I read an interesting point which I hadn’t realized before. Discussions on current social media are always current, not long term. You open the app or website to see what’s going on now. When you comment, it’s soon lost to history, buried by newer stuff. If you happen on a post more than a day or two old, it doesn’t make sense to comment as it’s already passed and nobody will read your reply. You’re not building anything of long term value. It was not like this in forums that predated social media. You could reply to a years old thread, and it would be bumped to the head of the queue. I suppose both the form of social media with its feeds and the algorithms designed to hook you and make you come for more are to blame.

How could we make kbin or fediverse in general more purposeful long term and less for instant gratification? Going back to old forum form is probably not the answer, but maybe something between feeds and forums or even something entirely new? With fediverse we have the opportunity to build something better and more useful than what we have now, as we are not bound by the economic imperative to make the users hooked.

  • HandsHurtLoL
    7•1 year ago

    I don’t think my personal motivation is the same as what you describe, but there is a functionality in kbin that may somewhat get at what you’d like in your experience.

    Instead of sorting by hot, top, or new, you can sort by active and see the most recent thread that had a comment added.

    Now, admittedly, it’s not fun if you alone are the only person contributing to older threads, but perhaps you can promote awareness of this feature and start building a community that uses the feature.