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

  • use different feeds: either using different Lemmy/Mbin accounts (one account per type of content), or Piefed personal feeds, but being able to browse different feeds such as “Good news”, “Hobbies”, “Art”, “Life advice” help to see more content than politics and tech

  • discover communities: subscribe to !communitypromo@lemmy.ca, !fedigrow@lemmy.zip and !newcommunities@lemmy.world to add active communities to your feeds

  • go to general communities rather than specific ones: the current user base only allows so much specialization. Your favorite city builder community may not exist, but !citybuilders@sh.itjust.works does. !stationery@lemmy.world and !pen_and_paper@lemmy.world may be inactive, but !journaling@sh.itjust.works is not.

  • use a client that allows for comments consolidation: I don’t remember which mobile apps does it (Sync, I think?), Piefed has that feature built-in too. It allows to see all comments on a cross-post in the same view: https://piefed.zip/c/privacy/p/928874/worst-in-show-ces-products-include-ai-refrigerators-ai-companions-and-ai-doorbells#post_replies

  • report toxic users and avoid communities that do not handle your reports: quite a few comments mentioned that issue in the other thread. Mods can’t see everything, reporting helps to keep the atmosphere of a community enjoyable.

  • use a client that implements keyword filters: quite a few mobile apps and alternative Lemmy front-ends do, Piefed has it built in. It can really help avoid the “doom and gloom” overwhelming your feed.

Finally, a few communities recommendations for lighthearted communities

  • Vegan_Joe@piefed.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 month ago

    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”.

  • DimiK@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    30 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.

  • shiroininja@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 month ago

    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.

  • Skavau@piefed.socialEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    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).

      • Skavau@piefed.socialEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        Oh people making the claim that Lemmy being too political or too hard-left drives users off and is responsible for the user malaise. I’m sure that’s true, but not to an appreciable level.

          • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
            0·
            1 month ago

            The difference, one would assume, is that on the whole, Reddit’s political biases influence more what is not shown (much like lemmy.ml banning people for any criticism of Russia, China, or North Korea, or the echo chamber in hexbear), whereas Lemmy’s tankie issue also manifests as people actively sea-lioning (e.g. Cowbee) and (especially from hexbear) overt trolling, which shows up more in people’s faces. Both are issues, neither are good.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.mlEnglish
              2·
              1 month ago

              Always claims of sea-lioning, but never any evidence. You’ve had me blocked for over a year now, why continue this crusade?

              • comfy@lemmy.mlEnglish
                1·
                1 month ago

                I’ve come across some people who have no idea what “sealioning” even means. There used to be a hb user “Ulysses” or something, like three years ago, who accused me of doing it after I replied to their reply to my reply, and that’s the only conversation we’d ever had. I pulled up the definition of sealioning and the comic which the word originated from, and they just say “no that’s not true, stop sealioning”.

                I feel like some people just think sealioning means “this person keeps replying to my posts”, as if conversations on a public forum are somehow uncalled for, or unusual.

        • OpenStars@piefed.socialEnglish
          0·
          1 month ago

          Here is one such very relevant post: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/16hkxua/why_im_giving_up_on_lemmyfediverse/

          A really interesting discussion in particular is below the reply saying:

          The issues you brought up are very much on Reddit too. They are just more noticeable on Lemmy because there aren’t enough niche subs or fluff to drown them out.

          Other replies included “I did end up shutting down my instance.”, which continued on with “But, for me, seeing people blindly bash the USA every chance they get, It’s a turn off.” - like, I get that the USA is unpopular (especially now), and also I am okay with the Threadiverse remaining small, but I did want to push back against this magical type of thinking that we can both have our cake and eat it to, in the form of both bashing people from it and also reaching out to invite people on Reddit (who are primarily from the USA) to join us here. Maybe Lemmy will have more success by marketing itself as more “European” (or at least “non-USA”, so maybe European + Global South)? Whatever goal we want to aim for, we should keep our eyes open as we aim directly at it, imho.

          I do not think that all or even most Threadiverse instances should defederate from lemmy.ml, but on the other hand it would be extremely nice if just ONE instance would do so, which we could then share to people on Reddit as a nicer entry point for those more centrist-leaning users who are primarily people from the USA. Or else decide that that goal is (collectively) not what we all want. The latter being what ended up happening, whether intentionally or no.

          Fwiw, Lemmy has gotten much better over the years in this respect, imho, with many more instances having banned lemmygrad.ml and hexbear.net specifically.

          Like, look at those contortionist comment replies trying to state that, e.g.:

          (if anyone’s out of the loop - lemmygrad isn’t “lemmy”, they are usually defederated by regular instances and their content isn’t visible in “lemmy” as it is colloquially understood)

          This topic is a MAJOR, oft-repeated reason why people on Reddit refuse to come here and check us out.

          https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1jjl8g5/i_tried_lemmy_again_after_a_year_long_hiatus_and/ (the title there gets cut off but continues with “it’s still beyond terrible”), and here is that post’s concluding paragraph:

          If you have a very narrow worldview, politics is your entire personality, and you enjoy dry, charged humor then I guess Lemmy is a good alternative for you, but if you’re anybody else it’s not worth it. Reddit is not good, everybody here agrees. However, despite it’s numerous flaws it’s still a product than Lemmy at it’s very best. It’s simply not a viable alternative imo. Even Instagram and Tiktok are better alternatives than Lemmy.

          Note that I do not agree, just stating how these people said that they felt, if that is helpful for a diagnosis of the state of affairs and what we could potentially do to help mitigate those concerns. e.g. I successfully petitioned for discuss.online to defederate from hexbear.net, thinking that could help make Redditors feel more welcomed here. Although now I am placing my hope more in PieFed (which e.g. allows users to perform their own personalized defederations without needing admin approval to block all users from any specific instance), while giving up much hope for Lemmy to keep up with its wondrous pace of adding new features.