I was having a conversation with @cherry@piefed.social. They brought up having difficulty with “Feeds”.

… Its almost spread too thin and i don’t know what to ask/join etc.
For example crafts, i come across odd ones on my feeds but i was hit explore and click on Art & Crafts i have 3 options. That’s it
Arts
Craft
Photography
Its more maybe that when creating they are not going into a sub category if that makes sense?
I might be wrong, or i might be using my find and join wrong. Second it would be great if i could then either subscribe subcategory or block a whole category etc? …

I never used “Feeds” or “Topics”, so can’t offer too much feedback, but from my limited looking at it now, it seems in need of some improvements to make it useful. Some context: looks like all but two “Feeds” have 0 or single-digit subscribers…

Cherry:

If I could browse by genre and it was capturing a mix of my old plus any new communities that fitted the genre it would likely help.

I think that’s a really good idea. I could see “Feeds” implementing this. Like at community creation (and in community settings), each community could select what categories they relate to and be automatically added to that “Feed”. Might have a spam/troll problem and each “Feed” require its own mods, but still worthwhile, in my view.

Even if each community selecting a category only added it to a quick select list for “Feed”/“Topic” creators, I think that would be an improvement.

Let me know if you have any questions or want more information about the idea.

Goal: I see these posts as a way to identify community gaps that people want filled, but not to arbitrarily create communities to “fill those gaps”. I’m hoping that by creating a list of gaps and people interested in those gaps, we can put together teams that can/will work together to sustain their communities (many hands make light work).

My thinking is, once a number of people have indicated an interest in a particular topic, I can reach out to them (or they can initiate discussions themselves) and see if they are willing to start or revive a particular community. If not, no worries/no pressure.

To that end, I’m looking for anyone’s input about potential communities (not necessarily to be created anytime soon). Some ideas about potential input (don’t need to answer any or all the questions):

• Is there an inactive community you would like to subscribe and/or post to? (No pressure to try and revive it)
• Do you have an idea for a new community? (It would be helpful if you provide some detail about what the community would be focused on and what sort of posts it would contain)
• Do you have a suggested community name? (Not required, but if you have an idea, feel free to share)
• Do you have a suggested community instance/server? (Some servers have significantly different views on different topics)
• Are you willing to be a community mod? (Not to pressure you, just to provide support, if indicated)

Updates from Last Week:
Discussion of a working guide to be added to the sidebar has been suggested. It’s been confirmed that Piefed has the functionality for each community to have its own wiki (thanks Blaze @piefed.zip).

The guide could contain:

• On-boarding/quick breakdown of the threadiverse with relevant terms
• Demographics. Know demographic sets: Fedecan 2025, Lemmy.nz 2025, Any others?
• Suggestion of types of posts (ex. opinion requests, question-answer)
• Any other suggestions?

Thanks for the suggestions JohnnyEnzyme @piefed.social

Started Communities:

• !smallbusinessowners@lemmy.world

Suggested Communities - Potential subscribers or active users:

• Mahjong
• missingno @fedia.io
• Deer (images)
• Auster @thebrainbin.org
• Rooftops (pictures of rooftops, rooftop gardens, cozy rooftop spaces)
• Potential subscribers: squirrel @cake.kobel.fyi, vicinus @piefed.zip

Struggling Communities:

• !android@lemdro.id
• !ecospheres@mander.xyz (instance currently down)

Also, let us know if you have any suggestions about this community or post.

Edit: Adding context to the post’s goal and changed the post title to be more accurate to the goal.
Edit 2: Added another potential community and a couple struggling communities.

• Do you have an idea for a new community? (It would be helpful if you provide some detail about what the community would be focused on and what sort of posts it would contain)
• Do you have a suggested name for the community? (not required, but if you have an idea, feel free to share)
• Do you have a suggested instance/server for the community? (some servers have significantly different views on different topics)
• Are you willing to be a mod of this community? (not to pressure you, just to provide support, if indicated)

Also, let us know if you have any suggestions about this community or post.

Thanks to @stuartml@piefed.social for starting the ball rolling on these types of posts.

Takeaways:

• All-Time MAU Peak (in last 7 Days): Piefed(6753), Writefreely(233609), Vernissage(205)
• Positive Daily Growth (6+ of last 7 Days): Piefed(7/7), Pixelfed(7/7), Writefreely(7/7), Vernissage(6/7)
• Weekly Growth (>5%, >500 MAU): Piefed(+5.9%), Pixelfed(+18.5%), Writefreely(+192.3%)

High-Level Notes:

• Writefreely is absolutely exploding right now (3x last week, 23x last month, 100x 3-months ago)
• Piefed is still likely under-counted by a few hundred MAU (due to an activity error, corrected in v1.7) and missing piefed.zip (not counted by fediverse.observer). I’d estimate piefed is at ~7200 right now.
• Vernissage recent growth seems to be just natural (not new update causing people to check it out or a big server being recently found)

Monthly Active Users^[1]:

Difference^[1]:

Change (%)^[1]:

Tracker Comparison^[1,2]:

• Source: [1] Fediverse-Observer, [2] FediDB, Analysis Code

Notes:

1. Threadiverse is Piefed, Lemmy, and Mbin. Fediverse only accounts for listed software [17], not the other [112] software tracked by Fediverse-Observer.
2. Fediverse-Observer provides daily MAU back to 20221130. FediDB only provides a current snapshot (snapshot within the last 15 minutes, no time series data) and only tracks some of the software [67].
3. FediDB seems to use unclear math to get there counts and overestimate the MAU on most software (see previous post, if interested in learning more).

Edit: Added the “High-Level Notes” header, removed excess period punctuation, and add piefed estimate sentence.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.zip/c/fedilytics@piefed.zip/p/1593834/growth-of-the-fediverse-20260621

Takeaways:

• Positive Daily Growth (6+ of last 7 Days): Mbin(6/7), Loops(7/7)
• Weekly Growth (>5%, >500 MAU): Mastodon(+13.6%), Loops(+9.4%)
• Mastodon’s big increase (100k MAU) looks suspect to me. It’s all from one new instance, in Laos, with exactly 100,000 MAU. The instance exists and has posts and users, but I think I only saw ~30 posts over the last day (from 100k MAU).
• After having a few months of continuous MAU loss, it looks like Lemmy has stabilized at a little over 35k MAU for the last month.
• I uploaded this analysis code to Codeburg, because someone asked about it a while ago. Link at bottom labeled: “Analysis Code”

Monthly Active Users^[1]:

Software	Current	Yesterday[1D]	Last Week[7D]	Last Month[30D]	3 Months Ago[90D]	6 Months Ago[180D]	1 Year Ago[365D]	All-Time Maximum
Piefed	4128	4134	4203	4328	5704	1813	1269	6179
Lemmy	35178	35169	35269	35363	36640	34963	46892	72618
Mbin	790	787	757	756	748	721	919	3967
Threadiverse	40096	40090	40229	40447	43092	37497	49080
Mastodon	826190	827027	727346	746647	757069	682749	734491	2737163
NodeBB	61227	61800	63117	63798	59763	33654	71444	76801
Pixelfed	104821	108441	102319	93002	106185	79849	135645	338813
Peertube	50211	50554	51002	47972	43928	28019	28702	53333
Writefreely	10379	10383	10318	15799	10501	989	10558	18802
Loops	4506	4500	4117	4152	5665	2141	28419	29821
Bookwyrm	1127	1200	1193	1164	1734	2816	2889	9429
NeoDB	1767	1763	1757	1751	1822	1830	1761	2025
Friendica	2447	2454	2464	2546	2469	1271	1778	4734
Forgejo	137	131	123	107	111	438	268	1168
Catodon	112	110	112	122	0	0	0	128
Funkwhale	192	187	201	245	301	191	208	1114
Vernissage	150	154	161	158	118	68	84	168
Flohmarkt	14	16	12	17	21	12	0	40
Fediverse	1103376	1108810	1004471	1017927	1032779	871524	1065327

Difference^[1]:

Software	-1 Day[1D]	-1 Week[7D]	-1 Month[30D]	-3 Months[90D]	-6 Months[180D]	-1 Year[365D]	-All-Time Maximum
Piefed	-6	-75	-200	-1576	2315	2859	-2051
Lemmy	9	-91	-185	-1462	215	-11714	-37440
Mbin	3	33	34	42	69	-129	-3177
Threadiverse	6	-133	-351	-2996	2599	-8984
Mastodon	-837	98844	79543	69121	143441	91699	-1910973
NodeBB	-573	-1890	-2571	1464	27573	-10217	-15574
Pixelfed	-3620	2502	11819	-1364	24972	-30824	-233992
Peertube	-343	-791	2239	6283	22192	21509	-3122
Writefreely	-4	61	-5420	-122	9390	-179	-8423
Loops	6	389	354	-1159	2365	-23913	-25315
Bookwyrm	-73	-66	-37	-607	-1689	-1762	-8302
NeoDB	4	10	16	-55	-63	6	-258
Friendica	-7	-17	-99	-22	1176	669	-2287
Forgejo	6	14	30	26	-301	-131	-1031
Catodon	2	0	-10	0	0	0	-16
Funkwhale	5	-9	-53	-109	1	-16	-922
Vernissage	-4	-11	-8	32	82	66	-18
Flohmarkt	-2	2	-3	-7	2	0	-26
Fediverse	-5434	98905	85449	70597	231852	38049

Change (%)^[1]:

Software	-1 Day[1D]	-1 Week[7D]	-1 Month[30D]	-3 Months[90D]	-6 Months[180D]	-1 Year[365D]	-All-Time Maximum
Piefed	-0.1%	-1.8%	-4.6%	-27.6%	127.7%	225.3%	-33.2%
Lemmy	0.0%	-0.3%	-0.5%	-4.0%	0.6%	-25.0%	-51.6%
Mbin	0.4%	4.4%	4.5%	5.6%	9.6%	-14.0%	-80.1%
Threadiverse	0.0%	-0.3%	-0.9%	-7.0%	6.9%	-18.3%
Mastodon	-0.1%	13.6%	10.7%	9.1%	21.0%	12.5%	-69.8%
NodeBB	-0.9%	-3.0%	-4.0%	2.4%	81.9%	-14.3%	-20.3%
Pixelfed	-3.3%	2.4%	12.7%	-1.3%	31.3%	-22.7%	-69.1%
Peertube	-0.7%	-1.6%	4.7%	14.3%	79.2%	74.9%	-5.9%
Writefreely	-0.0%	0.6%	-34.3%	-1.2%	949.4%	-1.7%	-44.8%
Loops	0.1%	9.4%	8.5%	-20.5%	110.5%	-84.1%	-84.9%
Bookwyrm	-6.1%	-5.5%	-3.2%	-35.0%	-60.0%	-61.0%	-88.0%
NeoDB	0.2%	0.6%	0.9%	-3.0%	-3.4%	0.3%	-12.7%
Friendica	-0.3%	-0.7%	-3.9%	-0.9%	92.5%	37.6%	-48.3%
Forgejo	4.6%	11.4%	28.0%	23.4%	-68.7%	-48.9%	-88.3%
Catodon	1.8%	0.0%	-8.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	-12.5%
Funkwhale	2.7%	-4.5%	-21.6%	-36.2%	0.5%	-7.7%	-82.8%
Vernissage	-2.6%	-6.8%	-5.1%	27.1%	120.6%	78.6%	-10.7%
Flohmarkt	-12.5%	16.7%	-17.6%	-33.3%	16.7%	0.0%	-65.0%
Fediverse	-0.5%	9.8%	8.4%	6.8%	26.6%	3.6%

Tracker Comparison^[1,2]:

Software	Fediverse-Observer[1]	FediDB [2]
Piefed	4128	4702
Lemmy	35178	42843
Mbin	790	1329
Threadiverse	40096	48874
Mastodon	826190	979572
NodeBB	61227	10707
Pixelfed	104821	108501
Peertube	50211	45490
Writefreely	10379	9069
Loops	4506	4564
Bookwyrm	1127	3398
NeoDB	1767	1789
Friendica	2447	3150
Forgejo	137	1662
Catodon	112	0
Funkwhale	192	750
Vernissage	150	155
Flohmarkt	14	0
Fediverse	1103376	1217681

• Source: [1] Fediverse-Observer, [2] FediDB, Analysis Code

Notes:

1. Threadiverse is Piefed, Lemmy, and Mbin. Fediverse only accounts for listed software [17], not the other [112] software tracked by Fediverse-Observer.
2. Fediverse-Observer provides daily MAU back to 20221130. FediDB only provides a current snapshot (snapshot within the last 15 minutes, no time series data) and only tracks some of the software [67].
3. FediDB seems to use unclear math to get there counts and overestimate the MAU on most software (see previous post, if interested in learning more).

Edit: added a couple commas

Monthly Active Users^[1]:

Difference^[1]:

Change (%)^[1]:

Tracker Comparison^[1,2]:

• Source: [1] Fediverse-Observer, [2] FediDB

Notes:

1. Threadiverse is Piefed, Lemmy, and Mbin. Fediverse only accounts for listed software [12], not the other [117] software tracked by Fediverse-Observer.
2. Fediverse-Observer provides daily MAU back to 20221130. FediDB only provides a current snapshot (snapshot within the last 15 minutes, no time series data) and doesn’t track all software.
3. Not sure why the two sources have different counts. A quick search of Lemmy showed they found all the same large servers (1 FediDB duplicate found: lemmygrad.ml & lemmygrad.com, 679 & 651 MAU), but got significantly different total MAU counts somehow? Fediverse-Observer MAU appears correct (at least with regards to Lemmy).
4. “Last Week” is actually [6D]ays ago not the usual [7D]ays because there was a server detection/duplication issue that happened [7D]ays ago and was corrected [6D]ays ago.
5. Weirdly Loops has a ~3 week gap in data about a year ago.

Takeaways:

• Positive Growth (every day last week): Piefed
• Lemmy’s data has bounced up and down in the last week. May be due to the NSFW server shutting down, then coming back as an archive, and then shutting down again?
• Loops may have reached its local peak and people are starting to leave again :(
• Seems like a middling, slightly negative week for the Fediverse.

Edit:

• Looking through mbin’s server list it looks like FediDB has a duplicate (Tardigram alpha (167 MAU) & mbin.level5.dev (173 MAU)), while Fediverse-Observer is missing 2 servers (Tardigram alpha (167 MAU) & thebrainbin.org (39 MAU)). So, potentially mbin is at ~1000 MAU. Even based on FediDB list of mbin servers (including the duplicate), it only adds up to 1146 MAU (not 1418). I have no idea how FediDB is getting their MAU count.