Crossposted from https://sopuli.xyz/post/49459437
In the graph above I've arranged the 28 Threadiverse instances with at least 200 monthly active users (MAU)—orange instances running Lemmy, green Piefed, and red Mbin—on the basis of which instances they defederate.
Each instance has its MAU count listed below, sourced from the latest MAU figures at Fediverse Observer, with adjustments made to the totals for Piefed (due to undercounting by outdated instances, as noted here; I used @Vicinus@piefed.zip's suggested estimate of 7,200 Piefed users) and Mbin (due to tardigram.com having a duplicate listing).
After adjustments, there are an estimated 43,287 monthly active Threadiverse users (35,184+7,200+903), of whom 87.84% are on the 28 largest instances. The percentages listed alongside the MAU figures correspond to each instance's share of the total MAU count.
Defederation data was sourced from Federation Checker. The tool doesn't support Mbin instances, so I left fedia.io in its own category. If any defederations are missing, feel free to let me know. Ideally such a chart should also include community blocks to better illustrate which instances block what, but that data doesn't appear to be as easily searchable.
I also noticed cases of some instances being listed as being defederated by another instance, despite not appearing on the defederation list for that instance (i.e. reddthat.com and lemmygrad.ml are listed as being mutually blocked, despite neither having the other on their block lists). In testing that federation, I noticed that !wholesome@reddthat.com did not federate to Lemmygrad while !memes@reddthat.com did, so clarification on that matter would be helpful.
While I'll update my generalized chart as needed to correct errors, perhaps at some point an automated federation mapping tool similar to the one feddit.de formerly hosted could be developed to more completely illustrate instance federation.
13 Comments
Vicinus@piefed.zip · 4 pts · 21d
Sounds interesting. I'm also having the same issue opening the file that eremophila@lemmy.zip is (fediverse.world cross-post).
I'll check back later to see the analysis (alternatively, feel free to ping me when it's back up).
Zedstrian@sopuli.xyz · 5 pts · 21d
I went ahead and replaced the catbox link with a PNG upload, so hopefully compatibility is better now (somewhat unfortunate that Lemmy doesn't appear to support SVGs, since it would have been a lot more efficient in terms of file size).
Vicinus@piefed.zip · 5 pts · 21d
Works now. Thanks :)
It's interesting stuff. Looks to me like 4 major groupings (>10% defederation) with 3 separating based on mostly on their approach to the 3 ML instances (block hexbear, block all 3, or block none). Then the anti fedi.nsfw group and more minor defederations (one or two instances involved).
Zedstrian@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 21d
If more instances were included the graph would start getting a bit more complicated, though other than the sub-200 MAU lemmynsfw.com, most other commonly used instances are probably below 10% defederation.
Vicinus@piefed.zip · 3 pts · 21d
I think that's kind of good, that most instances are below 10% defederation. Potentially shows we don't have too many inter-threadiverse bubbles.
With lemmynsfw in archive mode, I expect it'll "die off" within a couple months. It was 180 MAU ~30 days ago, now its at 135 MAU. In the last week it had between 7 and 12 users per day. I think those daily users are probably roughly the same users going back for specific content, rather than new users discovering the server.
By the way, thanks for cross-posting into fedilytics. You're the first person, besides me, to contribute a post :)
Edit: You now also have the highest votes for a post in the community :)
Zedstrian@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 21d
For the sake of new user retention I think it's for the best that Hexbear, Lemmygrad, and NSFW instances get defederated by as many instances as possible (users who want that specific content can sign up to those specific instances for it, while allowing the rest of the Threadiverse to more easily attract new users), but beyond that defederation should be reserved as a tool of last resort to avoid fracturing the Threadiverse further. While the moderation practices of .ml are also unhelpful for new user retention, several important communities are stuck there, as are new users who sign up for it because it's the flagship instance, so blocking its content and letting its users access content on other instances might be a better solution in its case, for now.
Gladly; I'll probably update the graph with a lower MAU threshold and any federation corrections that may be needed, so I'll crosspost that too when it's ready.
Vicinus@piefed.zip · 3 pts · 21d
Yeah, I think a less culture-shocking introduction would help increase retention. The new W3C migration proposal, that was posted today, might help in reducing the sunk-cost in remaining with a specific instance, in the future.
Looking forward to it :)
Note: looks like your downvote came from someone who posts to hexbear. I imagine they took issue with your want to migrate users/communities out of the ML instances. They weren't "serial" and only downvoted the one comment, so I don't think they're problematic.
Auster@thebrainbin.org · 2 pts · 20d
About NSFW, I think it's mostly contained without defederation. Lemmy from my experience doesn't show NSFW stuff by default either on logged off view, logged in view with default settings, or RSS. Mbin fetches NSFW posts through RSS and shows them if you try to open from the RSS, but other than that, same as Lemmy. And PieFed I am slowly testing so not too sure, but besides the explicitly NSFW instance, I don't think I've seen NSFW stuff in the wild.
LwL@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 19d
I probably activated showing nsfw somewhere in settings (which many people might want to do anyway since a lot of things that aren't straight up porn get labeled nsfw), and it's definitely noticable that the all feed at least on .world has a lot of porn after a bit of scrolling, most on specific nsfw instances. This would likely be less of an issue with more users, but as it is I can see a benefit to having instances defederate the nsfw ones - ideally this would just be something listed in the description as well so people can choose (idk if it is, I haven't looked at any in forever).
Sxan@piefed.zip · 3 pts · 19d
What was þe issue wiþ catbox links?
It's a shame Lemmy doesn't support SVGs.
Zedstrian@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 19d
Some people had trouble accessing it, so I replaced it with a Lemmy-native PNG export. Lemmy supporting SVG uploads would save a lot of storage space for vector graphics.
Sxan@piefed.zip · 1 pts · 19d
I was going to check if Piefed allows SVGs þen realized if Lemmy doesn't support þem it'd just show as a broken image for Lemmings. Which would be double plus ungood.