How is the size of Lemmy's userbase changing? Is it growing or shrinking? How diverse is it? What do the current trendlines look like as we approach a year since Rexxit?

I feel like I used to see graphs on this sub fairly regularly, but haven't seen one recently. There was also some ambiguity in the numbers as commenting and voting were added to the active user totals. Now that most (all?) instances have switched to 0.19, do we have a better idea of where things stand?

Aside from sticking around and posting, commenting, and voting, is there anything users should be doing to help grow the platform? (!lemmygrow would be a good name for a sublemmy, if anyone wanted to organize something)

In any case, thanks to everyone who has helped grow Lemmy to its current size!

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[–] jeffw@lemmy.world 42 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I think posting is probably the biggest thing you can do to grow the community. That and word of mouth - tell people about the fediverse.

[–] Die4Ever@programming.dev 38 points 8 months ago (3 children)

at this point I think we might need comments more than posts, there's lots of posts already but most of them are lacking comments

[–] jeffw@lemmy.world 20 points 8 months ago

I think engagement is often driven when people see active communities though. Can’t have that without posts in communities. Sort of a chicken and egg thing ig.

I post in some communities where I’m the only person posting for weeks and nobody comments. I post in others where I’m just a contributor and people engage in the comments.

[–] classic@fedia.io 19 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Gotta agree. A good discussion will pull me in more than lots of posts

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 4 points 8 months ago

I agree as well. If I just wanted a bunch news articles and images I could use RSS and ~~Instagram~~ Pixelfed. Comment discussion threads are the best part of platforms like Lemmy.

[–] DelilahBlack@lemm.ee 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (4 children)

Yes, but it's predominantly if not all news and politics or political ideological soap box posts or posts about defederation drama and instance infighting.

Just after having used Lemmy for 3 years, all it really is, is a small platform, for people to create a space where they can freely be hateful and shitty and hostile to opposite political sides that they hate.

It's so they can experience feeling powerful over who they hate. In a sense, it's their way of serving 'justice' keeping people out, defederating, is purposeful and habitual. It makes sense to me honestly.

Keeping Lemmy small, it's easier to control and to continue to be able to have a place where they hate who they hate.

It's annoying when ppl try to deny that.

Just be honest about it. Be truthful, ppl appreciate honesty.

Growing Lemmy would not be ideal, bc different people with all kinds of different perspectives AND INTERESTS THAT ISN'T TECH OR POLITICS would make them a minority. That's purposefully being avoided.

I found myself telling myself, "Go on reddit today, don't go on lemmy. You need a break from all the extreme constant politics"

I don't engage in politics online at all for a while.

But that's all what is posted and talked about here. No one here even wants to have actual fun and be silly or have a good time enjoying themselves. What is the most irritating, is literally no one fucking engages if it isn't political. That stuff gets ignored and down voted. This is a political place that is the issue.

There's no light hearted fun silly cool niche interesting happy or positive shit here. Everyone is angry and political and people are not interested in that.

[–] SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I found myself telling myself, "Go on reddit today, don't go on lemmy. You need a break from all the extreme constant politics"

This happened to me too. What I ended up doing was extensively muting communities that made any political posts in my feed and using a keyword filter (Sync supports this). My blocked words include Linux, Biden, Union, etc.. Now my feed is mostly memes

[–] DelilahBlack@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago

Crazy right ? Yes so far I've done that in reddit pretty good. I cut it out real quick. If I see any political word or name I mute it. Cause it will just keep on going. So reddit experience has gotten better bc of that.

With lemmy I'm constantly blocking most communities. What's weird though is I feel like I've already blocked certain communities and they keep popping back up.

I also use a few lemmy clients. So idk if the blocks are synced and carry over to each app.

From what I have seen, some apps do, and some do not. I think that is a factor for sure

[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Tbf you are on an instance that federates with a lot of very political instances (like hexbear and lemmygrad). If you want less politics and a more curated feed, maybe go to an instance that defederates from such instances.

[–] MBM@lemmings.world 4 points 8 months ago

That + mostly sticking to my subscriptions (coincidentally, none of them tech or politics) makes it feel like I'm on a completely different Lemmy

[–] Die4Ever@programming.dev 2 points 8 months ago

I haven't seen this, I only browse Subscribed not All