korendian

joined 2 years ago
[–] korendian@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I honestly prefer other sites/apps anyway. Tusky is a great app for connecting all your fediverse accounts in one place, and friendica has a filter by image option that essentially turns it into Pixelfed.

[–] korendian@lemmy.world -3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Again, as mentioned several times, the original post says the line went vertical, which it just objectively did. You could change the timeline and it might not look so vertical, for example making it show every day or every few hours, but that would be less honest imo. Even zooming out 120 days, which is the maximum time frame I could find for this data (https://pixelfed.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120), it is still a straight vertical line, and very clearly the fastest it has grown for a while. That's not misinformation or exaggeration, it just simply isn't.

As far as exponentiality, the growth rate is absolutely exponential. From the 10th to the 12th, it grew by 2500, then from the 12th to the 14th it grew by 5000 users. Then from the 14th to the 16th it grew by 25000. So if you want to get really technical, it's not exponential because it's more than doubling each day, it's starting approach factorial growth. So I guess I will cede that technicality, but the point remains, if I was in a statistics course and someone told me to identify the type of trend that this graph represents, I would personally go with exponential. You're free to make your own interpretation of what sort of trend the graph shows, but you would be wrong. It's not my fault that you and others are conflating exponential number growth with exponential growth rate. I never claimed the raw number of users was growing exponentially, just that the rate of growth was exponential.

Now go ahead and call me a liar for stating facts.

[–] korendian@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago

Username checks out.

[–] korendian@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Lemmy is unique on the fediverse, in that it has communities that you can subscribe to. The closest equivalent is community groups on Friendica. Pixelfed is more similar to Mastodon in that you can follow individual accounts, or hashtags/search terms, which is how you subscribe to different content in your feed. For example, I follow #catsofmastodon and see all posts tagged with that in my feed. Hashtagging your posts is very important if you want it to be seen. Lemmy is more oriented towards discussions, which is why communities make more sense in this context than on Pixelfed or Mastodon.

[–] korendian@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Very interesting. I have heard of hubzilla, but never really checked it out. I will be looking into it now, thanks!

[–] korendian@lemmy.world 23 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Tighten background checks for guns: ✋ Tighten background checks for 3d printers: 👀

[–] korendian@lemmy.world -4 points 2 days ago (5 children)

Sorry for getting annoyed when people needlessly correct others to make themselves seem smart.

[–] korendian@lemmy.world 40 points 2 days ago

So he basically admitted that he farmed it out, otherwise he would have proven it.

[–] korendian@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

We already see lag in comments and posts with the current load. It could be buggy apps as this is relatively new, but who knows. I am no network engineer, but I would imagine that issue to only get worse as user numbers increase.

 

Editing to let people know that I will be blocking anyone who feels the need to tell me why this graph is inaccurate. I truly don't care, but feel free to chime in with your useless take and land a spot on my block list! 🙂

 

I know this has been a regular topic of discussion lately, as Facebook users are looking for alternatives, but there is a harsh reality I think netizens of the fediverse need to acknowledge that will keep the majority of Facebook users locked in. That is the personal social graph that Facebook has built up for users over the years. No other site on the web has a way to find nearly anyone you have ever known, from high school friends to long lost family members. The reason for this is because of the format of Facebook being "you" on the web. Your profile is your name, your personal info, and it is even linked to your phone number and contacts, making social networking incredibly easy.

The closest that exists for this on the fediverse is Friendica, but it is more of a reddit/twitter hybrid imo, and while you can make your profile page personal, the posts you make will go to the entire fediverse. This lack of privacy and tailoring of your messages to a particular audience is what is going to make Facebook unbeatable for the foreseeable future. People want alternatives, but these alternatives simply do not exist.

I would be very curious to hear about efforts to make sites on the fediverse more personalized and enabling of people to control their audience, because this (along with improving user experience) is the biggest thing I think is keeping people from making the switch.

 

It seems that the time for a facebook replacement is now, just based on the sense I have gotten. A lot of my friends, who would previously have clung onto facebook through all the terrible things it did over the years, are now looking for alternatives. The current consensus for most is joining Bluesky. I would love to be able to recommend them to the fediverse equivalent, Friendica, but it is nowhere close to ready for primetime.

So my question is this. How can we work to make friendica more user friendly and develop it's features to a point that it can be a true facebook alternative? Or, do we need to come up with a new platform entirely, possibly one that is forked from Friendica, that has the required features. Specifically, these are the things I think need work:

  • Simplify user sign up. No one cares about servers, and I think this is one of the biggest thorns in the side of the fediverse in general. Make a single landing page, where you type in your location and will be auto assigned to a server based on the closest one to you. If one does not exist within a certain radius, a server is instantly created (details of this mechanism tbd), and a member of a dedicated team of admins will be assigned as a moderator of that server. This is just an idea, but we need to greatly simply the user sign up process and make scaling easier.
  • EDIT: Nevermind, it was an issue with the wrong version I downloaded. I did find a couple apps, but both were still in somewhat early development: Raccoon - https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/com.livefast.eattrash.raccoonforfriendica Relatica - https://gitlab.com/mysocialportal/relatica ~~A working mobile app. There is only one app I know of that is not even in beta, and I couldn't get it work at all. Most people will not use a site if it doesn't have an app.~~
  • Clean up of basic functionalities. Default to the most intuitive and user friendly options (no delete box enabled on posts/comments that aren't yours, infinite feed on by default, prominent option dropdown to turn on darkmode or different styles, etc). I should not be taken to someone's page when I click the "follow" button. Following should also be a two way street, and require consent. You cannot see someone's content on facebook unless they approve your friend request. This is how it should be on friendica. Improve groups. I see they exist, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to browse or search for them. Stop notifying me after I make a post. I know I made the post, I don't need to be notified. Develop more appealing UI/UX overall that is easy for a layman to understand and use. Allow editing to show updates without needing to refresh the page. Etc, etc, etc.
  • Add expected functionalities. Tagging users, live videos, gifs, reaction emojis, marketplace, public events, unshare, reshare with commentary, recommend friends from contacts, etc.

I know this is a lot, but this is my honest assessment of the situation. This is why I mentioned potentially creating a new platform. What do people think? Are these changes doable within the friendica framework, or should we start from scratch? What are the thoughts on a facebook alternative in general? I definitely think there is value in enabling people to have a page on the internet that is "them", that people can add and keep up with their life. That is the value that facebook provides, but the existing fediverse doesn't really have such capabilities right now. How can we change that?

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