To me, the Fediverse was always a place for discussions. #People share thoughts, others respond, disagree, add context, laugh together or continue a line of thought. That is exactly why I write there.

Back when the #Fediverse consisted of only a few dozen servers and maybe a few tens of thousands of active users, things felt different. There were far fewer posts, fewer comments and it was much harder to disappear in the sheer volume of content.

Today things are different. More people, more content, more speed. That is beautiful in many ways because the network has grown. But at the same time it can sometimes feel like speaking alone in a room where all you hear are other people talking into that same room about their own topics.

So this is my small plea for the like button, the star, the thumbs up or whatever your platform calls it. Not as agreement, not as competition and not as vanity, but simply as a small sign saying: “I saw your post. This is an interesting contribution to the discussion.”

We do not always have to agree with each other. But especially on platforms like #Friendica or #Mastodon, even a small reaction can make the difference between “I am talking into the void” and “Someone out there is listening.”