Thank you for upgrading! I know these things aren’t easy. Especially for a new(er) platform like Lemmy
Some more notes on what is included in the 0.19 version. Personally, for this instance the ‘rewrite images to use local proxy’ feature for privacy and the scaled sort option for vitalizing smaller communities look especially promising
Just tried it, no change
Is anyone else having issues with the community icons being blurred regardless of the setting to unblur nsfw images?
Traveling through hyperspace ain’t like dusting crops, boy!
Agree on the comments part, if folks would comment more instead of just upvote it would be a huge step forward
I think this is the most important part - “I’m continuing to post what I personally like for myself at various communities”.
I also agree with the downvotes part, to be downvoted for no apparent reason with no comments is probably the hardest part of posting here, it seems so random. Just leave it alone if you don’t like it. It takes time to get a post organized (has it been posted before, is there a better source, should I resize it, does it look good on mobile, has the model been posted recently, etc.) regardless of the community
It’s starting to get tough. I see that across most of the communities except for a select few. A few posters keeping communities alive with mostly just upvotes/downvotes as engagement. It’s a difficult role to have, especially long-term.
The reality is probably that the group that is here right now is probably the group for a while. On one hand, it’s cool that we don’t get instantly downvoted to -1 within seconds, it also means that your posts don’t get upvoted to the thousands or have 100 comments. I personally feel that there is a point of critical mass where this instance just takes off, due to some random event but sometimes I wonder - do I really want that? All those people bring drama, reposts, bots, DMCA, and low-budget content. It does bring OC, creativity, and variety, which is really missing at times.
Anyway, to your question:
I tried a banner contest once, it just sat there with mostly no response - https://lemmynsfw.com/post/1290450
I did a poll once, I got some good feedback using pictures as options - https://lemmynsfw.com/post/887466
I think starting with low effort engagement is a good segue to better engagement. Ask questions, make a poll, make a tournament of pictures, etc. Go back to how large forums used to do it. I also believe that as folks get used to each other it will be come more engaging. It takes time. Also, for your video question, .webp is king at the moment. See here - https://lemmynsfw.com/post/884574
I get it, but I don’t think targeting someone by name in a public post is the right way to address your concerns about it. You could, like, chat with them directly.
I’m on the fence about individual people communities in general, but I could see the idea that we should be seeding content for whenever the next wave of people is also. Either way, it takes a lot of time and effort to contribute all that content.
I think it’s a good solution. To date, I’ve been on the fence about disabling downvotes. I can see the positive impact it’s had for posters who can be more confident that they won’t be downvoted into oblivion by others. But not having downvotes has been hard to get used to, it somehow makes upvotes seem less valuable
Will it be possible to prevent someone from subscribing to a community to downvote and then unsubscribing?