Lemmy

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Showing active monthly users (which is quite low) in data for servers is creating a barrier for entry to Lemmy (lemmy.one)

submitted 1 year ago by Johnnypneumoniac@lemmy.one to c/lemmy@lemmy.ml

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I've noticed this in many places in the Lemmyverse in my first few days here. When first signing up almost all the instances were listed as having 2 or less active users. The biggest was Lemmy.ml at something around 1000. Then I've seen those numbers listed in other places including a post yesterday that is supposed to help bring redditors to Lemmy.

These numbers will just get most people to turn around and not even consider Lemmy as an alternative.

I saw a GIF today showing the growth of user accounts on Lemmy instances and Lemmy.ml (for example) was over 30000 and many of the other servers were in the 100s, approaching 1000. That's a HUGE difference and indicates a community that is 10 times (or more) more active than the initial numbers presented indicate.

Any thoughts? Am I out to lunch?

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[–] PriorProject@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I saw a GIF today showing the growth of user accounts on Lemmy instances and Lemmy.ml (for example) was over 30000 and many of the other servers were in the 100s, approaching 1000. That's a HUGE difference and indicates a community that is 10 times (or more) more active than the initial numbers...

join-lemmy.org shows monthly active users numbers, which seems to me to be a pretty good activity metric.

Registered user accounts is a poor metric. Accounts that register, log in once, and never come back may as well not exist. They're not reading, commenting, voting, or participating. A graph showing registered but inactive users is misleading.
Monthly active counts probably underestimate active users right now because the numbers are changing so fast. Earlier today, the front page of lemmy.ml showed ~1800 currently active user but a daily active count of ~500... which is obviously some kind of lagging average that isn't fully representing the influx of the last few days. But these lagging averages are a very temporary problem, and are probably good on-balance. We'll find out next month how many of the surge of accounts are still active... no one can predict that right now... but moving averages do a good job of smoothing quick spikes and showing long-term trends.
As other commenters have noted, it's possible to post and comment on Lemmy communities from other apps in the Fediverse like kbin and mastodon. So logged-in users may undercount active-users. If monthly unique posters/commenters/voters could be easily counted, that would be a better number to show than logged-in users maybe. But I expect the numbers aren't so different. My impression is that Lemmy's userbase is quite a lot bigger than kbin's. And I dunno how much mastodon interact we see, but for speculative reasons I'm not convinced it's big relative to native Lemmy users.
Finally, the lemmyverse isn't all that big yet, and it probably can't grow more than 10x in a year in a healthy way. The users that the Lemmyverse needs right now are the ones who look at a userbase of ~2k active monthly globally and think "That's a good start, I can help grow that community by posting/answering-q's/moderating/etc. A user who needs 30k people making stuff for them to look at isn't going to be happy here yet. Maybe they'll check again next year and see that we really are 20k-active/100k-registered, and that will be the right time for them to join up.

All of which is to say, the monthly active user counts may be lagging a bit in this month of hyper-growth, and it may undercount non-lemmy fediverse participation... but it's pretty close to he right metric to show ACTIVE usage. And it's better to be honest about active usage than try to trick people into joining by inflating user counts with dead/inactive accounts.

[–] Johnnypneumoniac@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Just think about it from the point of view of someone migrating from a site with millions of users. Someone recommends a new place where a lot of people are going so you follow their advice. You go to join this new site, and the first thing you see is that there are maybe 2000 active users. Along with this very low number you're being presented with a whole bunch of abstract ideas and terminology you don't understand. What are you likely to do. For me, a somewhat tech savvy person, I turned around and went back to Reddit. It was too confusing and too nascent to even give it a chance. It feels like too much effort to be a very early adopter of what looks initially like an untested, and frankly empty, new system.

I like the other idea of not showing numbers at all. Just tell people if things are active or not. You don't need to know specific numbers of users when you're joining.

Edit to add: if Lemmy isn't ready to grow more than 10x in the next month, then people should stop directing redditors here. A lot of people are looking for somewhere to go right now.

[–] PriorProject@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

It feels like too much effort to be a very early adopter of what looks initially like an untested, and frankly empty, new system.

I saw those user counts and thought... "Maybe I can be a very early adopter, test, and add some life to this somewhat empty system in order to make it better for the next person". You're not like... wrong... about it being a lot of effort and a little creaky and a little empty. What the lemmyverse needs right now are people who are ready to fix problems and fill the empty spaces even if not many people are watching them. If someone looks at that information and it looks like too much effort to get into a place where there isn't much to see... they're probably right. It's ok for them to bounce off and check back later.

All of which is to say, lemmy isn't going to satisfy someone who is acclimated to a millions-strong user community. The chants on reddit suggesting "let's all switch to lemmy", aren't realistic today. I don't see the value in trying to hide that fact until after they complete account signup... they're going to find out when they sign in. What could be possible is a cycle where some redditors who are willing to try to build communities from scratch start spending time here and slowly... over time... make it a place that's interesting to more folks. But the idea of an overnight switch is a fantasy. Lemmy isn't reddit and isn't going to become it next week.

if Lemmy isn’t ready to grow more than 10x in the next month, then people should stop directing redditors here. A lot of people are looking for somewhere to go right now.

Yeah, this is probably true. I came from reddit recently, but I came here to do some work to build the place into something interesting. I didn't expect /r/all to be here waiting for me on day one. Take it up with the people making those recommendations though, they're not in this thread.