this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
611 points (99.4% liked)

Fediverse

38984 readers
1117 users here now

A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it's related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, Mbin, etc).

If you wanted to get help with moderating your own community then head over to !moderators@lemmy.world!

Rules

Learn more at these websites: Join The Fediverse Wiki, Fediverse.info, Wikipedia Page, The Federation Info (Stats), FediDB (Stats), Sub Rehab (Reddit Migration)

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

A post from 2 days ago presented a graph that showed an important variation in the active userbase: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/52565659

Using the daily rather than monthly view on https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120 shows a much stable line (especially if you take into account Piefed's growth: https://piefed.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120 )

Going through the comments in the other posts, a few recommendations that can help with the overall experience

Finally, a few communities recommendations for lighthearted communities

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] wioum@lemmy.world 176 points 6 days ago (5 children)
[–] FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world 49 points 6 days ago (2 children)

inb4 "FUCK SPEZ" spamming in every comment section

[–] desmosthenes@lemmy.world 37 points 6 days ago (10 children)
[–] hector@lemmy.today 17 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Reddit just claimed I threatened violence by calling joe rogan a cynical tool playing his flock. Nothing even close to violence or harm calling. I tried to give him a chance as he was a bernie supporter, and could not stomach his bad faith lies on everything from the president to him castigating environmental protesters.

I think it was in bad faith, for other reasons. Their link to the offense does not even show the offending comment to you anymore either.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (9 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] alekwithak@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

No one can suggest Lemmy or any federated social media on corporate social media. I've had comments removed from various platforms just for answering curious people looking for alternatives, I assume Reddit is doing the same.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] hypnicjerk@lemmy.world 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

spez learned from the last one. the ecosystem gets more closed down every day and automod's trigger finger just gets jumpier.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] shiroininja@lemmy.world 39 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Lemmy is the only Corporate social media replacement I've stuck to for years. I've never gone back to reddit. I don't need it. I like the vibes here and it's just busy enough to suit my needs without allowing me to doomscroll nonstop new content.

[–] 7101334@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago

I like Pixelfed too, for all its bugs. I would like to drop Instagram for it, but I've managed to convince exactly zero of my friends to join PF lol

[–] Vegan_Joe@piefed.world 106 points 6 days ago (3 children)

I honestly like the small, eclectic vibe better.

I don't know what the number is, but I'll arbitrarily say, anywhere under a quarter million is perfect.

I know the federation model provides a strength against the cascading list negatives that plague popular platforms, but I don't doubt that with a large enough user base, exploits would certainly seep in, particularly with ease of AI bot manipulation and astroturfing.

It reminds me of the Linux saying "security through obscurity".

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 21 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It's very difficult for a set of volunteers to combat people being paid to manipulate their platform, so I'm happy with this platform remaining small enough to not be worth spending money on to manipulate.

[–] DrDickHandler@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

Except most posts are created by bots here too.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] null@piefed.nullspace.lol 47 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Another top quality blazepost. Thanks for those community recos

[–] Blaze@piefed.zip 11 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 10 points 6 days ago (4 children)

Some additional uplifting community suggestions:

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Ragallos@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 4 days ago
[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 11 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Is the shitposting helping?

[–] Rooster326@programming.dev 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)
[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 6 points 5 days ago

Maybe I just gotta shitpost harder then.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Skavau@piefed.social 36 points 6 days ago (46 children)

So what's going on here, most likely, is that the intake of new users is declining as opposed to people specifically being driven off the platform (as some users allege).

[–] Dagnet@lemmy.world 21 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

It's stabilising so either we are down to the really stubborn user base or it's the start of a steady growth

load more comments (45 replies)
[–] DimiK@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago

I'm completely new to Lemmy and fediverse in general. I wonder if there have been any initiatives to promote Lemmy more and help it attain the critical mass of people.

For exampe, having a Lemmy or Fediverse month, when the community attempts to advertise to friends that don't know about it yet. If a few of the main instances participate in this, I'm sure the community could come up with some great ideas for spreading the word.

need to include places like piefed and mbin in this too; reddit is just reddit but here you can be either lemmy, piefed, or mbin and talk to one another.

[–] Auster@thebrainbin.org 25 points 6 days ago (1 children)

In the repost on the Chile community, also saw one or other comment about Lemmy being toxic. I do notice a certain "toxicity", though from certain corners and which seems to stems more often from what I call "misery posting", which would be posts whose main focus seems to be to make the given topic appear like a lost cause to the reader (even some "meme" communities seem to fall on this).

Since some communities seem specially prone for such posts, I second blocking those as you notice the patterns to try to make your feed healthier, and to hopefully make such places shrink into a healthier size. Or at least, if you got the patience and resistance to mass downvoting and mobbing, to post in those communities and within their rules what to you is positive. Alternatively/Parallel to that, one could make sure to react accordingly to posts, instead of uninterestedly hide everything in feed as the user scrolls.

Otherwise, a given environment shrinking or tanking in growth could also mean people that use it are growing apathetic or anomic to popularizing it, to which I repeat my suggestion in the Chile community, change starts by small steps. So for example, if someone is on a platform compatible by extension but without an ActivityPub bridge or function active (e.g. Threads and Bluesky), to explain to them they could activate it, and e.g. Fedi Brdigy is working on Lemmy compatibility, so more potential users going around. Also, if you see a funny meme or the sort, you could share the link, provided it has a decent blurb preview on the platform to be sent.

Also spikes happen anywhere when competing platforms have issues, so current retention might just be its natural one.

And even on a Lemmy account I have (thus little noise from microblogging) and while highly curating my feeds there, the amount of posts is almost too much for me to be able to go through. So by observation, the "threadiverse" as a whole seems rather healthy in numbers.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Mantzy81@aussie.zone 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'm fairly new to Lemmy and started an account when all the api's went down (because the reddit app suck) but ended up back there when I got one of them to work (at cost).

Until I got banned for "hate speech" by a random mod because they didn't know the lyrics to Fairytale of New York and appeals go nowhere and then I commented on something on a different user account and got perma-banned for ban-evasion. All dumb.

So now I'm back on lemmy permanently, trying to find as many communities as I had in my reddit subscriptions (I had a lot), and bringing my daily engagement here. Would be good if numbers went up, but also, there's a lot of idiots on Reddit too. The Fediverse needs better SEO to drive engagement. I haven't once seen a solution to a problem (e.g. IT, tech or DIY) that links to a fedi page.

[–] Blaze@piefed.zip 4 points 4 days ago

Welcome back

[–] prettybunnys@piefed.social 24 points 6 days ago

maybe the real problem is Nicole left us

[–] daannii@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago

Any spike or steady sharp increase would just be a sign of bot infiltration.

So steady numbers are better.

[–] QuiteQuickQum@lemmy.world 21 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

There are dozens of dozens of dozens of dozens of us! Dozenses!

[–] kali_fornication@lemmy.world 19 points 6 days ago (1 children)

i'm no line expert but i see a teeny tiny downward trend

[–] FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world 30 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (7 children)

Line expert here. It's technically not a line. It's many data points that may seem to look like a line, but it's not. You see a line is the shortest distance between 2 points. By definition they are straight. This dataset is not a line.

Here's a list of my credentials:

Certified Linear Affairs Specialist (CLAS)

Advanced Parallel Line Coordination Certified

Doctor of Perpendicular Studies

International Straight Line Compliance Officer

Certified Angle Management Professional (CAMP)

Applied Theoretical Line Engineer

[–] chisel@piefed.social 20 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Is a line really the shortest distance between two points if I can fold the paper and punch a pencil through it?

[–] FenderStratocaster@lemmy.world 19 points 6 days ago (3 children)

SHUT UP! STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (6 replies)
[–] termaxima@slrpnk.net 8 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Personally I still relate to the other graph. Lemmy posts can sometimes be much too focused on negative things, so I sometimes take pretty long breaks before coming back when it gets too depressing.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Zink@programming.dev 4 points 5 days ago

So are we living in some kind of Bizarro Eternal September?

Where instead of being flooded with normies, a few dozen thousand of us are walled in behind barriers to entry that the greybeards of old could only imagine.

It's like a social experiment that would be unethical if we weren't all self-selected to be here. Will we flourish or will we go mad?!?

Given my experiences so far, I'm gonna ride this thing as far as it takes me. Just today I was inspired by a fellow lemming to format my entire hard drive just to switch to a slightly different Linux distro. On my work laptop! :>

[–] Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social 11 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I'm curious to know what PieFed's user base would look like.

Most people simply don't know about Lemmy/PieFed.

I think once features mature a bit more, if there is another rexit we could see numbers tripple or more.

Many people didn't stick around with previous rexit's because the UX sucked.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] michael@piefed.chrisco.me 11 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Woo we staying!

Also anyone know how to use their API? https://api.fediverse.observer/

I would love to make a "treadiverse" combo line. Cause its hard to look at when piefed is slowly going up, lemmy is slowly going down, and m/k bin is going all over.

EDIT: Never mind, found it. Theres an icon on the right hand side.

[–] ShadowRam@fedia.io 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

My problem right now is I'm on Fedia.io and I'm liking the interface, but more and more, what used to be other instances popping up in my feed, are disappearing, and I feel like I'm missing 1/2 the content that lemmy has to offer.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›