In the graph above I've arranged the 28 Threadiverse instances with at least 200 monthly active users (MAU)—orange instances running Lemmy, green Piefed, and red Mbin—on the basis of which instances they defederate.
Each instance has its MAU count listed below it, sourced from the latest MAU figures at Fediverse Observer, with adjustments made to the totals for Piefed (due to undercounting by outdated instances, as noted here; I used @Vicinus@piefed.zip's suggested estimate of 7,200 Piefed users) and Mbin (due to tardigram.com having a duplicate listing).
After adjustments, there are an estimated 43,287 monthly active Threadiverse users (35,184+7,200+903), of whom 87.84% are on the 28 largest instances. The percentages listed alongside the MAU figures correspond to each instance's share of the total MAU count.
Defederation data was sourced from Federation Checker. The tool doesn't support Mbin instances, so I left fedia.io in its own category. If any defederations are missing, feel free to let me know. Ideally such a chart should also include community blocks to better illustrate which instances block what, but that data doesn't appear to be as easily searchable.
I also noticed cases of some instances being listed as being defederated by another instance, despite not appearing on the defederation list for that instance (i.e. reddthat.com and lemmygrad.ml are listed as being mutually blocked, despite neither having the other on their block lists). In testing that federation, I noticed that !wholesome@reddthat.com did not federate to Lemmygrad while !memes@reddthat.com did, so clarification on that matter would be helpful.
While I'll update my generalized chart as needed to correct errors, perhaps at some point an automated federation mapping tool similar to the one feddit.de formerly hosted could be developed to more completely illustrate instance federation.
I've said this a number of times over the past couple days, but if there's an instance for mirroring subreddits, where niche subreddits that don't have an equivalent here yet basically get a carbon copy and a repost bot to stock them with relevant stuff from over there, that could fill in some of those gaps and make the fediverse a more attractive alternative.
It won't have the same level of engagement right away, but it will provide a place for that engagement to occur, and as more people start using it it will create a network effect. As things stand now, we're missing a lot of those niche communities.
There is an instance like that - lemmit.online. It's been going for three years and it's still a ghost town.
Ah, I see. Yeah, it is a ghost town...
Someone explained that that exists and hasnt connected with people, but I think a big part of why it hasnt is that theres no real social drive to comment or engage with something if theres zero chance the poster might see it. It kinda feels like you're just speaking into the void, or talking to yourself
Thats how I feel about it at least 🤷🏻♂️ if a human reposts stuff at least you can chat with the reposter about it, if its the kind of post where that makes sense. If the post is a "hey look at this thing I did", the reposter can't really say how it went or discuss the experience
That makes sense. I guess it would mainly only work for posts linking to articles, but we already have that honestly
Yeah. Honestly I feel like if it were to be helpful the best application would probably be a mixed one, where a mod still uses and checks the inbox on the not account. So only partially automated, and only makes up some of the posted content
And I think it'd probably also work best if the mod picked what was to cross post and it could all just be put into a que, rather than just cross posting anything and everything. That way they can select stuff that would make sense to post even if they aren't the originator: memes, articles, info-posts/guides, etc.
It'd still be less work than manually finding a ton of stuff to post, but still be much more intentional and interactive feeling.
Yeah, that makes sense. I like that idea