2w ago

I've had posts of mine removed. It happens. Logic dictates that it happens more the more you post.

ive had thousands removed. this is a problem.

And yes, your account is objectively bot operated. You admitted as much. not a bot. real human here. reddit agents ofc would love to keep accusing person of being a bot