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
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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
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discover communities: subscribe to !communitypromo@lemmy.ca, !fedigrow@lemmy.zip and !newcommunities@lemmy.world to add active communities to your feeds
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
Another top quality blazepost. Thanks for those community recos
Happy to help !
Some additional uplifting community suggestions:
!lemmybewholesome@lemmy.world is inactive, we spent a while promoting the !wholesome@reddthat.com to decentralize from LW.
Same for !upliftingnews@lemmy.world and !goodnewseveryone@piefed.social .
People seem to still be posting to them though? Like Lady Butterfly made 6 posts to the latter one just today alone. And much of that content does not look to be reposted anywhere else, like this post in the former community:
You might want to shut those old ones down then if people are not supposed to be using them anymore?
!wholesome@reddthat.com is the active community, it's !lemmybewholesome@lemmy.world that's inactive
!goodnewseveryone@piefed.social is supposed to be active, we prefer it to !upliftingnews@lemmy.world
About your last question, every time we suggest to lock down communities people come and start arguing that locking communities makes us like Reddit
https://piefed.zip/post/507615#post_replies
I've dealt with enough of those discussions in the past, I don't want to deal with that kind of drama again.
Excellent points. Perhaps Lady Butterfly might want to help redirect traffic from the old to the new. Like the note in the sidebar helps greatly for discovery, though some content did not look to me like it was cross-posted and instead submitted exclusively to the old communities, so at first glance it does look like it's remaining alive. But fair point that it doesn't need to be "promoted":-).