this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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Fediverse

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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

(page 2) 50 comments
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[–] Greenbeard@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 month ago

I think more isers would be good, though I like how the fediverse is right now. It's small, but it has enough content to have me coming back, but not so much that I'll spend the entire day browsing.

[–] fujiwood@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago (4 children)

I just went to "All" and sorted by "Top: Today".

90% is memes.

[–] Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I did that and it was evenly split between news, memes, reposted Tumblr and X posts and comics.

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[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 month ago

Ok, what content stream in what medium when viewed in a bulk popularity view like that isn't 90% memes or equivalent?

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[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 month ago

As for the title question:

Do we need more users ?

We don't need more users. It might be nice, there are benefits, but we don't need it. I agree with you on not caring much about growth-as-a-target, "growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell". I was here years before the first big reddit exodus with the third-party API changes and I was having a good time back then too.

[–] solidheron@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago (5 children)

I had the idea to revive dead c/ by reposting from reddit. It's controversial to use a bot

[–] InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Maybe limit the bot to only copy the top post that week.

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[–] Zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 month ago

Is there a way to analyze the same data with bot users excluded? That would be a more useful indicator of actual activity.

[–] Voyajer@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Is this accounting for bots that are essentially RSS feeds?

[–] rako@tarte.nuage-libre.fr 4 points 1 month ago

No, I'm taking the data as it exists on the API ...

[–] baconmonsta@piefed.social 3 points 1 month ago (8 children)

The amount of furry / anime content on the front page might be putting off some new users

[–] TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (11 children)

lemmy is basically NSFW because of this, yes. the amount of furry anime porn that reaches the front page is crazy.

i don't get why it being pushed, but I suppose it's just the userbase is very active and passionate about that stuff so it rises to the top.

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

how comes i never see it? did i block it accidentally?

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