So since the mass-exodus from Reddit we can see that the total amount of active users has gone down rather heavily: https://i.imgur.com/MeQok2F.png
This can seem a bit sad at a first glance. Where are we heading? But one has to remember that back during the summer many of us created several accounts to settle at an instance, there were also problems with spam-bots of various kinds.
So active users in itself is actually not that interesting. At least not the comparison with the peak. Instead we can watch the total amount of posts, how is that looking?
Well it’s steadily going up actually: https://i.imgur.com/i3Vse7Y.png
Though the increase has gone down slightly. This number however is influenced by other parameters as well. There are several reposts bots and such that mass-post to different instances. But it’s definitley a good tell it’s not going down.
Another interesting factor is comments: https://imgur.com/hWT8xvF
The amount of comments per month has gone down, but not by all that much. A 10% decrease from the top or so. What’s interesting here is that the decline has plateaued, which could indicate that the userbase has settled and become somewhat consistent. This is great news.
All in all, it seems like Lemmy has settled into a rather comfortable spot, with a decent amount of users, posts and comments. That is very slightly decreasing. Ideally we’d like to see this trend reverse, and perhaps that might happen naturally with due time when things have settled even more. For Lemmy I’d reckon the growth will look a bit like this. Whenever Reddit does something horrific (and it will happen more), we’ll see a mass-exodus with more users over here. Then it’ll decrease for a bit, settle and hopefully we can rinse and repeat. Anyway - that’s some irrelevant thoughts from me on the subject.
Just wanted to post these rather good statistics!
People are a bit nicer in general here, I think, although certain niche subreddit were far more welcoming to newcomers.
I’ve only had two people on lemmy so far tell me my thoughts are stupid without bothering to explain why they feel this way, and only one person has assumed they know my life from a single comment. (homer_so_far.gif)
I have yet to see a single interaction where someone has changed someone else’s mind in an amicable and polite way with both thanking each other for their time though.
I tend to focus less on news post comments though. Someone calling me an idiot because I don’t blindly support something or someone doesn’t phase me.
Someone breaking down my comment about why Picard is a better starfleet captain than Commander Sisko and giving me reasons why I’m stupid for thinking that? That’ll stay with me for a few days.
Perhaps I just don’t interact unless it seems like the general vibe agrees with me, and therefore people are more likely to be nice, because I don’t like rejection and mean comments are just different kinds of rejection, so I hide in places I know will like me.
0 reason to interact when you know there’s a good chance you will come out unhappy, I get it.
While my mind isn’t often changed, I try to thank people for offering their own perspective or the contrary take to mine.
Got to admit, it actually did make me laugh a bit that you highlighted the Captain versus Commander in your comment, while making a comment about somebody nitpicking your opinion comment.