A post from 2 days ago presented a graph that showed an important variation in the active userbase: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/52565659

Using the daily rather than monthly view on https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120 shows a much stable line (especially if you take into account Piefed’s growth: https://piefed.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120 )

Going through the comments in the other posts, a few recommendations that can help with the overall experience

  • use different feeds: either using different Lemmy/Mbin accounts (one account per type of content), or Piefed personal feeds, but being able to browse different feeds such as “Good news”, “Hobbies”, “Art”, “Life advice” help to see more content than politics and tech

  • discover communities: subscribe to !communitypromo@lemmy.ca, !fedigrow@lemmy.zip and !newcommunities@lemmy.world to add active communities to your feeds

  • go to general communities rather than specific ones: the current user base only allows so much specialization. Your favorite city builder community may not exist, but !citybuilders@sh.itjust.works does. !stationery@lemmy.world and !pen_and_paper@lemmy.world may be inactive, but !journaling@sh.itjust.works is not.

  • use a client that allows for comments consolidation: I don’t remember which mobile apps does it (Sync, I think?), Piefed has that feature built-in too. It allows to see all comments on a cross-post in the same view: https://piefed.zip/c/privacy/p/928874/worst-in-show-ces-products-include-ai-refrigerators-ai-companions-and-ai-doorbells#post_replies

  • report toxic users and avoid communities that do not handle your reports: quite a few comments mentioned that issue in the other thread. Mods can’t see everything, reporting helps to keep the atmosphere of a community enjoyable.

  • use a client that implements keyword filters: quite a few mobile apps and alternative Lemmy front-ends do, Piefed has it built in. It can really help avoid the “doom and gloom” overwhelming your feed.

Finally, a few communities recommendations for lighthearted communities

  • Mike@piefed.chrisco.meEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    Woo we staying!

    Also anyone know how to use their API? https://api.fediverse.observer/

    I would love to make a “treadiverse” combo line. Cause its hard to look at when piefed is slowly going up, lemmy is slowly going down, and m/k bin is going all over.

    EDIT: Never mind, found it. Theres an icon on the right hand side.

  • homes@piefed.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    Mlem (iOS) doesn’t exactly consolidate comments across cross posts, but it does list, at the top, all of the cross posts, how many comments each one has, and links directly to them.

    • nocturne@slrpnk.netEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      This is another one of Mlem’s great features. I used try many different iOS apps, but things like this keep bringing me back to Mlem.

      • homes@piefed.worldEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        It is nice. I would like a way for Mlem to integrate it, but their current solution is still pretty elegant in an of itself, especially because it does not rely on piefed for its functionality. everyone gets this.

    • FenderStratocaster@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      Line expert here. It’s technically not a line. It’s many data points that may seem to look like a line, but it’s not. You see a line is the shortest distance between 2 points. By definition they are straight. This dataset is not a line.

      Here’s a list of my credentials:

      Certified Linear Affairs Specialist (CLAS)

      Advanced Parallel Line Coordination Certified

      Doctor of Perpendicular Studies

      International Straight Line Compliance Officer

      Certified Angle Management Professional (CAMP)

      Applied Theoretical Line Engineer

  • Mantzy81@aussie.zoneEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    I’m fairly new to Lemmy and started an account when all the api’s went down (because the reddit app suck) but ended up back there when I got one of them to work (at cost).

    Until I got banned for “hate speech” by a random mod because they didn’t know the lyrics to Fairytale of New York and appeals go nowhere and then I commented on something on a different user account and got perma-banned for ban-evasion. All dumb.

    So now I’m back on lemmy permanently, trying to find as many communities as I had in my reddit subscriptions (I had a lot), and bringing my daily engagement here. Would be good if numbers went up, but also, there’s a lot of idiots on Reddit too. The Fediverse needs better SEO to drive engagement. I haven’t once seen a solution to a problem (e.g. IT, tech or DIY) that links to a fedi page.

  • Zink@programming.devEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    So are we living in some kind of Bizarro Eternal September?

    Where instead of being flooded with normies, a few dozen thousand of us are walled in behind barriers to entry that the greybeards of old could only imagine.

    It’s like a social experiment that would be unethical if we weren’t all self-selected to be here. Will we flourish or will we go mad?!?

    Given my experiences so far, I’m gonna ride this thing as far as it takes me. Just today I was inspired by a fellow lemming to format my entire hard drive just to switch to a slightly different Linux distro. On my work laptop! :>

  • DimiK@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    I’m completely new to Lemmy and fediverse in general. I wonder if there have been any initiatives to promote Lemmy more and help it attain the critical mass of people.

    For exampe, having a Lemmy or Fediverse month, when the community attempts to advertise to friends that don’t know about it yet. If a few of the main instances participate in this, I’m sure the community could come up with some great ideas for spreading the word.

        • hector@lemmy.todayEnglish
          0·
          4 months ago

          Reddit just claimed I threatened violence by calling joe rogan a cynical tool playing his flock. Nothing even close to violence or harm calling. I tried to give him a chance as he was a bernie supporter, and could not stomach his bad faith lies on everything from the president to him castigating environmental protesters.

          I think it was in bad faith, for other reasons. Their link to the offense does not even show the offending comment to you anymore either.

          • Bazell@lemmy.zipEnglish
            0·
            4 months ago

            LOL. You have beaten my record, since my comments were, at least, containing phrases that could be classified as threatening violence without the context of a whole comment. But your case is a new level. My applause.

          • 7101334@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            4 months ago

            It was probably an automated decision to be entirely honest

            I once got banned for quoting a spammer to make fun of their spam. They banned me because they thought I was the spammer.

            • hector@lemmy.todayEnglish
              0·
              4 months ago

              I think certain subjects they do not want to violate you for if not against the rules so they find a pretext on an unrelated subject, automation is their excuse.

              Just like uhealth putting ai in charge of denying claims that qualify, or the uk putting ai in charge of post office fraud, or michigan in charge of unemployment insurance claims. They were all set up to deny legit claims and flag legit claims. They deny there is a problem with software until they cannot, then oops, only the ai is at fault, as if it was not knowing.

              We have no rights in the us so social media will never get to that admitting stage. The government is the one telling them to find pretexts to violate accounts oftentimes too.

    • hypnicjerk@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      spez learned from the last one. the ecosystem gets more closed down every day and automod’s trigger finger just gets jumpier.

    • jimmy90@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      it’s going to take more than that

      the lemmy line is going down much faster than the piefed line is going up

      looks like losing 1500 users per quarter when you take both into account

    • alekwithak@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      No one can suggest Lemmy or any federated social media on corporate social media. I’ve had comments removed from various platforms just for answering curious people looking for alternatives, I assume Reddit is doing the same.

  • daannii@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    Any spike or steady sharp increase would just be a sign of bot infiltration.

    So steady numbers are better.

  • Auster@thebrainbin.org
    0·
    4 months ago

    In the repost on the Chile community, also saw one or other comment about Lemmy being toxic. I do notice a certain “toxicity”, though from certain corners and which seems to stems more often from what I call “misery posting”, which would be posts whose main focus seems to be to make the given topic appear like a lost cause to the reader (even some “meme” communities seem to fall on this).

    Since some communities seem specially prone for such posts, I second blocking those as you notice the patterns to try to make your feed healthier, and to hopefully make such places shrink into a healthier size. Or at least, if you got the patience and resistance to mass downvoting and mobbing, to post in those communities and within their rules what to you is positive. Alternatively/Parallel to that, one could make sure to react accordingly to posts, instead of uninterestedly hide everything in feed as the user scrolls.

    Otherwise, a given environment shrinking or tanking in growth could also mean people that use it are growing apathetic or anomic to popularizing it, to which I repeat my suggestion in the Chile community, change starts by small steps. So for example, if someone is on a platform compatible by extension but without an ActivityPub bridge or function active (e.g. Threads and Bluesky), to explain to them they could activate it, and e.g. Fedi Brdigy is working on Lemmy compatibility, so more potential users going around. Also, if you see a funny meme or the sort, you could share the link, provided it has a decent blurb preview on the platform to be sent.

    Also spikes happen anywhere when competing platforms have issues, so current retention might just be its natural one.

    And even on a Lemmy account I have (thus little noise from microblogging) and while highly curating my feeds there, the amount of posts is almost too much for me to be able to go through. So by observation, the “threadiverse” as a whole seems rather healthy in numbers.

  • Vegan_Joe@piefed.worldEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    I honestly like the small, eclectic vibe better.

    I don’t know what the number is, but I’ll arbitrarily say, anywhere under a quarter million is perfect.

    I know the federation model provides a strength against the cascading list negatives that plague popular platforms, but I don’t doubt that with a large enough user base, exploits would certainly seep in, particularly with ease of AI bot manipulation and astroturfing.

    It reminds me of the Linux saying “security through obscurity”.

    • vga@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      Reddit has so much more content and frankly 80% of their real non-bot userbase seem to be ok. Wouldn’t hurt at all to get like 10% of the best of them here. That’d be about 5 million people.

      Ok, now that I think about it, 70k => 5M would probably hurt the servers a bit.

      Let’s go for the top 1%, we all love the top 1% right?

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      It’s very difficult for a set of volunteers to combat people being paid to manipulate their platform, so I’m happy with this platform remaining small enough to not be worth spending money on to manipulate.