1 yr. ago • 63%

Lemmy is trending toward all links no content

Sorry, no link to some ‘news’ article. /s

I’m a newcomer myself, but it seems my feed is just filled with low-effort news links with no other content. It’s c/mildlyinfuriating at this point. Maybe moderators outside of communities that are specifically for current events could require at least an effort by the op to add some of her own thoughts?

21 comments

Did you expect something else from a link aggregator?

46
- Yes. Reddit would not be what it is were it not for discussion.
  
  6
  
  The discussion is in the comments. It's even a meme that no one reads the article before commenting.
  
  25
  
  The Discussion can still be there? Linking to a content is almost no different than Uploading said content straight to the instance, said content could even be OP's OC but uploaded to their own server for possibly many reasons, including true content ownership or saving the instance the data transfer costs
  
  But this choice in no way stops conversation from happening, if nobody engages with a Linked News Article, the same Article copy pasted straight into the Instance wont get attention either
  
  8
- Permanently Deleted
  
  3
- A LOT of posts, even some with 30 or 50 upvotes have no comments....
  
  Some of the best parts (also the worst parts) of reddit were comment threads.
  
  2
Be the change, post something 🤷.

Everyone complains, but no one does anything about it...

31
- Seriously. I like to see vibrant comment threads so I post on pretty much anything I read. No use in whinging about it, try to build the platform with your own initiative!
  
  10
  
  Yeah, so do I. I sometimes even comment stuff that I know are wrong, just to get a conversation going, lol 😂.
  
  3
Isn't it a link aggregation site? I feel like that's the point...

There are definitely communities that focus on that, though. I know I personally enjoy the local text posts and comment interactions as it reminds me of the good old days of browsing vBulletin forms all day, but lemmy is kind of a different beast in a lot of ways

19
In "link aggregator" you have the word... "link". Also, how about you try to be the change you want to see?

11
- Uh what? I just posted actual original content, that being the change I’d like to see.
  
  Why are people claiming that Lemmy is just a ‘link aggregator’? It doesn’t have to be.
  
  6
  
  If you want more discussion try Tildes.net. I have been using Lemmy for news, Squabbles.io for memes/shitposts, and Tildes for good conversations.
  
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  Permanently Deleted
  
  1
If you want more than just news, https://lemmy.world/post/2216085 I made a list of more casual Lemmy communities.

You're right though - it would be nice to have some discussion based news communities. R/geopolitics used to be very high quality for example

The other comment responses are just lazy, link aggregators do not need to be devoid of worthwhile discussions

9
- Fantastic list, thank you for sharing
  
  2
"Lemmy" != A single instance where all content is the same format and without discussion (federated thinking is almost as hard as having the tools). Also patience, we're on the bleeding edge of something here. Pretend its 2000 again.

6
- Yeah I am referring to my federated feed of multiple communities spread across multiple instances. But whatever.
  
  -3
  
  You need to curate your feed just like on Reddit. It'll take a bit of time but my feed has a ton of lively discussion now.
  
  It might also be worth checking out beehaw - they're not federated with my instance (Lemmy.world) but I think their news communities have a lot of comments.
  
  they're federated with lemm.ee, if you don't wish to sign-up to beehaws closed garden directly.
  
  Also check out that post I linked you :)
  
  5
A large part of the problem here is that people have been trying to artificially grow lemmy posts via bots that repost both articles from reddit, and random news articles from various sites.

4
Repost bots (which repost contents from other sites) might be to blame for a lot of this. Or the fact that, because there are loads of (for example) World News communities, people will post the same links on multiple communities, but most people will only comment on one of the submissions. Which pushes the link-to-comment ratio up.

Beyond that, it really depends on the community I think. I see far more of that when browsing All than when browsing Subscribed.

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Permanently Deleted

3
I tend to agree. To me just a link to an article without any other input is just spam. I don't see the point in just being the comments section for someone else's site and content.

Most people don't seem to agree, but at least for the community I moderate I try to avoid it myself. I won't stop anyone else from doing it though.

3
Try blocking the repost bots. It helps.

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