I made a post recently, wondering what we could do to get a larger userbase on lemmy. Many people kept saying “why larger? This size is good”, even though I stated my reason for wanting a larger userbase in the OP.
This post, right here, also shows a benefit of having a larger userbase and something I miss from reddit: actual research scientists coming to the comments explaining the paper and whatnot. I think decreasing the distance from research scientists to the general public is a good idea. And I want them on lemmy. I would love for lemmy to be a little bit less memes and a little bit more… Serious.
But a larger community also means people like that conspiracy poster coming here and degrading the quality of the conversation. It’s a double edged sword. I think we should encourage quality user growth over just quantity. Of course, that’s easier said than done. But my point is that growth in and of itself is a poor measure of success: we want growth of competent users.
Of course, I don’t disagree. I just want to encourage us to seek good comments. You could fill the comment section with 100 low quality posts and it wouldn’t meaningfully improve things.
I made a post recently, wondering what we could do to get a larger userbase on lemmy. Many people kept saying “why larger? This size is good”, even though I stated my reason for wanting a larger userbase in the OP.
This post, right here, also shows a benefit of having a larger userbase and something I miss from reddit: actual research scientists coming to the comments explaining the paper and whatnot. I think decreasing the distance from research scientists to the general public is a good idea. And I want them on lemmy. I would love for lemmy to be a little bit less memes and a little bit more… Serious.
But a larger community also means people like that conspiracy poster coming here and degrading the quality of the conversation. It’s a double edged sword. I think we should encourage quality user growth over just quantity. Of course, that’s easier said than done. But my point is that growth in and of itself is a poor measure of success: we want growth of competent users.
Ok, but having more than 3 responders per post in less common communities would be great. Like, not even the writing or art comms get more than that.
Of course, I don’t disagree. I just want to encourage us to seek good comments. You could fill the comment section with 100 low quality posts and it wouldn’t meaningfully improve things.