cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/58189605
What it looks like:
Here's an example of such a post: https://sh.itjust.works/post/58082125
They uploaded an image and then included a URL as the body/text.
On Lemmy, it looks like an image post, with a small expando to the right of the title that you can click to show the body:
Why you should stop doing it:
- It makes high-quality posts look the same as low-quality ones.
I automatically downvote most image/meme submissions and posts with bad/non-descriptive titles for quality control. Linking directly to a source is how you make a high-quality submission. You can include screenshots or quotes in the body of the post.
I could start clicking the expando next to the title to check if a source was provided, but there's going to be a user option to block image posts in the next lemmy update (v0.20), so that format is not good since lots of people will start to automatically block them.
You can put images in the body of the posts.
Why should anyone care?
Low-quality, easy-to-digest content will dominate and drown out everything else if no one does anything to limit it. It degrades the internet and our brains.
A blog that elaborates:
The Cargo Cult of The Ennui Engine https://medium.com/@max.p.schlienger/the-cargo-cult-of-the-ennui-engine-890c541cebcb
I tend to feel the reverse. IME, high-quality links and original posts routinely underperform without the hook of a good image, and there's no reason why you can't provide a good title, as well.
An image can help sell / explain the concept, so I usually put some care in to choosing and sharing an appropriate image. That doesn't necessarily have anything to do with low-effort, low-quality images and posts, which seem kind of self-explanatory.
They do, you're right. But I think that is something we should try to resist. We should encourage people to put back some values into 'mere' words. Not suggesting images are bad, bu they're only one leg, the other being words. And it's not just a personal feeling that words are being... neglected, for images.
The same with YT and TikTok: I see a lot of people that won't read a book when asked to, they will watch someone talk about the book, making a summary and some comment about it. One can replace 'book' with any other type of content that require some reading. That video maybe excellent and fascinating in itself it still is not the actual book. Reading matters. Or it should.
The problem for me is woulda-coulda-shoulda. I'd love for human habits and human behavior to be tweaked and improved in certain ways, but reality is reality, sadly or not.
I always lead with a good image as a hook, then usually include a mini-article in the post. That is what typically gets the most votes and engagement. I say that as someone who's created well over 300 posts across 2.5yrs on the Fediverse, and then a bunch of earlier ones on Reddit.
meaning there is no way trying? That's not what I want to think. Because if that was so, there would be no way to try to correct what is not going fine, ever.
I don't care much about votes. And I say that as someone who doesn't post much put comment a lot more ;)
Meaning experimentation upon that kinda thing is what I've already done across many years and hundreds of posts. After awhile, I more or less settled in to what works best. YMMV, of course.
I care about them as a rough counter upon what various audiences like and don't like, which has helped me a lot over the years.
Ok, keep doing that, but your posts are going to start getting blocked by people who don't want to see low-quality content.
That sounds like you didn't even read the OP.
I don't think so, and I don't do low-effort posts.
Most posts I make are handmade mini-articles about subjects I find interesting, and want to share about. Feel free to catch my post history if you're confused about that.
That's not what I said. You seem to be having some trouble understanding what's being discussed.
You're catering to people scrolling through Lemmy, looking at images. If you keep doing that, your posts are going to get automatically blocked by people who want to avoid meme content.
That's not at all what I'm doing or saying, but you seem to have a fixation upon all that, so good luck to you.
If you browse the fediverse with inline images disabled, you will be unaffected by the addition of an image to a post.
That's not correct. You seem to have not read the OP.
I have actually implemented this on my personal instance, I don't know exactly how this will look on lemmy, but you can see what I've done here:
https://scrapetacular.ydns.eu/latest
What do you think of it? A post of the type that JohnnyEnzyme describes would look like a text post, with an image url in the list of links at the top.
I have also replaced inline images in comments with a link plus the alt text.
Replacing images with URLs makes viewing images slightly more difficult and doesn't allow people to scroll endlessly through lots of images, so it could be a nudge in the right direction. But it's probably inappropriate for most instances since it applies to all subs and basically ruins any sub where images are the main attraction.
Depends on the sub, the cooking subs are image based, but tend to have titles like:
"Homemade jumbo crumpet with baked strawberries topped with mascarpone" https://media.piefed.social/posts/R9/I8/R9I8hg1C1D7qWrO.jpeg
which is enough for me to decide whether to click (I clicked this one). It ruins subs that already have poor accessibility, due to non-descriptive titles and missing alt text. Which is fine.