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68 Comments

TropicalDingdong

Seems like a major server not reporting their numbers.

Ledivin

A 20% drop in use on American Thanksgiving doesn't seem even remotely outlandish to me

Blaze (he/him) [OP]

I still doubt we make 9 millions posts per day, there is another graph dedicated to comments, which has a much tinier drop on Thanksgiving: https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats

shottymcb

I'm pretty sure ThePicardManuever posts 9 million times a day.

blibla

this looks more like total posts tbh

Zorque

Well, yeah. Posters actually put in effort. Commenters are lazy people who just shit out their terrible opinions.

Gingerlegs

Yea well, that’s just like, your opinion, man

Miles O'Brien

Commenters are the *worst*.

Especially the ones that have custom profiles with names and shit.

Like Bro you aren't fooling anyone, we all know you aren't really a squid that flies.

TriflingToad

you can have profile pictures??

ProdigalFrog , edited

I dunno if people would post so much for upvotes alone. Comments are nice, and I get friendly ones pretty frequently on my posts, and try to leave just as many on others posts :)

Edit: wait, I think I just wooshed myself

Zorque

It was mostly curmudgeonly humor, but really it does take less effort in general to make comments than it does to make posts. So it would make sense that it would see less of a dip when people are busy. It's easy to just jump on and make a few comments or participate in a discussion than to put the effort into making a post of some kind.

It really depends on the kind of person, though. I'd imagine some people find it easier to provide content than to comment on it or respond to others doing so.

TheLowestStone

Hey, my opinions are awesome but you are correct about the shitting and laziness.

Psythik

For sure; I sure wasn't on my phone at all that day, and I'm usually on Lemmy daily. Too busy cooking and mingling with family.

[deleted]

Likewise. The following day as well for me. Oh, and the day after that too. I didn't return to my regular routine until today.

Revonult

It's Thanksgiving. Either a massive drop in posters due to travel or family or whoever was sending the data was similarly out.

SatyrSack

I had definitely noticed things were more quiet than usual on English Lemmy, so I figured it was just the Americans being busy with that.

Blaze (he/him) [OP]

I still doubt we make 9 millions posts per day, there is another graph dedicated to comments, which has a much tinier drop on Thanksgiving: https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats

Andy

That makes a lot of sense.

horse_battery_staple , edited

Possibly an outage from a patch no?

rickyrigatoni

Sorry. That was me. I ate them all.

jace525

Thanksgiving?

hemko

I hate the fact that the vertical axis starts at 7 million, making the drop seem deceptively large

Ekky

Seems fine to me, the axes are easy to understand and there would be a lot of unnecessary whitespace otherwise. Though, it does require some reading comprehension, and that one actually looks at it and not just skims over.

hikaru755

I agree that this way of displaying the data is appropriate, but it would be nice to have a very visible indicator of this. Some kind of highlighted "fold" line or something at the very bottom of the chart, maybe. If I can deduce the units from context, and the trend is more interesting than absolute numbers, then I'm not going to look at the axes most of the time

Feathercrown , edited

This reading comprehension joke it overused and it doesn't even make sense here. It's well-known that you need at least one of those little zigzag indicators when the graph doesn't start at 0 in most cases to avoid people misinterpreting the graph and to make it much more visually clear.

Ekky , edited

I was of the impression that reading a graph also required understanding of regular writing/reading, but I'm no native speaker, so I'll gladly stand corrected.

I'm not sure what you mean by "one of those little zigzag indicators", do you perhaps mean leap/break in data denoted by the "Squiggle"? I don't think any data below 7m is included in this graph, so, if I understand you correctly, then that wouldn't be a proper use of said squiggle.

Feathercrown

Yes, I mean an axis break to denote that part of the axis has been omitted. Using it to show a gap between 0 and the lowest included data in the dataset is very common and is a proper use even according to your own source:

A zigzag on the line of the x- or y-axis in a line or a bar graph indicating that the data being displayed does not include all of the values that exist on the number line being used

Beginning the Y axis at 0 and using an axis break to go from there to 7 million allows you to see the same amount of detail as you can in the OP, while visually signalling to the reader that the scale on that axis does not show a full 0 to 10 million range. This increases the chance that they'll read the graph correctly. You can justifiably blame someone for reading it wrong, but the point of a graph is to communicate, so minimizing the chance for misinterpretation is a good idea.

douglasg14b

Using compressed axes to display data was literally "How to identify misleading statistics 101" in middle school for us....

It seems fine to you but for the majority of people it's misleading most people look at the lines and the relative distance between them to make judgment calls. Not literally the entire point of graphs, to visually display information.

This is a well-known effect and is taught in pretty much every major curriculum.

Ekky , edited

And the above was literally how I was thought to represent data in university. Maximize the areas of interest, make sure to properly label your axes (lest they become misleading), and remember to trim empty space where relevant.

But it appears that proper graphs for science and engineering reports may not be used for representing data to the common man, as it must be assumed that, even for the most simple of graphs, the common man will only look at the funny line, but not the graph itself.

douglasg14b , edited

Yep. You essentially summed up my point.

There's a difference between data display for academia and data display for the general public.

The general public is generally not well educated on understanding the data that's presented to them. Big change in line up or down regardless of scale means big change. It could be from 100 to 100.8, but if the scale is zoomed in then that could be presented as a +80% change.

And often is and sometimes with the axes removed and shown on the news specifically to be manipulative.

I really don't understand why I'm being downvoted above.... This was literally part of my grade school education on identifying and avoiding misinformation. And later on, around how the general public understands data visualizations. They are largely understood at a glance and taken at face value without reading the axes.

This is a easy way to push misinformation. Not by actually pushing real misinformation but by taking advantage of the general public's tendency to not read it carefully.

Which is manipulative. Which is why it's taught in some places as part of the standard educational curriculum...

pcouy

Something's odd with the numbers from fediverse observer. Numbers shown in monthly graphs should be about 30 times higher than numbers shown in daily graphs, but they are about the same

wiki_me

I always assumed its daily reporting of monthly active users. the nodeinfo format that is used for reporting the data does not show daily active users iirc (it is seemingly capable of reporting weekly users).

Blaze (he/him) [OP]

Well spotted

RandomVideos

Its probably the average number per day in a month(the total number divided by 30)

Red_October

We were busy those nights, and if you didn't get the memo it's best to stop asking questions while you still can.

pseudo

I mean, I always thought of OP as someone in the Lemmy's loop. I guess it doesn't know everything...

Blaze (he/him) [OP]

I still doubt we make 9 millions posts per day, there is another graph dedicated to comments, which has a much tinier drop on Thanksgiving: https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats

Blaze (he/him) [OP]

I still doubt we make 9 millions posts per day, there is another graph dedicated to comments, which has a much tinier drop on Thanksgiving: https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats

Zangoose

This could actually make sense if those bot posts that mirror reddit subs are included in this number since those don't really get any comments

Blaze (he/him) [OP]

Indeed. And as Reddit was probably quieter, the mirroring bots would be too

pruwyben

This should say total posts, not average, right?

snooggums

I am thinking it is probably comments and not posts as well.

pruwyben

There's a separate graph on that page for comments, which are up around 17 million.

snooggums

10 million comments by 40k or so active daily users seems incredibly high.

pruwyben , edited

This is showing the total number of posts, not just new ones. The title is really misleading...

Blaze (he/him) [OP]

Is it? That would make more sense. And then, the number of posts would go down if a very large instance would not report for a day (huge instance in this case, we are talking an instance with 2 millions posts out of 9)?

AdolfSchmitler

It's Thanksgiving. A lot of people visiting with friends/family. Idk how to access the numbers but I'd imagine last year was about the same

Blaze (he/him) [OP]

I still doubt we make 9 millions posts per day, there is another graph dedicated to comments, which has a much tinier drop on Thanksgiving: https://lemmy.fediverse.observer/dailystats

bruhbeans

We need to post harder, not smarter

TropicalDingdong

BetaDoggo_

Probably just a reporting bug. Comments stayed consistent.

Blaze (he/him) [OP]

Oh, definitely

Kit

What would cause this?

NOT_RICK

Assuming it’s not a bug, maybe Americans busy with Thanksgiving? I know I was on less as a result

actually

I’m thinking that, a lot of users were hanging out with relatives and traveling.

👍Maximum Derek👍

Yeah, I barely looked at Lemmy Thursday - Saturday.

cm0002

@The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world must have taken a Thanksgiving break lmao 😂

The Picard Maneuver

Haha, I did. I still posted a few, but I was out of town with family for days and was barely on my phone.

FiskFisk33 , edited

som kind of bot going down maybe?

snooggums

Turkey day travel and spending time with family by prolific posters is likely.

Lazycog

People preparing xmas gifts and planning for holidays?

Andy

That looks much more like a data artifact than an accurate representation of behavior.

I think that the trajectory of the three low dots matches the overall slope very closely in a way that looks far more like a flat subtraction of all three. If it was behavioral, I think you'd see the behavior come and go over the course of several days.

Vik

Maybe it was some sort of federation issue?

Lazycog

You are right, that is quite a dramatic drop and rise.

Aussiemandeus

Friday Saturday right?

We're all lemmying for the weekend

Mwa

Ik Lemmy is a small social media,is this why I feel like Lemmy is dead.

isles

We've been conditioned by endless scrolls, for sure.

Mwa

True