Are some questions here just to simulate activity?
Sometimes I can't tell whether a question here is genuine and the author is interested in the answers, or whether they just copy-paste something to keep people busy. How am I supposed to approach that?
Hey Hendrik thanks for your comments! I like to make lemmy a nice place to hang out so I start threads. If you look at my post and comment history I do it a lot (I also have lazysoci.al and lemmyworld accounts). For this community I have a list of questions I add questions to when I think of them, the odd one I've got off reddit but I've NEVER copied one off lemmy for obvious reasons. I usually answer in comments but if I'm short of time I don't.
Thanks, I know. I replied above
I have a policy that I tend to follow. Mind you, it's policy, not dogma, there's exceptions and I'm not obligated to do shit.
But I come at every question with a few things in mind, if I intend to answer.
The one that's relevant here is that it doesn't matter if OP is trolling, reposting, posting bot generated questions, or is a bot themselves. Very little matters beyond whether or not I can say something.
Doesn't have to be useful, though I hope it would rise to entertaining or humorous.
Why? Because fuck OP. It ain't about them. It's about the community. OP could be an llm bot, but other humans are scrolling by. Maybe one of those gets a laugh, or finds something helpful, or whatever.
If OP happens to be a human asking a real question, even better! But it isn't necessary to be a contribution to the community.
There's trolls on lemmy that are known to fuck around, and I'll still respond to their posts if there's a point. Who cares if they're seeking some specific response or whatever? I don't, I care about spending some time writing stuff and reading stuff.
I'm fine with posts that are "busy work". The comment section is where all of the threadiverse really shines anyway. Same as reddit used to be. So the post is there to drive community activity, that's a good thing.
Now fakey comments, that's where shit can just go away.
Maybe we come from different corners of the internet. I'm used to help people with their Linux questions and I take 15mins out of my day to write a helpful answer, and that adds up. And my wasted time is taken away from people with genuine questions.
I also like to discuss politics or random stuff. But I kind of do that because I'm interested and want to engage in a discussion with some substance to it, whatever that is. I want some human at the other end and hear their perspective. Not type something into the void. But I get you. Sometimes it works and other people come. Sometimes they don't. I just wish there was an obvious way to tell so I could balance that and not feel like I waste a good chunk of the time and all it's good for is some AI scrapers or some number.
I see where you come from, but this community is quite generic, it's not supposed to take people a lot of expertise and time to answer. "What's the best unexpected gift you ever got?" is quite open and fast to answer.
I would definitely agree for support communities, the issue has been raised recently: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/19646137
Answer what you want; ignore what you want. I don’t bother worrying about people’s motivation for asking a question. I’m just grateful to have something to do when I’m bored. Like now.
What are your hobbies?
I was at work, and bored. By the time I saw your question, I was back home and not bored anymore. Thanks, though!
i would say to sTimulate activity and it works nicely!
...
Block the user and move on with your day?
I thought about that, too. But it'd remove dozens of posts each day in various communities. Some of them good, with lots of genuine discussion underneath. I'd rather not lose that. And I'm not even sure if I'm right with my take on it.
This is some meta shit right here
It'd be really meta if I had posted this to bait people into engagement... But I don't think I did. I'd like to know, so it's just meta on one level. 😅
I was always under the impression that people made those posts because they wanted to announce to the world what they think the best of whatever thing it was, is, and why their opinion of said thing is the most correct. And that they didn’t really care what other people wrote after that in the comments. But that could just be my cynicism.
Obviously to stimulate activity. Not a fan of it, but it works.
Nice new avatar
Thanks
Uhm, maybe my phrasing wasn't the best. I meant how do I deal with that?
I've left other places on the internet because I don't like bots and fabricated engagement. So sometimes I struggle here a bit as well. (In various communities and for different reasons.) I'd rather have genuine conversations with people who asked a question because they'd like to read my answer. Or if I can help them or contribute something... I'm not really sure if this is what we do here or not.
even if the person who posted the starter thread isn't interested you can be assured that others opening the thread are at least a bit interested.
There are two main posters on this community.
@ladybutterfly@piefed.blahaj.zone usually answers in the comments, so I'm not sure why you have doubts about her being genuine
For @cm0002@lemmy.world , they usually show in the OP if the question is a repost from another ask community.
Does this help?
Beyond simple proofreading and making sure you’ve expressed yourself clearly, you deal with it by not dealing with it. You can’t please everyone. Plus, some people have poor reading comprehension, some people are looking for any reason to start an argument, etc.
Don’t drive yourself crazy by worrying about “perfect” phrasing. There’s no such thing, and even if there is, somebody somewhere would be happy to pick it apart anyway.
You can only control your message. You can’t control how it will be received.