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Could something like "consented white hat brigading" help communities grow? (lemm.ee)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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In my experience, once a community reaches certain size, it grows organically. But reaching that cricial mass is hard.

So I thought that a coordinated "consented white hat brigading" might help. What I mean is for a group of users to focus on one or a few communities for a while trying to get them to that point posting and commenting (quality content).

It should be done asking the moderators for permission first. There may be communities that don't want to grow this way.

Disclaimer (because I got a comment in a similar post saying "Give it time"): I'm not trying to rush the growth, IMHO people should post as much as they want and not take it as a chore. I'm thiking of focusing the (natural) activity of those users interested in helping small communities (that want to grow).

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (7 children)

Any growth that isn’t organic isn’t gonna last because it isn’t real. You can artificially inflate your participation statistics with artificial participation, but as soon as that ends, you’re going to return back to your base numbers. It’s extremely unlikely, in my opinion, that what you’re proposing would actually trigger organic growth on its own that would be of any meaningful or lasting quality.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

Of course I could be wrong, but I don't agree.

When people go to a community in which its last post was 2 weeks ago, it's much less likely that they interact with that community (posting or commenting) than if the community has multiple posts per day. And that also affects the possibility that they come back in the next days. If you set the proper environment for enough users to interact and come back then, when the "campaign" ends, the level can be much greater than when it started.

I'm not saying that just posting a lot in a community for a few days guarantees it will grow after that, that's not how communities work. What I'm saying is that it can work with different degrees of success. And, if done properly, it can be fun to try.

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

I’m not saying you shouldn’t try, and maybe I’m wrong. I’ve seen people try this on reddit and have it not work, but maybe lemmy is different. also, perhaps it depends on the community/subject matter itself?

best of luck!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

maybe lemmy is different

My (100% speculative) theory is that lemmy/fediverse is too disperse for its size, a lot of very small communities with the exception of a very small number of successful ones.

If that's the case, this could help with the "nucleation" of mid size communities in the short term.

I also find the experiment interesting and fun by itself. As said in the post, I don't think anyone should post more that they like just for the sake of growth.

Thanks for the feedback!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

I’ve seen people try this on reddit and have it not work

I think you've seen it work, you just didn't know it.

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