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

  • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
    1·
    8 hours ago

    I would also have shared any solutions I was aware of using Lemmy, except that after using it for 3 years, I know of very little that can be done about it. Just to be on the safe side though, I will note that you could theoretically use the Subscribed feed rather than All? That will show exclusively content that you have subscribed to, hence zero furry memes (unless they somehow wormed their way into the wrong community, in which case feel free to report them).

    Fwiw I did not downvote you here: sharing your experiences is very relevant to this conversation. That said, we are just trying to help you find what you are looking for, and your comment does include inaccurate information.

    e.g. out of the top 15 communities on PieFed.social only 3 have memes and the rest are much more information dense. Also viewing PieFed.social without an account, I see only a single meme in the top 15 posts shown by default. Also it’s chief developer shares your distaste for “low information content” posts and has several tools in place to help limit them, like the ability to filter not only communities one by one but also by any keywords contained within them, e.g. “memes”. Thus even if you used a 3rd party app, you would still have this automated filter in place. This is because PieFed is not merely another Lemmy instance but an entire reimplementation (from scratch) of the ActivityPub Protocol, i.e. it is software.

    But I am not trying to shill it to you anymore, just wanting to correct your statements. I hope you find what you are looking for. Note that it will take some effort on your part to understand the reasons why things happen and what aspects of the tools that you choose to use are under your control - e.g. you could move to an instance that defederates from meme content? (I do not know of any, but in theory you could, or perhaps start up your own if nothing else.)

    Have a good day.