I know lots of folks are talking about Monthly Active Users when it comes to health of the Fediverse.

We use that to compare social medias and even ourselves, a social network, to each other.

I argue we should be focused on user engagement. I know LinkedIn has “impressions”, but idk what that means.

So I wonder if there’s a good way to generate this. Someone posting is the highest, commenting, subscribing, liking, disliking, and follow on down. I guess that would be a statistical model? But with diminishing returns. One SUPER ACTIVE ANNOYING poster does not a network make, but “media” it does.

I don’t have a clue how this would work statistically. But I theorize, that while we’re smaller MAU, our user engagement is significantly higher when population size is accounted for.

Is there any data anyone knows of to back this up or disapprove it? I’m pro small.social though, so maybe I’m wrong. Any data scientists in the Fediverse? :-D

  • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
    3·
    1 天前

    I guess with statistics, you’d always better ask a very specific question. I mean, these are just numbers, I guess? And if you’re fixing an old Linux computer, there is no point in lots of people commenting on meme posts. You want the one person who’s done this before to be part of the network, read your post and then reply… Or if you want to discuss politics, all the people re-posting the news articles on geopolitics don’t really count, you’ve already read the newspaper, now you’d like nuanced opinions in the comments. I’m a bit unsure whether a single abstract number means anything.

    For the health of the overall network, I think MAU isn’t even all that bad. There’s probably a strong connection between “health” of a place, and how many people think it’s worth subscribing and then coming back on a regular basis.

    • ozoned@piefed.socialOPEnglish
      3·
      1 天前

      I agree with statement about statistics. But I disagree that if I’m fixing an old linux computer, and someone posts a meme, it’s not what I wanted. What I personally want on the Fediverse, is human connection and interaction. So I think that’s a wholly valid post. I’d like the answer, but I’m here to build bonds. I’ve met so many people I’ve talked with on the Fediverse, because I don’t just want the answer. I want REAL conversation.

      I agree if you’re looking at health of a SERVER, MAU counts. But let’s just take Lemmy. If we just look at lemmy.ml MAU doesn’t begin to tell the whole picture of “LEMMY” and not “lemmy”.

      I was just talking with someone that compared it to pamphlet bombings. You have NO CLUE how many see it. It’s more about how many SHOW UP. And I’d argue that “showing up” would look completely different even on Lemmy vs Mastodon vs Pixelfed vs anything else. So it seems like an INSANELY complex idea.

      I want folks to feel GOOD about the future of the Fediverse. And these posts about “MAU” distract from the real point. I can’t do anything about someone posting, I greatly appreciate the work, but I’d like to have a discussion about how we turn this value that has ZERO real world use on the Fediverse, and help pivot to how we can actually help grow our own communities in our own ways. :D

      So I guess maybe the real problem is I just don’t want to admit that MAU fluctuating might truly indicate the “health”. But I love it no matter what. :)

      Sorry, I’m an idealist and a romantic for the Fediverse. :D

      • hendrik@palaver.p3x.deEnglish
        3·
        22 小时前

        Totally agree. First of all with the Linux vs Meme… Yeah, we’re all living in more than one dimension. Guess I more or less wanted to say, most helpful advice I got on what non-spec combinations of RAM and computers work etc… I got from Reddit. I think it’s a bit an amount of users thing.

        I’m also for human connection. I’m also here to talk to people. Especially in the comments. Also why I sometimes disagree with people on what the Threadiverse needs more of.

        With the pamphlet bombings… Well, the internet changed a lot in my lifetime. We had times we thought it was a bit unethical to do statistics on what software you install, hence what packages in Debian are installed how many times. As a more privacy-oriented person you were told to just put it out there and not worry about collecting that kind of data… Or just write your Blog mainly for yourself and maybe some people will like it as well. I think as of today, that’s very niche way of thinking. Thanks to the advertising industry, we need exact page impressions. And everyone expects social media to come with all these engagement metrics, how many people saw the post… Not only professional “influencers”. I’ve heard random people will also have a look at the numbers. And your local youth organization also wants to know about the propagation of their invitation to the summer party. What the algorithm does to their posts, etc… Just counting how many people showed up isn’t how communication works any more. At least in my experience.

        I’ve upheld the opinion, the change in the MAU is probably a rough indicator on our attractiveness. If a place is nice, people will come and want to join the party. But it’s a bit of a diffuse metric and doesn’t tell anything in specific. Plus it’s not the only factor.