Like others, I came over when Reddit was banning 3rd party apps. Many communities were being started and I wanted to help. So I chose one community to form here and try and grow. And we did! There was a time a short while in the little KC Chiefs community was in the top 100 communities on Lemmy world. I knew that wouldn’t last that we would be outpaced by many more broad appeal communities but I didn’t predict the reverse in engagement growth that has come. Stagnation sure, I didn’t think Lemmy was going to surpass reddit for a long while yet, but not the barren communities of today. Meme communities and the “small gripe” adjacent communities are doing fine, but it seems all others have shrunk. I tried to keep the Kerbal Space Program community active for a bit but had to return to the official forums and even subreddit for discussion. The post I made in the Go community here remains the only post in the community.
A platform led by a CEO who edits comments of users, lies about other professionals and then double downs on the lie when proven to be a liar can’t be trusted. And in general I prefer the decentralized open source backbone of Lemmy to the ad ridden, rage bait and bug filled Reddit. I’d love for this to be my full time home for discussing my niche interests but that’s not possible without others engaging with the content.
I posted a lot in the beginning, tried to comment a lot too but now it feels like talking to myself when I make a new post in the community I started and get few or no responses. What can be done? Community specific advice is nice, but I’m looking more for Lemmy World level solutions as I’m sure there’s many many other niche communities I’m not apart of experiencing the same thing.
Unfortunately some niches don’t fit with other, larger communities. Simracing, for example, makes no sense in gaming communities, but also makes no sense in car communities.
I’m spending more and more time back on Reddit because that’s where the community is. Otherwise it’s just empty with the occasional post here.
Do you also enjoy other non-sim racing games? You might post about some of those and then if the opportunity rises also bring up the other simracing games you’re into and direct some folks to a simracing community that way.
It’s roundabout, but I think that’s often how one makes paths to more niche subjects.
I do, but I don’t post about them. I don’t like making posts and try to avoid doing so at all costs.
Other gaming pretty much has nothing in common with Simracing. It doesn’t use any of the same hardware, tends to take a lot of money to get started in and isn’t something for casual players.
I don’t like generic communities overall. I find them boring and tending to lack in creativity. The reason I liked Reddit so much was I didn’t need to interact with other subjects, I could find my niche and stay there without needing to deal with other gaming groups.
Ah, I gotcha. Maybe with some luck someone with your interests that doesn’t mind general communities and posting may help grow a simracing community here.
Tbh I’m a little surprised there aren’t more sim fan communities around here, since it seems to fit some of the demographics of tech-inclined people.