Its rhe only thing I wish could change about my experience using Lemmy, for more active users in the communities like NFL or NHL and the affiliated team pages of those sports. I haven’t had any social media in decades, my main source for sporting news breaks up until 1-2 years ago was Reddit.

I love the small community that makes up Lemmy. As someone just posted, it feels like a small town community. I like the absence of corporate shills and ads and bots.

Back when I switched from Reddit to Lemmmy, I made an effort to upvote and comment on the NFL and Buffalo Bills communities. I eventually gave up because it was like months of posting, voting and commenting but when I would go back to check the communities, everything would still be sitting at like 2 up votes and 0 comment replies or if it was my own post, 1 upvote and 0 comments. For a majority of cases. Every once in a blue moon I would come accross a post where another user voted or commented but it was never more than me and one other user.

I know there is a certain demographic that uses Lemmy that is mostly driven by the required IT prowess needed to set up, use and even understand the federated concept. I also recognize that this demographic is traditionally disinterested in sports. Im not complaining about this or the users who are on Lemmy. Im also not wishing for any changes be made to aggressively expand Lemmy’s user base. Its just an impractical wish I have so I could get my sports news from the same source I get all my other news.

I will prolly spend more time this coming year settling on a 2ndary source for sports news from sources similar to sleeper app but it would be so nice if the Lemmy sporting communities blew up so I could keep everything aggregated to one source.

  • madame_gaymes@programming.devEnglish
    1078·
    19 days ago

    You know, Lemmy is powered by the users. The sports community will never grow if no one is here to grow it. Most people that jumped ship to build and grow Lemmy are techies, and likely not interested in sports all that much.

    You just planted the seed, will you also be a watering can?

    • shittydwarf@sh.itjust.works
      342·
      19 days ago

      We are in at the ground level of Lemmy. A lot of people like OP are passive consumers, but now is the time to step up, get out of your comfort zone and start building the communities you want to see. You might have to hustle a little bit

      If you do start up a community you can link it like this:

      !weightroom@sh.itjust.works

      Here’s a totally random community about strength and hypertrophy training for example

      • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
        20·
        19 days ago

        Nah, I’m just gonna do what I’m doing. Commenting on stuff I like or am interested in and that’s it. I’m way too anti-social to do something like building a community.

      • biofaust@lemmy.world
        2·
        18 days ago

        Thanks for that link! I was almost gonna start one myself. Gonna try that one instead, at least for a while.

      • 11111one11111@lemmy.worldOP
        2·
        18 days ago

        We are in at the ground level of Lemmy. A lot of people like OP are passive consumers

        For real? Im replying to almost every comment I get a notification, I made this post, I’ve commented on NFL posts among other comments in non-sports comms. How you guna just blindly call me a passive consumer lol? Not hating just couldn’t believe you coulld draw that conclusion while I felt I was borderline spamming the thread with replies hahah 🍻cheers tho, to your commitment to motivating any and all users to be more active.🍻

        • shittydwarf@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          18 days ago

          Gotta give props to active participation, upvotes, comments are helping too, you’re right. I was just focussed on community building, it might not be as fun but it’s important also

    • Serinus@lemmy.world
      314·
      19 days ago

      This is so dismissive.

      I spent a full year posting to !leagueoflegends@lemmy.world and interaction there is still minimal to dead.

      It’s not really the starting of communities that needs help. We need more people to be the second and third person to join and help communities that someone else is trying to start.

      • Psychadelligoat@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        65·
        19 days ago

        This is so dismissive

        It’s all the complaint deserves

        We need more people to be the second and third person to join and help communities that someone else is trying to start

        Sounds like you need to let your sports-liking associates elsewhere know about the platform to help with your problem, rather than whinge that the already existing userbase doesn’t like what you do

    • lordnikon@lemmy.worldEnglish
      16·
      19 days ago

      This 100%, it’s even harder when someone puts a posting bot in a sub and expects people to show up. The best communities started by someone creating a sub and posting things they found interesting. Treating it like a personal link archive. Then people would add to the discussion after finding you. If you are posting for a few weeks and then just gives up. It just makes the problem worse. Since now people have to sift through a bunch of dead communities on multiple instances all named the same.

      It has to be built organically it’s like people with video channels on YouTube or peer tube. Making your first video and if it doesn’t do well they quit. Most successful creators made tons of videos before they took off. They kept at it because they were making the videos for themselves for just the sake of self expression as their first priority and the views will come.

      • njm1314@lemmy.world
        131·
        19 days ago

        This is kind of a problem in the NFL Community actually. There’s one user, I don’t know if it’s a bot or not, who just shotguns like 10 to 15 post at a time. It washes out any discussion in the entire community.

        • lordnikon@lemmy.worldEnglish
          111·
          19 days ago

          Yep people like that that use bots or worse AI to auto post think they are helping but are just bring the dead internet theory to reality.

        • madame_gaymes@programming.devEnglish
          6·
          19 days ago

          I’ve noticed a couple of users doing this in the Music community recently, as well.

          If it’s a bot, fuck the owner. If it’s a real person, chill the fuck out dude. Don’t bust a nut so quickly, it’ll be more fun that way I swear.

          • 4am@lemm.ee
            5·
            19 days ago

            That pattern is 100% bots getting the posts from an RSS feed and it’s set to only refresh every x hours.

            When it does and it has 15 new stories, it rapidly posts 15 times.

            When those clog up my all feed, instant block. So it’s really having the opposite effect that the bot owner intends.

            The shitty thing is that half the time they’re not even marked as bot accounts.

        • Bubberpillar@lemmy.caEnglish
          3·
          19 days ago

          Well yeah I understand why bots are used for posting to communities, but at the same time it does have this effect of making people tip-toe around and hesitant to post themselves

    • Empricorn@feddit.nlEnglish
      2·
      18 days ago

      Reddit was relatively niche, Lemmy even more so. Who the fuck do you think is gonna be here!?

      • madame_gaymes@programming.devEnglish
        2·
        18 days ago

        Not sure if agreeing with me, but yea that’s pretty much what I was getting at.

        Reddit was niche, but I don’t think so anymore. Fidelity bank, Logitech, Microsoft, and many many more have official accounts and support subs on there, and have for many years.

        • Empricorn@feddit.nlEnglish
          2·
          17 days ago

          Yeah, that’s fair. I think Lemmy will continue to remain niche for the foreseeable future…

          • madame_gaymes@programming.devEnglish
            1·
            17 days ago

            Considering Mastodon has been around for a while, but people still flocked to another corporate-structured platform after Twitter, yea. It probably will never not be niche.

    • 11111one11111@lemmy.worldOP
      43·
      19 days ago

      You just planted the seed, will you also be a watering can?

      Im not implying there is a lack of content just a lack of active users to fuel discussions. I leave a comment on every NFL post that I have some input or opinion on. Like I said to another comment in this thread there seems to either be a bot or a dedicated mod who is periodically supplying content in batches of posts. So maybe once a week or so (maybe once a month in the off seadon) the same user name will make a bunch of posts for all the news for that week.

  • paraphrand@lemmy.worldEnglish
    23·
    19 days ago

    Lemmy is full of a bunch of older neckbeards, based on my observations. (Inclusive of me)

    This is just one narrow view on things, tho.

    • 11111one11111@lemmy.worldOP
      8·
      18 days ago

      Oh shit this reminds me of a discussion I had on here a while ago when I found out there are only 40,000 daily active users on average and realizing that it was less than half of th capacity of highmark stadium. So yeah, Lemmy does have that small town vibe but its more of a small geographic community like, for example, New England or Western New York. I can go to any Bills game with 80,000 other fans and I can take a piss or grab a beer without running into someone I know. Its exactly the same with Lemmy too.

  • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
    3716·
    19 days ago

    And all I want is to never see sports related communities. So I guess I win there…

    Unfortunately I also never want to see anything that mentions anime or manga and in that department it’s serious whackamole for me.

    • 11111one11111@lemmy.worldOP
      1319·
      19 days ago

      So learn how to fuckin filter and subscribe to take control of your feed and go piss and moan in those threads.

      • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
        1413·
        19 days ago

        I can and I do. Its easy enough to block simple angry fuckers like you one at a time. Thanks for volunteering to sit down and shut up in my feed.

        • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          85·
          18 days ago

          As an outsider looking in with only this thread for context. I feel like you’re gazing into the mirror a bit there and also need to chill.

          • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
            312·
            18 days ago

            Whatever you say man :).

            I don’t do “turn the other cheek” on the internet, but you can if you like. I prefer to deliver a pique and block; it doesn’t raise my blood pressure any, but hopefully there’s a lingering rankle for anyone who doesn’t have anything nice to say and can’t keep their emotions in check. A little sprinkle of sand in the old underoos if you will.

  • Etterra@discuss.onlineEnglish
    194·
    18 days ago

    Dude. Sports is literally everywhere. It doesn’t need to reach its greedy tendrils into yet another corner of society.

  • NOT_RICK@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    19 days ago

    Yeah, I try to engage on the sports posts because there isn’t much going on in these comms. But I’m hopeful we can get some growth eventually

    • atro_city@fedia.io
      2·
      19 days ago

      Maybe making a sports related instance could help with making it more attractive to the fans. Or ask your favorite sports team to create an instance forum.sparta.cz or something and it’s a lemmy instance.

      • NOT_RICK@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        19 days ago

        There’s fanaticus.social already; it’s just not heavily used because nerds generally aren’t huge sports fans.

  • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
    131·
    19 days ago

    As a sports fan (NHL, NFL, NBA, ATP) I feel lucky to have a bunch of sports fan coworkers. We talk sports and joke around at work all day.

    I do wish the sports communities on lemmy were more active. It seems like lemmy’s left-wing community does not have very many sports fans.

    • Jankatarch@lemmy.world
      2·
      18 days ago

      Leftists usually love sports for supporting other cultures but hate commercial teams and sponsorhips. Enes Kanter was banned from NBA for talking about human rights as example.

      Also most sports fans on lemmy are into computers too since it takes some messing around to setup so that might be why those communities are always big.

      I am heavily into Atli Cirit and archery, martial arts look fun to watch too. But why would I search for those communities when I know there is a huge programming community that I can simply join.

      • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world
        41·
        18 days ago

        It’s just been my experience that a lot of athletes and a lot of sports fans tend to be more right wing and that a lot of leftists don’t like sports at all, even when there are no pro teams involved (pickup leagues etc).

        • the_riviera_kid@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          18 days ago

          Personally I have no love for sports but my partner does we are both quite far left so I don’t think that really has anything to do with it.

  • Stovetop@lemmy.world
    175·
    19 days ago

    Lemmy is also primarily used by super nerds who don’t care about sportsball. Not enough normies here compared to Reddit.

    • 11111one11111@lemmy.worldOP
      48·
      19 days ago

      Which is what I find odd because every gamer and nerd I know is also interested in sports or at the very least interested in fantasy sports leagues. Might just be my area tho where the whole community and all walks of life get together to watch the Bills and Sabres play.

  • One of Many@lemmy.world
    197·
    18 days ago

    “I like the absence of corporate shills and ads.” Also, why doesn’t anyone talk about sports teams owned by billionaires and corporations?

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
    12·
    19 days ago

    I like to pretend that all the Lemmy communities have a unique participants but in really it is just the same people on the same few communities.

    I also feel like we need some Lemmy specific lingo. Reddit has subs I wonder what Lemmy has. Communities is just to long to type out.

  • andyburke@fedia.io
    155·
    19 days ago

    Does anyone else feel like these national leagues have become just as disconnected from reality as any other hyper capitalist enterprise?

    I want more hometown sports. I daydream about leagues funded by local communities, starring local talent, with smaller local crowds. Is there anyone else out there who would give much more of a shit if things were a little more close to home, reality-wise? Am I alone?

    Guys getting paid literally hundreds of millions to play a sport is unrelatable. A local star making $300k and being a part of the community feels better to me. Seems like we should be able to afford a lot of those for the money we are spending.

    I know next to nothing about sports or the business around them, but I know I remember summer nights with cheap hotdogs and minor league ball that seem to have evaporated as the wealthy accumulated. 🤷‍♂️

    • GoodLuckToFriends@lemmy.todayEnglish
      21·
      18 days ago

      I want more hometown sports. I daydream about leagues funded by local communities, starring local talent, with smaller local crowds.

      With pros, it’s just whichever fucker can get paid enough to bring them here. I don’t give a shit about their playing. I only watch because it’s someone I know, so I can go congratulate them later. Otherwise, I’d much rather be playing the damn game. The highest I’ll go is high school level sports. Those kids are still a part of my community. I know their parents, I probably know them.

      Maybe, maaaaaybe, I’d watch other local adults play, but only if they’re my friends. It would be much better to just have more participation in adult leagues within the community. I’d play a thousand times against others in my area, getting my ass kicked if the good fellas join together, before I’d watch a game with people I don’t know.

    • 11111one11111@lemmy.worldOP
      22·
      19 days ago

      The western new york community is just a large scale hometown community. Prolly where Buffalo got the name city of neighbors. I get what you are saying but I dont watch many national sports coverage media, im just looking for a source for news breaks from people like Rappaport, amd Schefter. As for publications i generally stick to The Athletic and our local WGR550. Im definitely not interested in watching any of the ESPN shows for the same reasons I bathing you outlined.

  • edric@lemm.ee
    111·
    19 days ago

    Thankfully our !nba@lemmy.world community is semi-active. Obviously not as much as r/nba, but we do have active mods and game day threads.