this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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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?

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

That's a great idea, I'ma try that from now on.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

Thats how it should be done

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

This is how I attempt to do it. I don't always succeed as I get excited sometimes.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I always downvote links to videos with no text.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

You and me both.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

Be the change you want to see

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

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 [email protected] and made a few posts there, but no one else posted anything, there so it's deserted for now.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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:

  1. Thanking posters who are currently and consistently posting links with additional content/info.
  2. 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
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

We should fire such mods who encourage low effort posts.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Require a description.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The bots can summarize articles too though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They’ve been doing it for years already. There’s bots on Reddit whose purpose is to summarize articles. You can ask off-the-shelf LLMs to have a conversational response to articles today that is indistinguishable from a human response without having a full conversation with the account.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They’ve been doing it for years already

On lemmy? Then show me 3 examples, please. Different subs if possible.

There’s bots on Reddit

I don't care a fly's fart.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

hi I'm just a bystander, but here are a couple Lemmy summarizing bots:

I haven't seen them in action in a while, I think they fell out of popularity.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

How often do you want me to type “I thought this was interesting.”

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Or "I thought you guys might find this interesting"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

"Thoughts?"

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Probably mostly a carryover from Reddit where it's an either one or the other kind of deal.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

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?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

Link preview goes hard

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

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.