There are some communities where the vast majority of posts are by on or two users reposting news articles.

Sometimes they’ll summarize below, but they will almost never share their opinions on the article, or even just ask what others may think about in regards to this aspect or that aspect. So the entire feed is just URLs.

I would feel more engaged to comment on those posts, or even start a post in the community, when it doesn’t feel like a bunch of robots reposting the daily slop.

  • edric
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    399 months ago

    Depends on the community. If it’s a news community, then posters should not inject their personal opinions on the post itself and post articles as is. If they have an opinion, then they can add a comment afterwards.

    • Admiral PatrickM
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      9 months ago

      Bingo. We’re better than cable news (or, we should at least try to be lol. It’s not a very high bar).

    • ActualOP
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      19 months ago

      If the community is purely about news, sure. Most aren’t though, and I think in that case, the poster should always be the first ones to strike discussion.

  • @marcos
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    139 months ago

    Well, you can just not follow the communities you don’t like, and let them be.

    I mean, I don’t like that either, but preaching about what people should do is too much.

    • ActualOP
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      29 months ago

      Well, you can just not follow the communities you don’t like, and let them be.

      I’d have to leave basically all of them, lol. I’m arguing against standard practice.

  • @corroded
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    89 months ago

    I disagree. There are some communities I go to specifically for the discussion. If I’m reading news, I want it as un-biased as possible. I don’t care what the OP’s views on the subject are; I just want to know what’s going on in the world. If I’m reading news on Lemmy, it’s because I’d rather see relevant articles here than try to wade through a pile of bullshit on a major news service about what famous person is fucking who.

  • @[email protected]
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    79 months ago

    I disagree. You might as well say you can’t upvote or downvote without posting your opinion. Consider the post an upvote for the article.

    Some people want to post content, some people want to comment, some people want to vote, some people want to lurk, and some people don’t care. Having to publicly state your opinion would create a barrier to posting news articles that would kill the community… There will hardly be anything to comment, vote, or lurk on.

    If you want a community where people post news and their opinions - and have to do both - start one, and unsubscribe from the communities you don’t like.

    • ActualOP
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      09 months ago

      would kill the community

      I’m of the opposite belief. I think some communities stay dead bc there’s just one person constantly posting articles with zero input. I avoid these “zombie” communities. Regular dead communities are more enticing to post in for me.

      start one, and unsubscribe from the communities you don’t like.

      This would create even more fracturing, which is already a big problem here.

      • @[email protected]
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        19 months ago

        If you do end up finding or making a community like the one you want, I suggest you make it so the poster’s opinion is added in comments not in the post itself. Otherwise it becomes impossible to distinguish between votes for the article and votes for the comment. It’s already bad enough that you can’t distinguish between votes for the newsworthiness/quality/source of an article vs the feelings on the content.

        Take this article as a case in point: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/11159076

        What are people downvoting? Is the article not worthy of being news? Is the article from a bad news source? Do people dislike what happened in the case? Or are people downvoting the poster’s commentary?

        In my opinion that article should be sitting at a positive score as news, so it is visible to more people and available for discussion.

  • @JonsJavaM
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    59 months ago

    (looks at [email protected] that I mod) I feel personally attacked…

    Seriously, I get what you’re saying. I do it because I don’t have anything meaningful to say when nobody else is posting, but I want the community to not die.

    • ActualOP
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      -29 months ago

      but I want the community to not die.

      I understand this, but

      I don’t have anything meaningful to say

      Could this not be true for everyone else? Someone needs to start the discussion. Otherwise it will just stay dead. Imo it’s better to either leave it or come up with at least something.

  • @dohpaz42
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    49 months ago

    I mean lemmy is a link aggregator, that also happens to have a forum attached to it.

  • @Zippy
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    29 months ago

    What they should do is post articles then make the most outages claims so that people feel the necessity to comment.

    BTW, Trump deserves to win the presidency. He is by far the most honest.

  • @[email protected]
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    19 months ago

    The articles that they post are so often low quality slop with absolutely no soucing for their outrageous claims.

    • @EdibleFriend
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      69 months ago

      And they give us an article to have a discussion about. They need to feed us talking points as well?

      • @MotoAsh
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        19 months ago

        The article itself always does. Always. Why not let the linker poison the well, too?

        • @EdibleFriend
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          29 months ago

          They always can. I don’t see the point of it being mandatory a person who posts an article give their opinion on it. His complaint seems to be he’s mad that he seen an article without a comment already on it? Basically all articles end up commented on anyways. Why does it need to be mandatory there is at least 1 more?

          • ActualOP
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            -29 months ago

            Basically all articles end up commented on anyways.

            No. Small communities do not get this feature, and it is my belief that they stay small because (a) no one is willing to make the first comment and (b) the feed is just full of new dead posts, or “zombie” posts.

            At least that’s in my case. I get this urked feeling and leave the community whenever the feed feels “zombie”. Not the case when it’s just dead.

            • @EdibleFriend
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              09 months ago

              Why would people be unwilling to make the first post? Never really heard of that before. Also if that’s the case… Why don’t you just make the first post? Be the change you want to see in the world dude.

  • r3df0x ✡️✝☪️
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    19 months ago

    It’s better to share links then it is for everyone to constantly substitute the article with their spin on it. Youtube has turned into thousands of “commentators” summarizing the original article with their personal opinions. One could argue that it amounts to content theft.