So I've switched to lemmy since the reddit meltdown started, experienced quite some withdrawal symptoms, occasionally turned back to reddit, more often logged out than logged in. Now I am merely using Lemmy occasionally and by far not as often as I used reddit before. No more doom scrolling.
So far so good.
Today I went on reddit for the first time in like 3 weeks straight (I couldn't do that for the last years... yeah, I was very addicted in hindsight). I just... I don't know what it is.
Reddit just isn't fun anymore.
I turned away after maybe 5 minutes. There were maybe 2-3 repost-worthy pics, one interesting video and a few small niche discussions that all went straight tits up within a few replies.
If I ask a question on lemmy, it usually is a straightforward, honest discussion. Almost no blaming of the posters or answerers misunderstandings or senseless answers. It goes a bit back and forth usually and people tend to thank each other for corrections.
I can't remember when that happened on a reddit discussion. Maybe years back? Anyway, I'm not going back there anymore, not because I hate the CEO, but because reddit is not fun anymore. Lost all interest in it.
Did anyone of you have a similar experience?
Not OP but the issue isn't creating the space, but creating content in that space. Growing a community is a lot of work. Unless you already have some strong engagement and or a few people creating content it's really just up to you to keep making post until the community gets more traction. Most people like the idea of starting the new community but not the work it requires as it often just feels like yelling into the void.
Community building is more about moderation and evangelism than it is about clicking a button. Its a ton of work. People think a lot of the time you just kinda declare a forum and then it happens. I moderated a community of like 5 people for a while and even just THAT was exhausting and time consuming
I don't think you will need much evangelism unless you are a christian based sub. Agree with all the other points though it's not a if you build it they will come situation.
Evangelism wasn't necessary the right word, but its not a strictly religious word. I wrote it as "recruitment" at first but I hated that more since it made the process of letting people know about your community more mechanical and less personal. I wanted to emphasize letting people know about the community in a relationship building way, and couldnt think of a better word
Just an fyi Webster definition of evangelism: the winning or reawakening of personal commitments to Jesus. The google definition: the spreading of the Christian gospel by public preaching or personal witness.
You might not have meant it like that, but I assume most people will take it at face value of those definitions.
Huh. When I asked for a definition online I got "fervent advocacy of a cause"
Don't worry, Linux evangelism has been a thing for a while, and htere's no gospel there
I mean the organic growth of my book and writing focused instance has been pretty solid. It's not giant, but the people are there. When community discovery is better in lemmy it'll improve as well.
How are you not going to give a shout out to your community?!
Dunno if you're being serious or sarcastic but I have in this thread already, it's literature.cafe for books and writing and lemmyloves.art for more art focused stuff. Both communities have a "411" community that lists communities to federate into other instances. Honestly I am hopeful such a list will become redundant as community navigation improves. We thankfully have a leg on lemmy compared to mastodon as you only need to federate in communities, not users.
I was being serious! I was only responding to messages in the inbox and made the original post before yours so I didn't see it. Sorry to make you repeat yourself.
Oh no it's all good! :) I also have an art focused community that's newer, its lemmyloves.art The growth is steady in each community, but it's definitely there.