Sure. I think there is a name for that specific kind of sockpuppeting but I don’t remember. People do that, comment on their own post and it works. I don’t think it’s bad per se. What works best is replying something outrageous or wrong… Because people like to object and correct people more than they do write positive comments.
In my opinion it needs to be genuine. I’m okay with lots if things if people are interested in an answer. What I don’t like is artificial boosting of engagement or manipulation. If people only do it so the number of comments increases and they aren’t really interested in my answer… It just wastes 10 minutes of my day replying to them instead of helping someone with their computer troubleshooting.
Ultimately, I’m not sure where Lemmy is headed. I had quite some good conversations here. And I had some bad encounters. Overall I think it’s a positive place. I don’t think we have to grow just for the sake of it. But we definitely need more people and more engagement to make some communities useful.
Hmmh. I think ‘link aggregator’ is somewhere in the description. You’re right. My issue is that oftentimes it doesn’t work because it’s just the link and no comment. While hackernews or my favorite tech blog with just their (unfederated) readership has dozens or hundreds of comments to the same thing. And sometimes I ask a question about the news article and don’t get a reply. It often feels like the people posting just dump random news without engaging and the community also just scroll past…
I’d be okay if it were a news feed WITH discussion…
Maybe I’m a bit negative. That’s mainly because I envision Lemmy to be more. And there are news articles that get attention. But I got a bit disappointed with that. In my eyes it’s mainly world politics and negative articles that get people to express their opinion and dissent. Rarely the positive ones. And I need a balance. I’m okay with discussing the wars in the world and the rise of right-wing nuts or useless politicians if I get on the other hand positive news, meaningful discussions about OpenAI’s Sora, computers and societal and technogogical progress. But it’s a bit skewed here, one thing happens, the other one gets 3 comments at best. I understand it, it’s always easier to disagree or talk about emotional topics. And it’s the same on other platforms. But it got me mildly annoyed with people and I restrain myself a bit from being part of that. I’ve lately focused more on talking about my hobbies, answering personal questions and helping people with tech issues. And less politics and news. But that’s just my 2 cents and I don’t want to tell anybody what to do.