Ask Lemmy

I'd say there is a handful of most active users, and plenty of those who chime in to say something once in a while.

With such a user pool you'd think I'd make someone laugh

I try and post, but I feel like I'm always slow to the uptake and people already say the things I have to say. But I do make sure I vote as much as I can.

I disagree, you just notice them more

Reddit was much larger, but it was the same and noticeable when you were active enough.

My rule of thumb was, if 100 people see a post, 10% vote on it, 1% comment on it.

There's also the fact that most active users that also comment regularly, don't browse the hot page but catch the posts earlier. So there will always be names that show up more often than others, that have already said what's going to be said.

On Lemmy there's a lot of instances that are kind of radical and have a vast interest in spreading their radical ideology in other instances, so they'll show up as well on a regular depending on the topic.

I gotta admit that I didn't start noticing regular users yet, only the trolls that I tag.

I notice a lot of the same people in most of the popular posts. I guess it's because the quantity of people that usually comment vs voting or just reading post is pretty low, so you'll start to recognize them everywhere

It makes me wonder if people recognize me from other posts I comment on!

Am I lemmy famous yet?

Am I the only one who absolutely despises people asking "Am I the only one who..." about anything? God it's always something mundane that any idiot could dream up too. There are 8 billion people currently on the planet and who knows how many before us. No, whatever it is, no matter what, you are not the only one who anything. Ever.

everyone reading this should introduce lemmy to at least 1 cool person in their life. thats what it needs.

I comment a lot more often than I post. Tho I don't know if people recognize me, since I'm more active on the ich_iel side of Lemmy.

No.

No but I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Most people are probably pretty passive, so yeah, I think there's a subset of posters who are highly visible. But even over at Hacker News, where there's a much larger audience commenting, I recognize specific names because something they said in the past got my attention and I start piecing together their personality a bit at a time.

Yep, maybe it would benefit from more advertisement but I decided to not recommend it until I experience it for some time. It took me a week or two to realize that I don't like moderation at lemmy-world for example, I would definitely recommend choosing other instances, and then, it takes time to figure out which ones are worth recommending. Some are extremist far-left/far-right, some are at risk of shutting down if admin gets bored and decides to stop paying for hosting from his personal money.

For me, the difference to reddit is less the participation/diversity in individual discussions. Rather, that lively debates only happen in some prominent subs. That is the one thing I miss here when comparing lemmy to reddit. On reddit, you can look for some niche hobby or some random computer game and chances are that you'll find an active community.