I’ve noticed a pattern where once a subreddit or Lemmy community reaches a certain size, the front page becomes mostly memes, recycled jokes, and lowest common denominator content. Genuine discussion gets pushed out unless the community is extremely strictly moderated for it.
What do you think causes this shift? Is it inevitable with the upvote/downvote system rewarding quick, agreeable content over nuanced takes? Or are there platforms or moderation approaches that successfully scale discussion without turning into an echo chamber?
I’ve been pleasantly surprised with Lemmy, honestly. We make jokes and share the occasional funny picture in the comments, but it’s never really been the focus of the content.
I’m the main poster, though not a mod, for SuperbOwl and we’ve grown well without watering down the content. I try to stick to mostly educational, yet fun things, but I summarized a research paper this week on how levels of street traffic affects the hunting success rate of nocturnal owls. It was a pretty big hit, better than some pic only posts.
Maybe if the captivating content is keeping up with the volume of users, it’s less of an issue of conversation deteriorating. I’m still at a point I have a big audience but can keep up talking with everyone. If it got to a point where I couldn’t, I imagine it may be like any other group gathering where someone will inevitably try to fill any awkward silence with whatever and that could detail the previous flow of sticking to the real topic of the community.
I don’t know if that’s helpful to anyone whose community may have already passed that point, but we haven’t had to take any mod action or try to force anyone to do anything. I just feel we’re pretty good example of how popularity doesn’t need to mean sinking to the lowest common denominator.