Ask Lemmy @lemmy.world Zachariah @lemmy.world 2 mo. ago

How can we encourage to post more than just a link?

I see more and more posts that are just a link to a video, post, or article. There’s no text in the description.

I’d like to see some of the article quoted and/or a brief reason this is currently being posted to Lemmy.

When it’s just a link, the cynical part of me thinks it’s just an SEO bot—especially if the account never posts any comments.

What are some ways to encourage posts that are more engaging?

Or should I just ignore, downvote, and/or block those doing this kind of posting?

28 comments

I think the place for comments is in the comment section. If you post an interesting article but include your own commentary which is stupid or absurd, I don't know whether to upvote or downvote.

My opinion: Post the link, don't editorialize the title, put an excerpt from the article if you want, but don't put your comments in the post itself.
- Thats how it should be done
- This is how I attempt to do it. I don't always succeed as I get excited sometimes.
- That's a great idea, I'ma try that from now on.
I always downvote links to videos with no text.
- You and me both.
Be the change you want to see
It's up to the moderators whether to allow those kinds of posts. Sometimes I'll look at the linked article and post a summary (often just the first sentence after the headline) but I'd rather that the original poster was required to do that. I started !savedyouaclick@lemmy.world and made a few posts there, but no one else posted anything, there so it's deserted for now.
What are some ways to encourage posts that are more engaging?

as a volunteer mod that's guilty of linkposting I'd honestly say there's 2 things that would probably encourage fellow linkers to do more which is:

Thanking posters who are currently and consistently posting links with additional content/info.

Donations

honestly financial support goes a long way for higher quality content, like just look at YouTubers or content creators who have Patreon, Kofi, Liberapay in contrast to those who only have sponsors or aren't paid at all
Some mods throw a hissy fit if you post more than a link and a headline that matches the story’s exactly. Some people want more than a link and a headline. You can’t win.
- We should fire such mods who encourage low effort posts.
Require a description.
I block that kind of posting, a lot of them are bots.

clients like jerboa can block self-announced bots, which takes care of a lot of them, and if you see the same username posting six posts of questionable quality without any context, you can block them too.
These low effort posts could as well be bot posts.

Posters should think about that: nobody can decide if you are human or bot.

If there are actually bots in the race posting "against you", that is, posting links to contrary articles, then the bots are going to win, because they are more and can post more.

Humans should make sure to be recognized as humans.

It is not hard (yet):

Simply add one or two lines that tell us why you have posted this article, what you find remarkable, or what is your own comment.
- The bots can summarize articles too though.
  
  They are not doing that. But maybe next year or so, yes.
  
  And when they start doing that, then it is the next round in this competition.
  
  Then we humans need to write in such a way as the bots would not do it. This will be easy for the first few years.
Probably mostly a carryover from Reddit where it's an either one or the other kind of deal.
- I agree to this. But on the off-chance i want to add more sometimes I'll add a comment in the post. Feels like home, y'know?
How often do you want me to type “I thought this was interesting.”
- How often do you want me to type “I thought this was interesting.”
  
  Then don't type it.
  
  But do type what comes after the "because"!
  
  ( “I thought this was interesting BECAUSE" ) this guy is just so funny
  
  hey, let's talk about it
  
  look, she did it again! LOL
- Or "I thought you guys might find this interesting"
  
  "Thoughts?"
It's a symptom of our modern society and the information age we live in. People don't have the time to sit and enjoy a long video, they need a 5 second one to keep their attention.

This research paper explains it far better than I can.
- Link preview goes hard
That’s what the title is for. This is a link aggregator.

Use a better front end that summarizes content, like Tesseract.

The community it’s in should tell you why it’s posted.

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