Users will now see seven-day metrics that track active visitors and contributions instead.

  • misk@piefed.social
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    1 day ago

    At first I thought it’d be a good change because subscriber count can really distort size of the community on older subreddits. On the other hand - given that this whole thing runs on inertia I don’t see how new metrics solve this. Big subreddits will stay big because they’re big already.

    • blackfire@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I think that’s the idea. True traffic or at least recent traffic will bubble up while old ones fall.

    • scintilla@crust.piefed.social
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      1 day ago

      I don’t know what it is about reddit buy I find myself constantly feeling outraged when I stop by to browse something that’s not on Lemmy. I don’t have any accounts anymore luckily but for some reason reddit feels harder to disengage on then lemmy/piefed.

    • hector@lemmy.today
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      1 day ago

      I worry about not being able to get help with some work-related projects. There is Facebook but Facebook just sucks especially from my phone. You would think they would use their billions of dollars to fix glitches but since they have no competition why bother I suppose.

  • Dholi@lemmy.ca
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    24 hours ago

    Good, glad I stopped contributing to Reddit. We need to stop being so dependable on US social media giants.

    • monogram@feddit.nl
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      21 hours ago

      US Proprietary - social media giants. Let’s be inclusive with, TikTok, VKontakt

  • Ulu-Mulu-no-die@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    Ofc they will, so the can inflate participation with bots all they want.

    If bots weren’t counted, it wouldn’t actually be a bad metric IMO.

  • henfredemars@infosec.pub
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    2 days ago

    Ah, the old stock-pumping strategy of cooking the books and only sharing good numbers. Never change, Reddit.

  • Onyxonblack@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    I’m sure they will find some underhanded way to fudge and cheat these numbers with AI bots going forward.

    • hector@lemmy.today
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      1 day ago

      The site-wide administration seems to consider triggering Russians’ feelings as a violation of their rules. Also Israel.

  • Cosmoooooooo@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    But it won’t detect the bots that it doesn’t want to, so the numbers will just be bullshit.

    “Buy ads based on my fictional metrics, please!”

      • someguy3@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Why should they show subscribers of dead accounts? I think they only kept that to “prop up” numbers before the IPO.

        • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
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          Why should they show subscribers of dead accounts?

          Because the number of subscribers gives you a better idea of the size of the community than a vague “visitors” - that includes every single clown who stumbled upon the subreddit after googling or clicking a random link.

          Also note the issue of the number including dead accounts could be easily solved.

          I think they only kept that to “prop up” numbers before the IPO.

          I think they’re actively trying to hide the number of lurkers, by conflating it with casual visitors.

          • someguy3@lemmy.world
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            24 hours ago

            Because the number of subscribers gives you a better idea of the size of the community than a vague “visitors”

            It’s literally the exact opposite. Subscribers from dead accounts aren’t active, they aren’t part of the community, they aren’t discussing. They are dead accounts.

            The people that ARE in the community are the actual users that show up on a regular basis. THAT is what shows the actual size of the community. Not that it was once a default sub for hundreds of thousands of accounts that are no longer active.

            • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
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              23 hours ago

              Subscribers from dead accounts aren’t active, they aren’t part of the community, they aren’t discussing. They are dead accounts.

              I already addressed this: “note the issue of the number including dead accounts could be easily solved”.

              The people that ARE in the community are the actual users that show up on a regular basis.

              Emphasis mine. That is not what the “visitors” metric is about.

              • someguy3@lemmy.world
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                22 hours ago

                Yeah but it’s not solved JFC. Could could could isn’t accomplished by their currently showing subscribers of dead accounts. JFC.

                And it couldn’t be solved easily anyway. What’s a dead account? Log in once a year? That’s certainly not active in that community. But hey let’s count that anyway, right? Subscribed but all you do is browse all? Not active, but let’s count that too, right? A game is popular for a while and gets tons of subscribers, then peters off and the people don’t unsub and just browse all. Again: not active, but fuck it let’s count that too. See the problem yet? Subscriber is way vaguer (your word) than actual participants.

                Enjoy the last word if you want it.

                • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
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                  20 hours ago

                  Yeah but it’s not solved JFC.

                  Of course it isn’t solved. Because Reddit does not want to solve it. It doesn’t want users to know how large the community of a subreddit is. It’s simply cooking the numbers: the bigger the better, even if bigger = less accurate. So it’s replacing an inaccurate metric with an even more inaccurate metric.

                  And, again: it didn’t even need to replace it. I’m saying it should show both metrics dammit. Both are inaccurate, but with both you have better grounds to reach less inaccurate conclusions about community size than with only one of them.

                  And this is bloody obvious. Specially from Lemmy:

                  Could could could isn’t accomplished by their currently showing subscribers of dead accounts. JFC.

                  The fact it could but it won’t matters here, even if you pretend otherwise.

                  And it couldn’t be solved easily anyway. What’s a dead account? Log in once a year? That’s certainly not active in that community. But hey let’s count that anyway, right? Subscribed but all you do is browse all? Not active, but let’s count that too, right? A game is popular for a while and gets tons of subscribers, then peters off and the people don’t unsub and just browse all. Again: not active, but fuck it let’s count that too. See the problem yet?

                  “Unless you can solve it perfectly right off the bat than its impassible!!! lol lmao”

                  Start with an arbitrary cut-off line for activity. Then tweak it over time. Done.

                  Enjoy the last word if you want it.

                  I don’t care about the last word. But I do care someone is vomiting false dichotomy, eating their own vomit, and expecting me to eat it alongside them. I’m not doing it.

        • scintilla@crust.piefed.social
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          1 day ago

          Because there is a level of stability in subreddits with >50k ish subscribers that subs smaller than that just don’t have. You might have a lot of MAU because a sub hit r/all multiple times but goes back down to a much smaller number following that because it’s out of the news.

          • someguy3@lemmy.world
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            24 hours ago

            The point is they don’t actually have 50k subscribers if 30k of those are dead accounts. They have 20k. Showing 50k accomplishes absolutely nothing. What stability? Stability in use? No. Stability in shown numbers? Yay but it’s fake. Any and all default subs that are auto subscribed have pumped up numbers when users leave.