Does it sometimes seem like commenting in high traffic online spaces feels this way too, not just Reddit?
Comment on The level of engagement on Reddit these days
lvxferre@mander.xyz 4 months ago
In addition to factors already mentioned by other users, I believe that there are also social/cultural reasons for that lack of engagement.
Commenting in Reddit is like stepping on a mine field - no matter how innocuous your comments are, you’re bound to have users there assuming words into your mouth to screech at you. Plus all the “ackshyually”, one-upping, “wah TL;DR!” (i.e. “I’m entitled to an abridged version of what you said, even if you likely spent far more time writing your comment than I would reading it”).
Eventually you say “why bother commenting? Just to get a headache?” and stop commenting altogether.
ALostInquirer@lemm.ee 4 months ago
lvxferre@mander.xyz 4 months ago
Kind off. In most high traffic spaces it feels simply pointless; as in, nobody will read it.
In Reddit (and Twitter) however it feels like people will read it, misread it, and punish you for what you didn’t say.
pbjamm@beehaw.org 4 months ago
Before I quit Reddit (when Bacon Reader died) I had already curtailed my commenting because of this. It seemed that any time I tried to make a thoughtful comment on a even slightly contentions subject I ended up in a pointless argument with someone who had poor reading comprehension. It was disheartening to realize that while I was agonizing over every word I put into my comment in an attempt to clearly explain my thought, the same courtesy would not be extended by the people mis-reading it. I started to think people were just scanning comments for keywords to get angry about then telling me that I was ignorant of a subject I knew a great deal about or a reactionary child when I am 50 IRL. Commenting became a burden and it lead to a decline in the quality of conversation as more and more thoughtful commenters found that burden too great.
TachyonTele@lemm.ee 4 months ago
The same thing happens on Lemmy, unfortunately. A lot of people just want to be keyboard warriors.
GrindingGears@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
It’s actually the mods that did it for me. If you don’t have this really weird super specific but vague world view, and you can’t follow 143 different rules (some not specified), then they start censoring you and temp banning your comments and contributions. The mods on my community sub actually permabanned me when I questioned them on it, instead of discussing it. After that I was like this is infuriating, and I don’t really want to participate here. Problem is, they mod anything related to said topic, like city, province, country, most political parties, quite a few special interest topics, etc. Its super weird behaviour.
drwho@beehaw.org 4 months ago
Don’t forget folks aging bot accounts by downvoting everything they see to generate history.
ultratiem@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
I didn’t even know this was a thing lol
Zworf@beehaw.org 4 months ago
Yep this is one of the reasons I kept deleting my account even before the whole spez drama.
TachyonTele@lemm.ee 4 months ago
It’s also filled with repeat comments. Most posts you read a few top comments and their threads. But then it quickly becomes other people just commenting the same exact thing.
It’s just not worth looking at comments there.
ultratiem@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
Don’t even get me started on that. I made a post that blew up (7k upvotes) and literally the entire comments section was the same responses. Out of the 100s that replied, only 10% or less were novel.