Hello,
As everybody knows, content discovery on Lemmy can sometimes be a bit tricky.
To help smaller communities to get more activity, I launch this thread for people to promote the communities they are active one.
One important criteria: please only promote communities that have been at least one post in the last 7 days. And if there is none, feel free to post there and then promote it here!
It’s fun to get a deeper dive into things more than just basic facts.
The lead scientist that discovered owls can hunt using only their ears later went on to do more groundbreaking research on whale communication. It was interesting to learn about the test enclosures and the methods used to see how much vision vs hearing played into hunting. There were also some great stories about how training owls is as much fun as training cats.
I’ve also read some papers on how other birds of prey hunt. They analyzed different vectors of attack and studied where the birds focus their eyes when they are attacking.
Just lots of insights on anatomy and behavior in general like how they time extending their talons and the orientations of the toes to maximize catching prey.
Even egg laying and hatching or growing feathers are all complex and amazing processes, and it’s a miracle all these things evolved to work the way they do.
The amount I’ve learned about owls this past year is crazy, and I still come upon new things all the time.
I’m a bunny person, not an owl person, but from your comment owls suddenly sound much more interesting… thanks for sharing!
I also realize I anticipate expending mental energy for clicking and reading a scientific article, but just reading your comment wasn’t intimidating at all and was neatly incorporated into my day as “just wasting time online” except, you know, actually learning about something. Even if it’s not that applicable to my not-a-birdwatcher life. Just realized this is how certain YouTube channels get big, by presenting interesting information in a more accessible way. Or a more entertaining way. Wondering if I can hack this to my advantage somehow so I learn more instead of wasting time online lol.
I really got started here by posting the few owl pics from my travels that I had, but that wasn’t too many. I didn’t want to let the community die down again though.
A lot of my interactions with owl have been by visiting wildlife rehabbers, as owls are typically very illegal to own or display without proper licensing. I wanted everyone else to have a chance to see an owl, so each day I looked at the licensing information for each state and found a rehabber to highlight, one open to the public at least a few days a year if possible, and featured one of their rescues that people could go see. I had a few people that had visited some of these places chime in, and a few learned there was a place near them where they could actually see an owl, and one person even signed up to work as a volunteer at one of the places I showed them.
That all got me a lot of sources to pull new info from. They all share great photos, rescue stories, medical and rehab procedures, near behavioral stories, and so on. Whenever I learned something, I just shared it with the group. It made me curious about new things, so I went and read up on them. People asked questions in the comments, and I needed to learn answers to not leave them hanging. That got me curious about even more technical things, so I got into the scientific research papers.
I’ve heard before that if you want to become an expert in something, just go around acting like you’re the expert. People will come to you with things and you’re going to want to answer them so you don’t look like some dope. But then after you answer them, that knowledge is yours forever. After more and more rounds of this, it starts to be more than an act.
It helps that I love reading and research and that I value teaching. Knowledge is one of the most important things anyone can be given, so I’ve worked hard to learn how to explain things and to not make other people feel dumb for not knowing things. As I make myself smarter, that opens the door for me to pass new knowledge down as I become able to explain it to my audience. The primary audience for my stuff is me. No one pays me to do this, so I’m not burning myself out learning whatever. I learn what I want to learn, and as it amazes me, I share with you all, so I could do this forever.
It’s fun for me, and I want it to be fun for you all. I try to make it so you can just look at pictures and be happy, or you can go to these places in person, you can sponsor your local rescue, or you can learn so many facts you want to be a volunteer or researcher or rehabber yourself. We all start somewhere. A few years ago, I never paid owls much mind. Now I know all kinds of anatomy and body functions and find them to be absolutely fascinating and diverse animals. We all just need that spark of curiosity.
Here is a free research paper PDF I found you may like.
It focuses on pet rabbits specifically. I wanted this one I saw on how interacting with owners affects rabbit welfare, but I couldn’t find a free copy. This one though has handling instructions, dietary guidance, medical examinations, anatomy, medical conditions, and housing requirements. There are technical terms, but the simplest way to approach it is to read a paragraph or section, google the terms you dont know, and then make a post explaining what you read while pretending you’re teaching it to some junior high kids. If you can do that, you have a good post that should teach people something new and interesting, because you found it new and interesting, and it’s something they probably don’t know because you didn’t know it, and you’ve spent more time on rabbits than most people will have spent on them. By aiming at a junior high-ish level, you’re speaking them them pretty much as you would to an adult, but being mindful to not use all these big words you just learned without explaining them. If you write stuff they don’t understand, they won’t read it. But if you share your delight at learning new things, they will catch that excitement too. Not always, but enough.
The end of research papers always site sources as well. This one has over 40 references, and you can google them and some you will find free to read. Keep following the references and you’ll never run out of content.
That’s my process that works for me. If you like it, steal the whole thing or any parts you think would be helpful. Everyone should always be learning, no matter what subject, and I like encouraging that.
This is too long so I’m stopping now. 😅
I’m always around, or check in on [email protected] where other creators hang out and discuss growing Lemmy and our communities for advice.
Do not feel bad about writing a lot. I love reading enthusiastic paragraphs about something I also find interesting. It is why I am here on Lemmy/Kbin instead of Mastodon.
I need to read that linked PDF. I also need to reread this one.
Favorite sentence in an academic paper.
I am on Fedigrow! Waiting for some more otome game news to come out so I can post it on [email protected], and frantically trying to complete some life tasks so I can go play some otome games and make a post myself about my thoughts on one. We originally had some people on [email protected] at kbin.social which died and left me, a non-mod, the only one posting, and then I found out that kbin.social was having issues to the point a lot of the posts I was making were not even making it to kbin.social. So I started over and definitely need to generate content.
I am curious if you know about personal knowledge management ([email protected]) or digital gardens ([email protected]). I think you might be interested in both of those things, even if their Fediverse communities are not that active. I want to find posts to make them active.
Your document had a lot of great stuff in it I didn’t know!
That’s a lot of buns!
Moth pupae seems oddly specific. I wonder what are the circumstances for them eating bugs or carrion.
I had a rabbit once, and it did make a lot of those things. I never thought anyone would have to sit there and chart them, but I suppose that’s important to know for someone. The lab intern must have gotten that responsibility…
I don’t know much about otome games beyond the basics of what they are. All the kbin links just took me to error pages, but they do look to have crossed over to Beehaw. Reading some of these plot points with no context can be very interesting though! 😆
I’ll have to check out those other communities you’ve mentioned. I do end up with other things to talk about and don’t always know where to take those conversations.
I debate if I should post other, non-owl stuff under a different name, as I somewhat feel I don’t want to risk compromising the group if people don’t like other things I talk about, but that gets to be too much like this being a job, and I don’t think I’d like that. That’s also why I don’t just mod my own sub. I didn’t come here to work, I came here to nerd out.
I feel if it’s hot button issues like politics you might want to do a separation, but you’re otherwise good. Most people aren’t going to look at your other posts at all, just engage with you on the post you made and move on. However, there are people who, when arguing with someone else, often check the profile (sometimes a valid move: “this person seems to be using a dogwhistle, is it an overall innocent person using it because dogwhistles are designed to go over peoples’ heads and they don’t realize what they are saying, or are they subbed to [email protected]?” sometimes not a valid move, just someone looking to get nasty and personal and cast any aspersions possible regardless of how true they are).
I have several Fediverse accounts for different aspects of my life but it is because I just feel better and more anonymous that way. There are way fewer people into, say, the exact same combination of 10 interests than people who are into the same 2 interests. This is my gaming and animal account. I care about more things than that and it might bleed through in my posts (e.g. me knowing about PKMS and digital gardens) but at least it takes more effort to find that. More effort to cross-reference posts and figure out Elevator7009 is also ElevatorsAltAccount is also ElevatorsAltAccount2, and ElevatorsAltAccount2 says this personal anecdote happened to her which sounds just like the anecdote Jane from accounting, who is into the same things Elevator7009 and their alt accounts post about, told me yesterday… Yes, I’m a little nobody unlikely to get a weird stalker. I may have seen someone a little higher profile than me get doxxed with something like this as part of the method though, and sadly regular human nobodies also sometimes have to file harassment and stalking lawsuits, so… I am a bit paranoid.
What other things do you want to talk about? I may know some communities.
The plots can definitely be pretty wild and dramatic. Even Hatoful Boyfriend, a sort of satire/parody of the genre, gets that way. Although like any genre of fiction, we do have our subtropes/subgenres, we have our screwed up dark dramas and our lighthearted romps. If I recall correctly though, the darker stuff tends to get localized from Japan more often… I prefer more lighthearted stuff and often the OELVN (original English language visual novel) otome appeal to me more conceptually or through the personality of the main character, but I usually prefer the Japanese art even though most people making an otome, even in English, draw anime. Probably has to do with the Japanese ports having commercial artists and the English visual novels having indie devs and artists.
I also just came here to have fun. I feel because of the lack of algorithms pushing controversial content and engagement in general, I am actually enjoying my time here more than on any other social media besides Discord.
Oh goodness error pages I am so sorry. I heard we were having federation issues a bit earlier and I hope this gets resolved, I want to keep this community on kbin.run and make Kbin viable, keep the Fediverse diverse, instead of just shifting to Lemmy… Might need to go to Lemmy and check what things look like from that end.
I do comment on the politics threads a bit, but I try to limit it to providing sources of facts with a taste of opinion mixed in. I feel like I agree with even less of the Lemmy politics than with Reddit, so I’ll skim way more posts than I’ll interact with. Also, even with the owl stuff, there’s political crossover, where I get a bit angrier about loopholes in laws that destroy ecosystems and inaction to saving endangered animals.
I’m a huge profile stalker! 😁 If it’s someone being potentially trolly, I’ll see if I want to respond to what they’re saying if they may just be uninformed. If it’s someone I like, I get curious what other things they’re interested in. I search for mentions of my sub and see who’s talking about it. I check on people that stopped commenting regularly just to see if they’re still on here. There’s just too much data to not poke through it.
I ended up getting in a weird nerdy discussion about slasher movie lore yesterday that ended up being a lot of fun. I like browsing All for things like that.
OMG I just read the plotline from Hatoful Boyfriend. That is crazy, especially the BBL part! From the description of the gameplay, it reminds me of the Persona series, just without the dungeon battles.
My only knowledge of otome is seeing it referenced in anime. My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! is the only one I’ve watched and read the manga, and I’ve seen the male dating sims referenced in other ones. I never knew the plotlines really went that deep though.
That kind of politics is very likely to be nearly universally agreed with on an owl community… at least I think, so you’re probably safe.
I usually won’t stalk profiles, I really only do to check “are you for real or are you just trolling”, and now what with the Fediverse being a new thing I’ll sometimes check on people to see if they stopped commenting too.
I’m a bit oversensitive and politics gets a lot of engagement, naturally, and there are so many politics magazines or magazines that aren’t strictly politics but will post a political meme or about where inflammatory politics intersects with their usually non-political point of interest, and that’s so so so many to filter out that I just don’t trust I can look at All on my instance without seeing something enraging or “look how awful the world is today!” when I already know about that thing and don’t want to spend my time getting worked up over it yet again. I know it means I lose out on fun interactions like the ones you have, though, and that’s a tradeoff I take, especially since I supplement by subbing to [email protected], and either that or Fedigrow has the active communities thread. I also used https://sub.rehab/ when first coming here from Reddit to replace all the subreddits I enjoyed, so I tried to hit all my interests I would be remotely interested in talking about online.
Yeah, given the games are visual novels and usually don’t have much gameplay besides that (there are stat raisers like the Tokimeki Memorial series, I’m not really personally interested in Anchored Hearts but am aware of it because it is supposed to have some gameplay beyond just usual visual novel making choices, Boyfriend Dungeon is hack-and-slash) they put a lot into story or characters in order to keep it engaging. As someone who started with more traditional gaming before I found otome games, I would love to see more otome that also includes more traditional gaming. Some of the otome isekai genre things I consumed (more detailed explanation of what otome isekai is here, but in short the name should tell it all: girl/woman isekais into an otome game) feature otome that also is a real RPG with levels and everything (off the top of my head, Villainess Level 99: I May Be the Hidden Boss but I’m Not the Demon Lord, Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte, definitely have the game in the story be an RPG otome, and I don’t recall what kind of genre The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess to Savior was but the title should tell you it definitely wasn’t just a visual novel) which, if it isn’t another misunderstanding of otome or artistic license being taken, implies that such games exist in Japan and just went unlocalized. But most otome are just straight up visual novels, so you have to sell them to us on the story, characters, and art only. Sometimes the music is really cool, but you don’t really sell an otome on its music. Even if it’s Band Camp Boyfriend. It’s pretty cool. I’ve seen that some men play otome for the story and/or the romance and I definitely welcome that and them.
Curious what anime you like, and if you’ve joined any anime communities on the Fediverse. Or on Mastodon. Thinking of finally trying Mastodon after a year being on Lemmy and Kbin only. (I know my account age has me starting in September, but I instance-hopped.) I think I remember people on Fedigrow talking about anime communities they set up.
I have a multi-community set up with a few of the anime communities since they were a little sparse until recently. I don’t comment too much there, as there I’m mostly a couple seasons behind and don’t want spoilers, I mainly go to see series announcements.
I have a pretty wide range of shows I watch. I’m watching Frieren right now. Recently finished up with Ancient Magus Bride. Steins’ Gate might be my favorite more serious series, and Gintama is probably my favorite comedy. I haven’t watched much romance, but I really loved Fruits Basket and I recently read Insomniacs After School. Summertime Render was a good supernatural thriller. Golden Kamuy was a great historical fiction. Spy x Family has been very enjoyable, and I’m really enjoying the current arc in the manga about the lost love story between the school teachers at the beginning days of the war. I like the cute girls doing cute stuff stories like Yuru Camp, Super Cub, and Dairy of Our Days at the Breakwater.
I’ll have to check out some of your recommendations, even if only to get a better idea of otome. Romancing men is not of particular interest, but you’ve got me intrigued on these storylines now. I do like the social interaction and relationship building parts of Persona more than most of the dungeon crawling, so it may be interesting to me to watch one of the series you mentioned.
This is the stuff I come here for. There’s a lot of crap to wade through, even as small as Lemmy still is, but I like how someone like you has the space here to grab my intention and spread your enthusiasm for something I thought was definitely not for me. I know people have said similar to me too when I share things. I never intended to be a regular poster here, but it’s much more early internet community here where we can get to know each other better than on something huge like Reddit.
I am tempted by kbin and mastodon, as I’d like to be able to follow people too. I’d definitely follow you and a few of my regular commenters. The Fediverse has its own issues, but I think it’s the best thing we’ve got right now.