• 101@feddit.orgOPEnglish
      68·
      2 months ago

      Holy shit, the most active instance right now on the website is LemmyNSFW.

    • eee@lemm.ee
      664·
      2 months ago

      That’s stupid.

      The main problem with lemmy now is adoption, there isn’t a critical mass of users yet.

      When users see the stats without lemmy.world, they’ll be discouraged from joining. Add to that the issues with federation and the few who join will leave because of the steep learning curve.

      Way to alienate potential users.

      • cabbage@piefed.social
        481·
        2 months ago

        Yeah. If they pushed it to the bottom of the list, or even removed them from the list but kept the user count, I could kind of understand it. But censoring them completely for being too successful seems like shooting yourself in the foot.

        Lemmy.world is doing great and I’m happy for it and all that, but… 20 000 monthly active users does not exactly make them a tech giant that needs to be kept in check just yet. Ideally, instances of 20 000 active users should be quite normal at some point, and having stress tested the software before then should, one assumes, be a good thing.

        • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.clubEnglish
          11·
          2 months ago

          You probably also have the friction been .world and the developers’ Lemmy.

          There is also a problem that Lemmy seems to be having problems maintaining a good middle ground of Lemmy servers.

      • T156@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        2 months ago

        The decentralisation probably doesn’t help either. People coming to Lemmy from other places are coming from a centralised system. That takes some getting used to.

        If you’re new to this, you can be forgiven by thinking that all the Lemmy instances are their own separate thing, like the forums of old, rather than that they’re all interconnected (excluding a whole bunch of stuff about defederation and all of that mess).

      • asudox@programming.dev
        87·
        2 months ago

        the few who join will leave because of the steep learning curve.

        what steep learning curve? what’s so steep about thinking of social media like email?

        • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
          225·
          2 months ago

          Oh come on, let’s not pretend that the fediverse is just super intuitive and easy for regular users (i.e. non-techie people). Same ridiculous notion as when people say Linux is just as user-friendly as the more mainstream OSes. It’s sad and I wish it was better but it’s just not right now.

          • asudox@programming.dev
            74·
            2 months ago

            It might be a little more complicated than normal social media and email but it definitely is not that complex.

            • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
              142·
              2 months ago

              Sorry, but the fact that you’re here means that you are probably in the top percentages of tech-literate people. Especially considering you’re on programming.dev.

              You’re severely overestimating the technical literacy of regular people. For many people (maybe even the majority of people) even email is complex.

              • Blaze (he/him)@sopuli.xyzEnglish
                141·
                2 months ago

                I never want to mention them explicitly to avoid them getting raided, but there is a community which came here after their sub got banned.

                The sub was about an influencer, so definitely not the crowd you would expect on Lemmy.

                They are doing just fine. We helped them a bit at first, showed them that there were apps, told them to remember the name of their “server” when logging in.

                The community is quite active with over 150 monthly active users. They discuss their topic in their community, everything is going well.

                Sometimes I feel like we overestimate the complexity of Lemmy.

                If they can do it, everybody can do it.

            • T156@lemmy.worldEnglish
              91·
              2 months ago

              That “little more complicated” is asking for a lot, though.

              Say you’re coming from Reddit, or Facebook, or something.

              It would not be unreasonable to believe that, like Reddit, every single Lemmy instance is its own separate, self-contained site.

              And that’s even before figuring out federation works, and how to access things from outside of your instance, or all the nuances that come with defederation and all of that. You made the mistake of joining beehaw? Whoops, all the other “subs” are now inaccessible, because beehaw is not connected to any of the others.

              Central places like Reddit don’t have that complexity. Reddit communities are singular, and there’s no overarching layer to complicate things. A community that disagrees with another, and blocks them doesn’t affect your experience as an user.

              • Blaze (he/him)@sopuli.xyzEnglish
                6·
                2 months ago

                People shouldn’t have suggested you Beehaw.

                Nowadays, I just say

                Lemm.ee is a Reddit alternative. There are apps you can use from https://www.lemmyapps.com/, just remember that your “instance” is lemm.ee. It works similar to Reddit".

                That’s it. No federation explanation, no Fediverse jargon. Keep it simple. Also, see my other comment below about an active community of non tech users

          • RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            31·
            2 months ago

            How does this argument apply to Lemmy? I get the number of instances could be confusing but you don’t have to know or care about any of that. If you don’t you just land on some registration page and do it. I honestly don’t see how that’s more technical than registering to Reddit, Facebook or Instagram.

            • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
              3·
              2 months ago

              The choice of instance is kind of a big barrier though. There’s also a lot of bad UX around discoverability.

        • yamanii@lemmy.world
          3·
          2 months ago

          There’s a reason why Brazilians went to threads and blue sky and not even considered mastodon.

        • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          The devs are working hard providing a public service that they make available for everyone. And the product they’ve developed is pretty impressive, in spite of its shortcomings.

          They hold some opinions I disagree with pretty strongly, and I’m not a fan of every decision they make. But they’re creating a truly common good, and for that they deserve praise. From a technical perspective, they have created something completely new that serves thousands of users and constitutes a system of huge complexity. They very much do not suck.

          Anyone who thinks any person maintaining an open source project “sucks” should feel free to fork the project, fix whatever they’re not happy with, and maintain the repository and handle commits and all the shit that goes down in managing a large open source project. After dedicating all this time to people, some random ingrate will inevitably disagree with some minor decision they’ve made and decide that they “suck”.

          • TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee
            1·
            2 months ago

            I mean. They’re torpedoing that open source project’s chances for growth because of their ideology. It’s pretty sucky.

            I agree with the rest of your statement regarding the development of Lemmy.

            • cabbage@piefed.socialEnglish
              1·
              2 months ago

              Yeah, for sure. Doing something great doesn’t shield you from also making some really shitty decisions or holding some god-awful positions.

              I just think it’s good to keep a nuance of language. Too many open source developers burn out, and a hostile community is listed as one of the reasons too often. There will always be disagreements, and there are valid ways of voicing it, but one should never forget that there is humans on the other side and remain kind. :)

        • Blaze (he/him)@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          They are okay as devs, not that good as admins, which is fine, it is known by now, and people can move easily.

          To the people who are going to answer that they are bad devs too, which other devs are that much better than them at this moment for link aggregators in the Fediverse?

          I like Piefed and Mbin as much as the next guy, but Lemmy is still the most polished software as of now. Maybe that will change in the future, but let’s face it: with the amount of pushback the Lemmy devs are getting regularly, the fact that most of the instances still use Lemmy is a sign that there the alternatives aren’t that much better.

      • Etterra@lemmy.world
        517·
        2 months ago

        As far as I’m concerned that’s a feature. If we let the normies in then it just turns into Reddit all over again. That slop pile can stay over there.

        • Blaze (he/him)@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          7·
          2 months ago

          There’s still room to grow. We could still double the number of active people to 100k and have a wide margin compared to having millions of users

    • expatriado@lemmy.world
      17·
      2 months ago

      so lemmy.world became too big to fail and the other instances decided didn’t want to risk a potential bail out?

      • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
        39·
        2 months ago

        This has nothing to do with other instances. The join-lemmy.org site is run by the Lemmy developers and they decide what happens with that site. They think it’s problematic that lemmy.world is as big as it is (as one of the points of the fediverse is decentralization). So they removed lemmy.world from the listing on join-lemmy.org.

        Note that this is in no way a defederation or anything of that sort. The site just doesn’t show lemmy.world, that’s all.

        • expatriado@lemmy.world
          9·
          2 months ago

          my comment was mostly a joke, but it doesn’t contradict your point, lemmy.word got too big(relatively) so it got de-listed to flow new users to other instances

          • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
            7·
            2 months ago

            my comment was mostly a joke

            Sorry for not getting it, it’s just that sometimes people (understandably) get very confused about the technicalities of the fediverse and mix up things like defederation and stuff like this. 😅

            Consider a /s in the future :)

            • expatriado@lemmy.world
              5·
              2 months ago

              it’s ok, it was a reference to the 2008 finacial bubble, i knew there was the risk younger people wouldn’t get it

    • nutomicA
      111·
      2 months ago

      Right, I didn’t think how it would affect the total active user count. Will have to think of a solution for that.

        • nutomicA
          51·
          2 months ago

          Or even some logic to automatically exclude from the list any instance with more than x% of active users.

    • doctortran@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      Why does removing them from the site also mean cutting their user count from Active Users though?

      • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
        5·
        2 months ago

        That’s just how it works at the moment. It only counts active users from the sites listed.

    • 101@feddit.orgOPEnglish
      65·
      2 months ago

      That is a very weird thing to do, unless they are looking to boost their own instance.

      • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
        29·
        2 months ago

        You can read their motivation in the linked pull request. FWIW I don’t think there’s any ill intent here and certainly not an attempt to boost their own instance. I think they just want Lemmy to be decentralized and lemmy.world being as big as it is kinda prevents that.

        I’m not sure I would’ve done it that way personally but I can see the reasoning and it’s not entirely unreasonable.

        • 101@feddit.orgOPEnglish
          94·
          2 months ago

          In my humble opinion, join lemmy should only exclude the instances that is harmful.

          They should not choose the instances to include for the users.

          • Aphelion@lemm.ee
            13·
            2 months ago

            Lemmy.world becoming the default Lemmy instance, and it growing to outsize all other instances is a danger: it makes the Fediverse centralized, easy to take down and easy to take over.

            • 101@feddit.orgOPEnglish
              6·
              2 months ago

              The same applies to the mastodon . Social instance and the same applies really to every Fediverse software available, with the exception of pixelfed.

                • 101@feddit.orgOPEnglish
                  3·
                  2 months ago

                  Pixelfed has a default limit to the number of users per instance.

          • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
            12·
            2 months ago

            I think I generally agree with you, but I don’t think this is a big grievance. Lemmy.world has enough traction as it is, they don’t really need the “publicity” from join-lemmy.org.

            It would’ve been better if they had written this as some kind of policy beforehand. Like if they had written somewhere before this pull request something like “any instance with more than 40% of active users may be excluded from the join-lemmy.org listing”, then it would’ve been more reasonable too.

            • Ruud@lemmy.world
              16·
              2 months ago

              It would have been better if they communicated to us first. I don’t disagree that user signups should be spread over instances. We now have a link to https://lemmyverse.net on our signup page so people can check if another instance would fit them better.

              • nutomicA
                3·
                2 months ago

                I posted about this in the admin chat on matrix, but you’re right the pull request was merged very quickly.

                The lemmyverse link is also a good idea, but users only see it after filling in their email and password. At that point it’s unlikely that they would cancel it and go to a different website.

                Edit: I’m now thinking to change the joinlemmy code so that any instance with more than x% of active users will automatically be hidden.

          • DarkThoughts@fedia.io
            2·
            2 months ago

            In my humble opinion, join lemmy should only exclude the instances that is harmful.

            They’d then have to hide their own instances…

  • Sundial@lemm.ee
    613·
    2 months ago

    School probably.

    Honestly, what’s more surprising is the numbers are that drastic. I didn’t think we have that many Gen Z users here.

    EDIT: Actual reason can be found here: https://feddit.dk/post/7667476/10289642

    Thanks SorteKanin for providing the context.

      • doctortran@lemm.eeEnglish
        4·
        2 months ago

        The notion of “summer reddit” went hand in hand with notion of “mom’s basement” and even “touch grass” in a way.

        Namely, all are dated ideas from millennials that are still thinking the person on the other end of the comment is sitting in front of a computer, as the default. It ignores the simple fact we all have the internet in our pockets and can be chronically online AND actually out in the world doing things at the same time.

    • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      4·
      2 months ago

      What is your default sort set to?

      I’m set to scaled and subscribed by default which mostly gets me posts from the last 0-6 hours. But for some reason Lemmy on FF keeps logging me out so I get to see the default all with active sort and it’s a wildly different user base.

      There was a post the other day in like Linux memes about case sensitivity in the file system. Early on the post was mostly the Linux die hards who love their case sensitivity. After about 1.5 days it showed up in active and all of the newer comments were (probably normal people) bashing case sensitivity. It’s almost like R*ddit to a degree where the general consensus in the comments can change over time as different users start seeing the post.

      • Sundial@lemm.ee
        1·
        2 months ago

        I sort by new a lot so it definitely could be that actually. Good point.

  • 1984@lemmy.today
    203·
    2 months ago

    I think because we have mostly memes and any discussion is just won by downvoting your opponent. :)

    I’m half serious… The platform right now is lacking actual discussions. Everyone seems to just like memes.

    • lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.comEnglish
      102·
      2 months ago

      Unfortunately, the Lemmy community copied opinion downvoting from Reddit.

      There are good reasons to downvote, but a different opinion is not one of them. This just leads to echo chambers.

      There are 3 options: upvote, downvote and the 3rd one is just not clicking anything.

      • 1984@lemmy.today
        65·
        2 months ago

        Literally all my downvotes are from people with different options. This is a huge echo chamber. I rarely insult anyone and I’m always polite. I don’t believe vaccinations are safe for everyone since there are side effects, and I think each person should make their own decision about them. I don’t think gender issues are the most important thing in the world.

        These are controversial opinions on this platform. :) And I get a lot of downvotes for those opinions when they show up. Not that I care, because I just ignore it. But in the larger picture, it makes people leave the platform.

        Why should they stay? I think Lemmy needs to have a good reason to be used. Memes won’t be enough.

        I still like the idea of a platform without big tech though. I just think most people don’t realize what makes people stay on a platform. It’s not memes.

      • lemmyingly@lemm.ee
        1·
        2 months ago

        I think voting should be as what was originally set out by Reddit; I don’t know if it’s still in their guidelines. The voting system indicates the relevancy of the contribution and whether it adds to the discussion or not. Spam and off-topic contributions gets shoved to the bottom and everything else rises to the top.

        Obviously most people on Reddit these days use it as a like/dislike, agree/disagree voting system as well.

        Does Lemmy instance owners and community mods ban people for having a different opinion that’s so benign?

        Some Reddit mods attempt to be authoritative and ban people who hold different opinions to themselves. I know I have and I stay out of subs that relate to politics, the news, and anything divisive really.

    • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
      3·
      2 months ago

      The platform right now is lacking actual discussions. Everyone seems to just like memes.

      Honestly I’ve just blocked most of the meme comms 😅. It’s easy to see memes when I want to anyway by just opening a private window where I’m not logged in and going to the all feed. It’s always mostly memes anyway. Then when I’m logged in, I can see some other stuff without all the memes clogging up my feed.

    • Randomgal@lemmy.ca
      2·
      2 months ago

      Not to mention the deluge of posts/comments advocating greater violence in the name of stopping violence. Honestly? I think people are just waking up to the fact that behind the techno babble and ideological propaganda, Lemmy is a social network just like any other.

    • cocobean@bookwormstory.socialEnglish
      5·
      2 months ago

      Ya damn right! Probably would’ve been a lot more popular too if Lemmy had spoiler tag support (see discussion https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/317). But now that the LN is finished, it’ll probably be a lot harder to convince people to move over from the subreddit, even if spoiler tags were implemented. 😢 Maybe when the new season of the anime premiers it will pick up.

  • meowington1@sh.itjust.works
    9·
    2 months ago

    So, most user are passive user. Maybe they leave because nothing interesting.

    One another hypothesis is that the stats is not count fully as some instance was not up to the task, slow, … So the now stat is under-count

  • T156@lemmy.worldEnglish
    9·
    2 months ago

    Part of it is that people also moved on from Lemmy too. Lemmy is nice, but there also isn’t very much by way of activity on it, which feeds back into itself. No activity means there’s nothing to draw people into it, and not enough to keep them around when they are there.

    One of the communities and (non-world) instances I frequented is all but dead these days.

  • nutomicA
    81·
    2 months ago

    Second attempt, I removed lemmy.world from the blocklist and instead added some code to hide any instances with more than 30% of all active users.

  • norimee@lemmy.world
    6·
    2 months ago

    Did lemmy do something in the meantime to keep bots out?

    If a lot of them can’t operate anymore like before they wouldn’t count as active users anymore either and would explain discrepancies, or not?

    Not that I know anything about how bots or websites work tbh.

  • dohpaz42@lemmy.worldEnglish
    75·
    2 months ago

    Honestly, it’s a short-sighted move made with hubris by the developer’s personal ideology. Both @nutomic@lemmy.ml and @dessalines@lemmy.ml admit in the PR that it’s not a good solution, but yet they continue any way — probably because it’s an easy “solution”, despite alienating 41% of their active user base.

    It’s a terrible trend in a lot of programming circles that programmers think because it is easy and it “works” (in that one circumstance) that it must be correct. This can be evidenced by browsing StackOverflow and reading the accepted answers for a lot of questions (SSL errors in software and disabling hostname verification or cert checks comes to mind).

    In my 18+ years of experience, if I find an “easy” solution to a complex problem, I keep looking for the correct solution. What is “easy” now will most likely lead to more complex problems down the line. And as they say, “if you can’t find the time to fix it right the first time, where are you going to find the time to fix it again?”

    Look, I get Lemmy is meant to be decentralized. Hiding away your biggest instance looks shady to outside users not in the know. The real solution is to “go door to door” to app makers and ask them to not default to any one instance of Lemmy (side note: randomizing a default server is not much better). If anything, add a link to join-lemmy where people can browse the list of ALL instances (yes, ALL of them) and let them make a genuinely-informed decision on their own. As a convenience, and API should be provided (assuming one does not already exist) so that apps can query a pageable/searchable list of existing/active instances (maybe also provide a link to their homepage too).

    Hell, if it makes everyone feel warm and fuzzy, the default sorting of returned values can be weighted by percentage of active users (i.e., higher percentages get lower weights to help promote smaller instances). This would help to round out the number of signups without excluding instances.

    But whatever developers do (not just Lemmy devs), do NOT overly dictate how people use your software “because I don’t like it”; lest you piss your user base off.

    /two-cents

    Edit: clarified a few points.

    • alcoholicorn
      4·
      2 months ago

      alienating 41% of their active user base

      Why would distributing users to smaller instances alienate Lemmy.world users?

      If anything, distributing the load results in a better user experience, since the last Reddit exodus was taking down .world every few hours.

      • dohpaz42@lemmy.worldEnglish
        41·
        2 months ago

        Because it’s not simply “distributing” the load; it’s actively hiding an instance as if it doesn’t exist. So what do they do when the next instance gets “too big” for their liking? Hide it, along side LW? And the next?

        Re-read my comment — specifically the second half where I offer a potential solution that would actually distribute the load more fairly without having to hide anything.

        • alcoholicorn
          41·
          2 months ago

          it’s actively hiding an instance as if it doesn’t exist

          For the purpose of directing new users, who tend to just pick the largest instance, sure. But if you and they are both federated, there’s no difference in the content.

          So what do they do when the next instance gets “too big” for their liking? Hide it, along side LW? And the next?

          Correct, because this increases the reliability of the average lemmy user’s experience as one point of failure affects fewer users.

    • DarkThoughts@fedia.io
      51·
      2 months ago

      You’re talking about something without actually clarifying what the hell you’re talking about. That’s the short sighted move? The easy “solution”? What “works”?