Following https://tarte.nuage-libre.fr/c/fediverse/p/194717/we-need-more-users I decided to explore data a little bit more. I’m not the biggest fan of growth-as-as-target so I wanted to see how much the people were participating in the discussion.
The data
I took the data from the API explorer in https://api.fediverse.observer/ with this query:
query {
monthlystats {
date_checked
softwarename
total_posts
total_users
total_comments
}
}
Then parsed the json with this https://jqlang.org/ filter:
jq '.data.monthlystats | map(select(.total_users > 0 and (.softwarename == "lemmy" or .softwarename == "mbin" or .softwarename == "kbin" or .softwarename == "piefed"))) | group_by(.date_checked) | map( {date_checked: .[0].date_checked, total_users: ([.[] | .total_users] | add), total_posts: ([.[] | .total_posts] | add), total_comments: ([.[] | .total_comments] | add)}) | map({date_checked, posts: .total_posts/.total_users, comments: .total_comments/.total_users}) | sort_by(.date_checked) | map([.date_checked, (.posts | tostring), (.comments | tostring)]) | .[] | @csv'
(As you see I filtered for the threadiverse. I also did the same with all software, I’ll put the graph for that in comments)
Then did a good old’ chart
What to think of it
I don’t know. Users’ activity is on the rise and I find it nice


All I see is about 60% general news/politics (pointing out the obvious, Trump bad, ICE bad, America is dumb, people should be rioting in the streets from all the bad things, capitalism bad), 30% Linux/FOSS circlejerk (don’t use Chrome, use Firefox, don’t use Firefox, use Librewolf, don’t use AI, Linux always works out of the box and is so easy to use even a grandparent can do it, it also has an App Store, oh you had an error with the App Store just start typing black magic into the command line, and don’t use snaps, I use arch BTW), and 10% low effort memes (Greentext, ADHD memes, usually generic and low effort). None of these are particularly plentiful — except for the fact that they’re the ONLY content seemingly available — and none are high quality either. I don’t ever see any Cities: Skylines content for instance, let alone Workers and Resources. Have to go to Reddit for that.