Lemmy's active userbase has been stable since September 2025

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.

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.

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

• !casualconversation@piefed.social
• !goodnewseveryone@piefed.social
• !wholesome@reddthat.com
• !nicememes@sopuli.xyz
• !dullsters@dullsters.net / !dull_mens_club@lemmy.world
• !twogoobers@lemmy.zip

Excellent point and example, I agree.

MwoG and !Chapotraphouse@hexbear.net have every right to exist, just like 4chan, just like NSFW content, just like bots - my beef has always been that they should all be labeled. Properly labeled NSFW can be blurred, filtered out, now a new feature on PieFed allows it to be specifically searched for even, bots likewise can be blured, filtered out, or at least you see a visual indicator that replying to it will not yield a conversation.

In fairness to CTH, the community sidebar does accurately describe what it does. Unfortunately, Lemmy's UX workflow does not show the sidebar text when browsing by All, and some apps seem to go very very very much out of their way to hide every sidebar - burying it behind 5+ clicks and also a deep scroll required. For someone who already knows what CTP is all about that's perfectly fine - you only need such text once, or perhaps in communities like YPTB rarely (for the acronyms) - but for a newbie to stumble across CTP unawares can be... well... devastating, quite frankly.

So I do not begrudge its existence, only it being so readily accessible the same as any other community, even though it is NOT just like any normal community. But, like a bot, like NSFW, if someone wanted to opt-in to it, that should be their decision. i.e. by making an account on an instance that federates with hexbear and joining that community.

Separately, but not unrelated, hexbears are known trolls. It's fine to troll in the community specifically created for trolling, but to do it all across the entire Threadiverse, especially in flagrant violation of the rules for other communities... that's not ideal. Hexbear should be defederated from because Hexbear consistently violates the rules that others set for themselves, and because consent should matter.

But if a space like PieFed.zip wants to federate with hexbear... that's its business, fine. Though WITH NO LABEL on CTP, I strongly think that it makes that instance less "Newbie-friendly". Wouldn't an instance that does not label bots or NSFW be the same? Also, note that PieFed currently has no capability (iirc?) to label all users from an instance. So when someone comes over from Reddit, makes let's say a comment in an innocuous community such as memes@lemmy.world, and gets trolled by a hexbear user, and then again by other users in other communities, over and over and over and over again, why should we be surprised when they nope right back to Reddit?

Perhaps goat should have a label as well. Perhaps I should myself? I agree that I write long messages, so if I had a label that said "writes long messages", why should I even be offended? It would help warn people away, if they did not want to receive such? Though for others of us, that's what we came here for - not just a hundred or so characters that would fit within Twitter's old restrictions, but LONG-form content, chock full of facts and detailed analyses - I change my opinions over time in response to such, when presented with such details and logic (e.g. I used to argue that while hexbear was a troll instance that lemmy.ml was not, though I now have a much more nuanced take on the subject). Choice is a beautiful thing :-).

So I am not opposed in the least to someone seeing CTP, I am slightly more opposed to federating the hexbear instance (but whatever, to each their own), and what I am mainly opposed to is that Newbies in particular can be exposed to hexbear's trolling even/especially outside of their communities without any kind of warning whatsoever - as if their trolling was the same type as any other content here. Their trolling is their decision, while our decisions to allow their trolling is on us, and all the more so to validate it when a label could be applied but we choose not to. Which makes us a Nazi bar - not that we are Nazis ourselves (or in this case, we are not hexbear trolls), but if we accept them here as if they were any other user, with zero distinction between them and us, then that makes us only one step removed from them. Especially in the eyes of someone noping out of our content because we look superficially similar to them.

We cannot force others to join here, only become as enticing as possible so that if they don't join us, that's their loss:-).

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.

Spez here. Hey, come on, man.

I'd much rather Hexbear than people like you who are on a deranged multiple week crusade. Thank god for the blocking feature.

It’s been 6 hours, may I out of friendly nature inquire after the hopefully most entertaining intercourse with @Klear@quokk.au? I trust it was most fulfilling?

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

• !casualconversation@piefed.social
• !goodnewseveryone@piefed.social
• !wholesome@reddthat.com
• !nicememes@sopuli.xyz
• !dullsters@dullsters.net / !dull_mens_club@lemmy.world
• !twogoobers@lemmy.zip

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

• !casualconversation@piefed.social
• !goodnewseveryone@piefed.social
• !wholesome@reddthat.com
• !nicememes@sopuli.xyz
• !dullsters@dullsters.net / !dull_mens_club@lemmy.world
• !twogoobers@lemmy.zip

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

• !casualconversation@piefed.social
• !goodnewseveryone@piefed.social
• !wholesome@reddthat.com
• !nicememes@sopuli.xyz
• !dullsters@dullsters.net / !dull_mens_club@lemmy.world
• !twogoobers@lemmy.zip

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

• !casualconversation@piefed.social
• !goodnewseveryone@piefed.social
• !wholesome@reddthat.com
• !nicememes@sopuli.xyz
• !dullsters@dullsters.net / !dull_mens_club@lemmy.world
• !twogoobers@lemmy.zip

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.

Make Spez account

Troll reddit refugees

????

Profit

I would get banned from not only the entire instance but from communities that I’ve never so much as heard of

That's not how it works. You get banned from the instance and all communities you have commented or posted in. And it wouldn't be any different if it were to happen on .world or .zip.

(I know OpenStars and piefed.social users cannot see this, however I wanted everyone else to at least understand how bans work)

Hey, nice to see you around!