this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2021
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Lemmy

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Everything about Lemmy; bugs, gripes, praises, and advocacy.

For discussion about the lemmy.ml instance, go to !meta@lemmy.ml.

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Is Lemmy gaining or losing active users over time? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 3 years ago by MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml to c/lemmy@lemmy.ml
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I'm new here, so I'd like to know if this project is growing steadily or not really catching on. It has a lot of potentioal imho, but I understand how hard it is to make people use "alternative" websites.

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[–] wiki_me@lemmy.ml 60 points 3 years ago (4 children)

See here. The graph for six month active users is a little glitchy (I think because lemmy.ml was listed twice under two different URL).

There does seem to be very small growth in 6 month active users, not as fast as a few other fediverse platforms (such as friendica and writefreely) . but i got my fingers crossed that third party lemmy tools will create some really compelling features and help push the adoption of lemmy (I think addons can enhance open source software, like how firefox addons helped firefox adoptions).

[–] ThunderQuack@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I know the existence of Memmy on iOS really helped me to jump on as a casual user. I think awareness of apps and easy hop on points is what’s going to be the biggest boon for general growth of the user base

[–] m3enzo@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just noticed this post is from 2 yrs ago. This is also an issue.

[–] ThunderQuack@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Good catch I totally missed that

[–] Cloak@lemmy.ml 10 points 3 years ago (3 children)

Why must addons be created for free software instead of merging it in? for firefox seems good but for lm I don't see the need, why was LES not just added to master?

[–] wiki_me@lemmy.ml 18 points 3 years ago (1 children)

generally speaking adding code to the main code base requires a maintenance overhead maintainers might not be willing to accept, Also there could be disagreements about important design decisions and lemmy devs might not want certain features, it's really hard to know in advance what works best so third party extensions can help a project switch from a mode of "intelligent design" to "evolution", people just try stuff and the best stuff stays and become popular.

Also advanced features might clutter the UX , but power users could be the ones driving the popularity of the platform so that's one way to attract them.

[–] min_fapper@iusearchlinux.fyi 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Also performance. Add-ons tend to be opt in, so they don't cause things to slow down for people that don't use them.

[–] wiki_me@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If you don't mind me asking, how did you get to this comment? it's over then two years old (and seems like your not the only one because someone upvoted you).

[–] PotjiePig@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I too have been sent here. It's at the top of hot right now.

Seems to be a Lemmy zombie post glitch that needs to be addressed.

[–] briongloid@aussie.zone 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I didn't even realise I was looking at a 2y old post

[–] Ivyy_LemmyW@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Same lol

[–] ewe@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Samesies. Very random. Also on hot are things that I would consider new.

[–] wiki_me@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

I don't see it, maybe you should open a bug or post on "lemmy support".

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

Zombie or not this is still relevant and useful

[–] zahel@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

It’s definitely odd, there’s also a 4 year old post in my current feed

[–] Shepy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Your need is not the same as my need. Personally I do a lot of graphics work so a pixel ruler and a colour picker are absolutely necessary for my day to day use of a browser. Are you happy for your browser to be larger and slower to have these, even if you'll never use them? Having extensions allows things to be modular and customised to fit the needs of the end user without unnecessary code hogging memory for others.

[–] lunatichacker@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 years ago

Adding a feature to the Lemmy codebase isn't as easy as making an extension ( for devs who aren't familiar with Lemmy codebase)

[–] MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml 10 points 3 years ago (2 children)

Thanks for sharing, exactly what I was looking for. Like other commenters here, I also think that Lemmy doesn't have to be very popular. But I think reaching ~10k active monthly users would be an essential requirements to have an engaging website.

As for addons, I'm already working on one, called LES (Lemmy Enhancement Suite, similar to RES for Reddit). I'll make it open source in a week I think. Hopefully others can contribute, as I believe one very customizable addon like RES is better than multiple ones.

[–] sonidobonito@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 years ago (1 children)

It might not be as active as Reddit, but there is certainly more quality discussions. At least in my experience.

[–] dragnucs@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 years ago (1 children)

Discussions here seem to be more engaged and constructive. Most reddit comments are gargabe. For example, people just coming up with similar sounding phrases for some other comment, or writing musical lyrics.

[–] sonidobonito@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 years ago

Exactly. I've noticed people actually think before responding instead of just posting whatever half assed knee jerk reaction they think of first. The posts themselves are generally well thought out and lead to actual discussion as well instead of just being memes or whatever (not necessarily dunking on memes cuz they can be funny sometimes, but I believe they're a sometimes food).

[–] wiki_me@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 years ago (1 children)

Thanks for sharing, exactly what I was looking for. Like other commenters here, I also think that Lemmy doesn’t have to be very popular. But I think reaching ~10k active monthly users would be an essential requirements to have an engaging website.

I don't think there is a magic number, the buttom line is that reddit and lemmy are just software for finding and discussing content and where there is great content users (including me) will be. If i or someone else is interesting in something like investing or dieting and there is no community here then we will not be here.

I agree just getting users should not always be considered a good thing, but getting high quality content creators should be, I think the best way to do that is just to build an awesome platform that is also good for "power users", reddit comment order comes from upvotes which strongly correlates with who is the first responder, maybe finding more advanced prioritization sorting could help with that (e.g. some hand picked list of users, say actual open source contributors or commentators who you found insightful should appear first, such list could be define by the user or some third party).

As for addons, I’m already working on one, called LES (Lemmy Enhancement Suite, similar to RES for Reddit). I’ll make it open source in a week I think. Hopefully others can contribute, as I believe one very customizable addon like RES is better than multiple ones.

I think i am the one who actually suggested this, anyway please try to add it to lemmy website apps and libraries page, If the devs don't want that maybe we can have something like a "awesome lemmy" list on github because it seems there is already a small ecosystem for third party software (there is also the Lemmy console interface).

[–] MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 years ago (2 children)

If i or someone else is interesting in something like investing or dieting and there is no community here then we will not be here.

True, but one thing I think the Lemmy.ml admins is doing wrong is opening the creation of communities to everyone. Lemmy have less than 4k active users, but more than 2000 community. that's less than 2 users for each community, so its fair to say that its stretched thin.

If I was them, I'd only allow "Community requesting", where people need to get approval before creating a community. /c/Memes exist? Applying for /c/Dankmemes is rejected. Until there is a substantial number of users, it would remain 1 community per topic. Might be a bit too restrictive for some tastes, but it is necessary imho.

[–] wiki_me@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 years ago

It adds an overhead for the moderators, approving or denying all these requests, I think going with facebook solution of showing how active are communities in the search results is good enough.

But i think you could probably create a "middle man" server that implements this, it could sent requests to the front end from the regular lemmy server but when you try to create a community it would take over (and will be able to save relevant information).

[–] leanleft@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 years ago

or just delete communities with low or no users, no posts, and the admin has been dormant ever since creation.

[–] bappity@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm hoping mod tools are developed soon, automod is a must

[–] wiki_me@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

These already exist at least to a certain degree, see awesome-lemmy.

[–] poVoq@lemmy.ml 21 points 3 years ago (3 children)

Hmm hard to say. It seems to be in waves. There was a slump in new users a few weeks ago, but right now it seems to have picked up again. There are also some new instances (I think opening up federation on lemmy.ml really helped there), so overall it is on an upward trend.

But it is not exploding in popularity or anything like that. However I think organic growth is better anyways.

[–] DrivingForce@lemmy.ml 12 points 3 years ago

I think the devs themselves have said that they don't want to get popular for the sake of popularity. So organic growth and aa healthy community is what they are going for.

[–] tmpod 7 points 3 years ago

Yeah that's pretty much it, and I'd argue it is a healthy growth :)

[–] MarcellusDrum@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 years ago

Yeah I don't mind organic growth, as long as it is actually a growth. Having no increase or a decrease in active users while the project is still young is a bad sign. I'm trying to be as active as I can, so when possible users visit the site, they can be see regular content.

[–] Jama@lemmy.ml 18 points 3 years ago

It's healthy. It's not a capitalistic monster based on ads, so it's not growing like an unnatural blob. But users remain kinda stable, new communities appear sometimes and the conversation is good

[–] marmulak@lemmy.ml 10 points 3 years ago

Personally I am fine not knowing this, although it is interesting! I don't use Lemmy because of how many people use it, but rather I thing it's a good software project. The fact that it's FOSS and federated means it will continue to be relevant for many years to come regardless of what happens to lemmy.ml or other instances.

[–] Camron@lemmy.odat.xyz 4 points 3 years ago

I’d like to know if this project is growing steadily or not

+1 here ;)

[–] DefNotPizza@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 years ago

Idk I have the problem that I remember I have also a lemmy account, only when I get banned on reddit