Following https://tarte.nuage-libre.fr/c/fediverse/p/194717/we-need-more-users I decided to explore data a little bit more. I'm not the biggest fan of growth-as-as-target so I wanted to see how much the people were participating in the discussion.

The data

I took the data from the API explorer in https://api.fediverse.observer/ with this query:

query {  
  monthlystats {  
    date_checked  
    softwarename  
    total_posts  
    total_users  
    total_comments  
  }  
}

Then parsed the json with this https://jqlang.org/ filter:

jq '.data.monthlystats | map(select(.total_users > 0 and (.softwarename == "lemmy" or .softwarename == "mbin" or .softwarename == "kbin" or .softwarename == "piefed"))) | group_by(.date_checked) | map( {date_checked: .[0].date_checked, total_users: ([.[] | .total_users] | add), total_posts: ([.[] | .total_posts] | add), total_comments: ([.[] | .total_comments] | add)}) | map({date_checked, posts: .total_posts/.total_users, comments: .total_comments/.total_users}) | sort_by(.date_checked) | map([.date_checked, (.posts | tostring), (.comments | tostring)]) | .[] | @csv'

(As you see I filtered for the threadiverse. I also did the same with all software, I'll put the graph for that in comments)

Then did a good old' chart

What to think of it

I don't know. Users' activity is on the rise and I find it nice

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 30 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Yes.

Do we want Reddit amounts of users? No.

But there's a lot of growth between here and there.

[–] logicbomb@lemmy.world 10 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

100% agreed. A Reddit clone with Reddit amounts of users will end up almost as bad as Reddit. The thing that makes Reddit worse in that situation is that they are a public company.

This platform would have to evolve a lot before it can deal with so many users. There has to be some significant innovation and improvement in moderation and administration, or more users would inevitably lead to endemic misinformation and power tripping and all of that shit you see on Reddit.

[–] Skavau@piefed.social 17 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I mean the intent here is for moderating capacity and tools to increase with user increases. Reddit grew but grew before its own moderator capacity allowed for it. Now I would argue its overall activity levels are inflated by AI, trolls and spammers. I'm on Piefed and in terms of the discussion about growth, I think about new instance admin tools can mitigate and prevent bad behaviour, trolling, AI and spamming from (usually) new accounts that otherwise would cement themselves on as regular spammers and trolls.

It's one thing to grow, but you need to grow the ability to deal with the problems that can derive from that.

[–] mesamunefire@piefed.social 9 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

One of the benefits of our "own" system is like you said, we can build the tools as they come.

Reddit and other platforms, we were always beholden to what they gave us.

With the fedi, you want something better? Build it! Or support those who are doing so. Its much more productive than just complaining all the time.