Mastodawn

Tim Chambers May 25, 2023

This seems very important and worth ongoing study:

“Once again, results suggest a rise in diversity as the 10 biggest server contribution to the Fediverse is reduced by more than 10%. So, even if the biggest servers are accumulating more users, it seems that the Fediverse is becoming more decentralized.”

@fediversereport @spreadmastodon @fediversenews

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/analysis-of-fediverse-diversity-in-terms-of-decentralization/3252

Analysis of Fediverse Diversity in terms of Decentralization

Hello! Following a previous analysis (!it’s in catalan language!) and recovering the interest on the Fediverse, I’ve extended my analysis focusing in software diversity in that case. The two time points analyzed are from September 2022 and May 2023. In the initial analysis above there is a mistake. The dataset used is obtained using script based on this code written by @spla. Before getting into the analysis itself, I want to state that the active users measure is somehow confusing. Some ser...

SocialHub

Jon (now at neuromatch.social)May 25, 2023

@tchambers @fediversereport @spreadmastodon @fediversenews Interesting! Although there are some quirks in the data, with joindiaspora and diasp.org (neither of which are Mastodon) in last March's accounts and not the current list, and with mastodon.cloud and gc2.jp going from over 10% of MAU to not appearing at all in the latest statistics.

maegul May 25, 2023

@jdp23 @tchambers @fediversereport @spreadmastodon @[email protected]

Also, it'd be nice to know something about what comprises all the "others", how many accounts do those instances have, how many of them are there?

Otherwise, it'll be interesting to track this going forward because mastodon.social right now is growing faster than it did between March and 17 May ... the picture could very well look different when comparing May to August.

marcelcosta May 25, 2023

@maegul @tchambers @fediversereport @jdp23 @fediversenews @spreadmastodon

>Also, it’d be nice to know something about what comprises all the “others”, how many accounts do those instances have, how many of them are there?

Others means all the rest! Which means 21089 in May (as shown in the first table).

>Otherwise, it’ll be interesting to track this going forward because mastodon.social right now is growing faster than it did between March and 17 May … the picture could very well look different when comparing May to August.

Totally true! I would like to take monthly pictures (with the help of @spla, which is the author of the API query script).

maegul May 26, 2023

@[email protected] @tchambers @fediversereport @jdp23 @[email protected] @spreadmastodon @spla

Thanks for the reply!

Any chance others can get their hands on the data set?

maegul May 26, 2023

@[email protected] @tchambers @fediversereport @jdp23 @[email protected] @spreadmastodon @spla also, another question … any insights on your your data set and its creation would differ from any of the others out there like fedidb or instances.social?

spla May 26, 2023

@maegul I get the dataset from all peers of my server and then from all peers of my server's peers. After collecting all those peers, my code get the nodeinfo URL of all of them and ask it for users and MAU data, so only *alive* servers data is saved to the dataset.
Here is the code https://git.mastodont.cat/spla/stats
The bot @fediverse is publishing global registered users and MAU.

@marcelcosta @tchambers @fediversereport @jdp23 @fediversenews @spreadmastodon

stats

Get and publish all fediverse's servers stats: total alive servers, total registered users and total Monthly Active Users (MAU)

Forgejo: Beyond coding. We forge.

maegul May 26, 2023

@spla @fediverse @[email protected] @tchambers @fediversereport @jdp23 @[email protected] @spreadmastodon

Awesome! I've already been following that bot. Thanks!!

spla May 26, 2023

@maegul you are welcome! by the way, you can ask any server or soft data to it, check its profile to see how you can do that.

@fediverse @marcelcosta @tchambers @fediversereport @jdp23 @fediversenews @spreadmastodon

marcelcosta May 26, 2023

@spla @maegul @fediverse @tchambers @fediversereport @jdp23 @fediversenews @spreadmastodon Wow, I found a huge mistake in my analysis!

The first time point it's not from March but from September! I am a bit embarrassed, but this is what happens when you rush because of time (and also, chaos in date format).

In fact, this makes more sense and is also interesting because it seems that some months after big October wave, it seems that Fediverse is more decentralized.

maegul May 26, 2023

@[email protected] @spla @fediverse @tchambers @fediversereport @jdp23 @[email protected] @spreadmastodon

I've got the impression that it was somewhat necessary that mastodon be more decentralised in order to take on all the new users as the larger instances, or some of them, struggled. mastodon.social, for example, didn't really gain more users from Jan to March, IIRC.

marcelcosta May 26, 2023

@maegul @tchambers @fediversereport @jdp23 @spla @fediverse @fediversenews @spreadmastodon Sure, these waves have overloaded even not-that-big instances, causing them to close registration for a time. From September, the number of servers has increased by 3.

If we had a historical of the server picture, would be really interesting to trace the movements and evolution of the Fediverse…

Jon (now at neuromatch.social)May 26, 2023

@marcelcosta @maegul @tchambers @fediversereport @spreadmastodon @fediverse @spla @fediversenews It turns out there's some interesting fedidb snapshots available via the Wayback machine.

9/20/22: https://web.archive.org/web/20220920163257/https://fedidb.org/software/mastodon

12/7/2022: https://web.archive.org/web/20221207200249/https://fedidb.org/software/mastodon

3/5/2023: https://web.archive.org/web/20230325171158/https://fedidb.org/software/mastodon

5/1/2023: https://web.archive.org/web/20230501121833/https://fedidb.org/software/mastodon

FediDB - Developer Tools for ActivityPub

Developer Tools for ActivityPub

marcelcosta May 27, 2023

@jdp23 @maegul @tchambers @fediversereport @spreadmastodon @fediverse @spla @fediversenews That is interesting! There are snapshots from prior to Octobers wave and also from October, November, December, etc… So we can monitor what happened with that wave, what was the dynamics of users.

Jon (now at neuromatch.social)May 27, 2023

Yes! Even though the data's noisy and incomplete there are clear differences in dynamics in different time periods. For example (I think, if I did the math right)

9/20/2022 to 12/7/2022: mastodon.social + 71K
mastdn.social +80K

12/7/2022 to 3/25/2023:
mastodon.social +115K
mstdn.social +41K

3/25/2023 - 5/1/2023:
mastodon.social +91K
mastn.social +3.6K.

[EDIT: correcting some of the data]

@marcelcosta @maegul @tchambers @fediversereport @spreadmastodon @fediverse @spla @fediversenews

Jon (now at neuromatch.social)Aug 25, 2023

Some pretty stark numbers over the last three months (5/25/2023 to 8/25/2023)

mastodon.social: +402K users, +92K MAU
mstdn.social +13K users, -2K MAU
mastodon.online: +5K users, -.5K MAU
mastodon.world: :+12K users, -6K MAU
mas.to: +6K users, -2K MAU

@marcelcosta @maegul @tchambers @fediversereport @fediverse @spla @fediversenews

marcelcosta Aug 26, 2023

@jdp23 @maegul @tchambers @fediversereport @fediverse @spla @fediversenews Interesting! I have been taken a daily snapshot from InstanceSocial (as splas dataset got anavailable) from June, I’ll try to take a look these days.

Tim Chambers Aug 26, 2023

@marcelcosta @jdp23 @maegul @fediversereport @fediverse @spla @fediversenews

Also: onboarding flow for the new Mastodon 4.2 beta vastly improved… so will be curious if sites with that show improved rates of sign ups or retention. Mastodon.social was one…

marcelcosta Aug 26, 2023

@tchambers @jdp23 @maegul @fediversereport @fediverse @spla @fediversenews

Its curious how they all show a similar pattern (I have included a smaller one from Catalonia). I have to be sure is not an artifact, but it seams that there was increase starting July that is reflected in the active users.

Another observation is that statuses accumulation (is not by month) seems quite linear.

@[email protected] @tchambers @jdp23 @fediversereport @fediverse @spla @[email protected]

I’d guess that the similar pattern across instances is a subtle but important phenomenon … it suggests that mastodon.social isn’t a categorically better onboarding service just one that sucks up more of the incoming traffic.

Otherwise, a rough look at the numbers shows mastodon.social was taking ~90% of all new users. Of that continues over time it won’t be too long before it’s on its way to bring half of mastodon, presuming future user growth of course!

On which, those MAU graphs are striking. Didn’t realise they fell back down to near base level after the spike. I suppose the rate limit problem resolved itself and those users were mostly bored. Mastodon could maybe do with a more active definition of active user like lemmy’s to discount the bored lurkers … it might be a more stable metric.

Jon Aug 29, 2023

Yep, it's always been the case that most people who check out Mastodon don't stick around. But it's not just Mastodon, the same's true for other social networks. I was just looking at Twitter numbers from back in 2013; only 23% of the people who had signed up for accounts were still active, and most of the active users hadn't tweeted in the last month. Mastodon's numbers on fedidb are somewhat lower (around 17.5%, although that doesn't take servers that no longer exist into account), but certainly in the ballpark. Some long-running instances have much higher retention -- chaos.social and kind.social are over 50%, tech.lgbt and tech.lgbt are both over 30% -- but then again they don't have open registration.

mastodon.social's about average in terms what percentage of signups stick around ... it'll be interesting to see what affect the new onboarding has, although it'll take a while for that to be show up in the publicly visible statistics.

@maegul @[email protected] @tchambers @jdp23 @fediversereport @fediverse @spla @[email protected]

Mark Malowany 🇨🇦Aug 30, 2023

@jdp23 @tchambers @jdp23 @spla @fediverse @fediversenews @fediversereport @marcelcosta @maegul the ones who stick around seen pretty good though 👍

marcelcosta Aug 30, 2023

@markmalowany @jdp23 @tchambers @jdp23 @spla @fediverse @fediversenews @fediversereport @maegul I would say that is quite “normal” that the retention for a new social tool is low when people is trying it without its friends. Without saying that there aren’t things to improve (both technical and social), social tools are in a tight competition for users attention and time. So I am not surprised that new social tools are not stimuli enough without acquaintances or famous.

Chancerubbage Aug 30, 2023

@jdp23 @maegul @marcelcosta @tchambers @jdp23 @fediversereport @fediverse @spla @fediversenews @mastodonmigration

I’d love to know which of my hundreds of followers haven’t posted or looked at the platform in years.

Jon (now at neuromatch.social)Dec 23, 2023

@tchambers and I are talking about centralization again at https://indieweb.social/@tchambers/111631543303868122

Tim's data shows that there isn't any sign of .social hurting traffic to other instances over the last year.

My is in terms of monthly active users, .social has gone from about 17.5% of Mastodon's total MAU in May to 27% today.

@marcelcosta it would be great to update the centralization analyses, both for Mastodon and the fedierse as a whole!

@maegul
@fediversereport @spla @fediverse @fediversenews

Tim Chambers (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image @jdp23 @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] - I think most of those tensions were imagined or hypothetical ones. Good news is that it turns out this did not occur - at least over the last year, show any signs of mastodon social hurting the traffic to other smaller mastodon sites Everyone hummed along.

Indieweb.Social

Tim Chambers Dec 23, 2023

@jdp23 @marcelcosta @maegul @fediversereport @spla @fediverse @fediversenews

Thanks Jon: This was all quick back of the napkin analysis using Simliarweb for Mastodon.social and 4 other Mastodon servers over 12 months. Not extensive but a quick sample test to get a general vibe of things.

Jon (now at neuromatch.social)Dec 23, 2023

@tchambers It's interesting data, it shows how complex the analysis is!

@marcelcosta @maegul @fediversereport @spla @fediverse @fediversenews

marcelcosta Dec 24, 2023

@jdp23 @tchambers @maegul @fediversereport @spla @fediverse @fediversenews Ey! I have read the conversation, it’s clear that there are several diferent visions of what the Fediverse should be :).

I will go back to the analysis once I have time during the Xmas holidays!