I think there should be some incentive for that, like make those kinds of comments a spotlight or something. Maybe make a community called "late replies" that showcases the best such replies, or have a rule saying they grant free karma (in Reddit's case).
Lemmy still tends to show posts from ages ago in hot, so some slip by
People only ever replying to new things makes it seem less like a community.
I think that might happen more often on mastodon, since if you reply to a thread there, it gets boosted to all your followers.
It might be interesting to add a sorting method to Lemmy, that would bump posts every time a comment is added.
Perhaps something to turn on for each community individually ?
Just the other day, I got a reply to a thread from ~6 months ago on kbin!
It was spam. :/
