Piero Bosio Social Web Site Personale

I didn't realize—that's pretty cool!

Both are good explanations, thanks!

As this is a graph of comments and likes to posts by @heiseonline@social.heise.de - who don't post to Lemmy/Piefed - it's probably not related to Reddit. But quitting X is also a good new years resolution I guess. :)

There seems to be a January effect of sorts, being the highest peak of both years. Is journalism more interesting in January, are people bored in winter after Christmas, is it random, or is something else going on? Could be interesting to know. I'd love to see whether this happens again in 2026.

My interpretation of usage trends is that the novelty is wearing off, and the people left using these sites are largely just using them normally. Less and less content is meta-discussions about being here and not being elsewhere. Of course some users leave as the novelty wears off, but enough seem to have stayed that I'm pretty optimistic it won't go back to being a dusty corner reserved for only the biggest open source fanatics.

Oh, and here's the graph of comments over time, as only the first picture federated to where I'm reading from:

@rimu@piefed.social - I'm assuming this is a known bug :)

I guess in a way that's what it offers, just that instead of an algorithm it's human curated. Mastodon is a lot about boosts, so following someone doesn't mean just following them, but also being subjected to whatever they boost (unless you silence their boosts of course). So if you're interested in pottery and you follow a pottery starter pack, chances are that feed will end up a curated channel of pottery content.

The great thing is that it has quality control and cannot be abused the same way algorithmic feeds always end up being. The funky thing is, of course, that you also end up being exposed to everything else those people are interested in. But I think that's part of what makes Mastodon feels so nice.