It feels like it's dying. Just anecdotally it seems like there have been less threads lately, less quality threads, and less discussion overall. More anecdotally I feel like the last couple of federation / defederation slap fights ended with many users leaving as well. I can think of a few who left because we were federating, some who left because we then subsequently defederated from lots of the fediverse, and then even a few who said they would leave if we didn't defederate and then left anyway when we did.
I feel like mostly overall I have seen very few new posters, and have seen less and less of some certain power posters.
Is this just a illusion or is this really what's happening. What is to be done?
Geoguessr players about to pinpoint your exact location on a map
Putting a marker in my pocket for when I go out today. I'm doing this (assuming I'm not the first bit of graffiti)
there will always be a disparity between those who love badposting/chapotraphouse/thedunktank and those who love theory/news mega/effort the most
this is the great dialectic!
they're both tentpoles of Hexbear Revolutionary Consciousness
How many of those new users are cannibals though? Release the stats, mod.
Mods are self-admittedly flooding us with posting scabs who will both eat our lunch and then subsequently also eat us.
maybe once they eat us, we can finally eat our damn lunch, inside their stomachs. fricking greedy cannibals man
getting new applicants
we have an application now?! my open borders hexbear
There used to be a way to see how many people were online, right? Did that go away completely, or is it just hiding behind CSS?
Line of best fit with a logarithmic function on those data points suggests that without taking peaks into account, there are around 350 users online in any given hour. Maybe in the 250-500 range.
Thanks, but I was more wondering about like what our most active hours were and how that compared to other instances. Like I know we're all pulling nightshifts in moscow, but is that balanced out by our counterparts at Langley?
iirc it wasn't exactly accurate anyhow. At one point I believe it counted every tab as a user
Yeah, something like that, but that's something that should've been easy to fix. Just wondering if the number was still available. Woulda been nice to know.
I believe the Lemmy backend is now accessible both through websockets and through HTTP endpoints. It doesn’t make the count impossible, but definitely complicates things. I don’t know why the decision was made to remove it, but I trust the devs didn’t remove it arbitrarily.
Love my rookie FBI shitposting-on-the-hexbear-for-salary working stiff comrade.
Unionize, my brothers and sisters! Reject the tyranny of the Professional Managerial Class and embrace a federal bureau of investigation 32 hour workweek!
Makes sense. If you've got the data to support that we aren't shrinking or growing at an unhealthy rate (because I think both are possible) then it's probably not much to worry about.
So basically my impression is totally backwards, and actually we're growing, not shrinking. As is customary everyone please just ignore me I clearly have no idea what's going on
You are right though, that a lot of old power posters have either left or aren't posting as much.
That happens though, and it's good that we're seeing growth as the "vanguard" is stepping back. That means the general culture of the site has been defined and growth is slow enough that it won't suddenly shift anytime soon.
It’s very rare to find someone who can post that hard for an extended period of time without becoming an asshole about it. User churn is good in a lot of ways. People should be taking breaks as they deem it healthy.
Though keep in mind just because a user doesn’t post here, doesn’t mean the person themselves aren’t still here. After 7k comments I’m concerned about how much info I’ve posted, so I plan on not using this account anymore and using a new one. I know I’m not the only one, either.
There's way too much info on my account but I like my account and username
Uhhh so is everyone's friend on here reusing their usual username on this site?
I wonder how bad of an idea it would be to have an "opsec service" on here where you could request people to look into your account and see how opsec-fucked you are
Reusing usernames between sites is one of the main ways that people get doxxed on forums like this, just fyi
Yeahh my friend knows this they just enjoy having a unified internet presence
Idk, maybe I'll have to try doxxing my friend (without actually doxxing doxxing) and help to clean up their internet presence
my friend knows this they just enjoy having a unified internet presence
your friend should use shampoo on the inside and scrub that terrible idea out of their brain. nobody cares except that person and some fucking freak who may one day decide to go to personal, intimate war with them.
embrace the serially pseudonymous internet
i hope your friend is at least using a password manager so their passwords are not also shared amongst websites.
Yeahh this friend has decent security practices (use of password manager, encryption, metadata deletion, lack of conventional social media at all lol, etc) otherwise but they really need to find the energy sometime to clean up their... "online footprint" and probably do need to get over that idea lol
I really do want to live in a world where people can be themselves if they want to without having to be prepared for some reactionary piece of shit hunting them down though
It seems like recycling online identities every few months would make finding and keeping friends more difficult
god I have 20k comments between a couple of accounts. you're reminding me I need to
every time i think i've been too excessive on here i just check out another users posts/comment totals
lol i can probably keep this account as primary a bit longer
Can't become an asshole if you were already an asshole
Lots of exceptions to the rule getting upset about this one lol
It has shifted a lot already. UlyssesT leaving allowed a lot more pro AI stuff to seep in.
I'm frequently making comments to the effect of "the recent advancements in AI are actually tangible and not just a grift for VC money, so we should be aware of the fact that it might not be a fad and it could represent a pretty big shift in power against labor". Is that what you're considering "pro AI stuff"? Because every time I mention it goes over like a lead balloon 'round these parts.
Because I don't consider that type of sentiment to be either pro or anti AI, but rather an observation of the material world.
no I meant the struggle session about if AI art is actually good because it lets disabled people draw or something. Which is like, yeah, but idk something about how people use AI art doesn’t make me think that’s it’s current social function (it’s what you’re saying, a tool against labor)
Right on, I'm just paranoid about being accused of being an AI bro!
The best posting is that sweet spot between a post so good its bad and a post so bad its good.
Having been here since basically the beginning, I feel like it’s only gotten better. Some good changes I’ve noticed:
- Far more explicitly pro trans than it was initially
- Generally seems like more of an effort is made to be welcoming
- More activity and fun community events like movie nights
- Struggle sessions are more or less a joke and angry struggle sessions seem much more rare
Some things I miss:
- Posters like tervell, brookebaybee, UlyssesT, and others who aren’t as active or no longer around at all. If you’re out there reading this, come back and say hi!
- President Parrot has also disappeared from the public eye following the last scandal that was in the news. I think it was the one where President Parrot was naked or something.
- Also, this was kind of always an issue, but there are lots of smaller commas that could use more love.
Tervell posts all the time, mostly to videos and guns. He posted to videos 2 hours ago in fact. Perhaps he blocked you or vice versa (which, sorry to hear if that happened...reminder to everyone that if you blocked other Hexbears you should go through periodically and unblock them to see if you still want them blocked). But yeah, there are plenty of posters who have dropped off over the years never to return. It's sad.
You’re right! And I can see their posts which is great news. Not sure way, but I just haven’t been seeing them as frequently. Maybe it’s the comms I browse or time of day I pop in.
I have been posting somewhat less, since I've just already posted a lot of the stuff I had - it's only really /c/guns that I regularly post to now, and /c/videos & /c/games to a lesser extent. My supply of sword pics was a lot smaller than the one of gun pics, so /c/history's pretty rare, although maybe enough time has passed to repost some stuff, I dunno.
I think with the Lemmy updates there were also some sorting algorithm changes - I think Active got changed, then Scaled was introduced which was supposedly closer to the original Active, but then I think maybe Active got changed again, and I'm not sure how things sit right now, I'm still on Scaled myself. And finally, it could just be timezone differences.
i was goin back through my early posting history here and i've noticed this site's become way less aggressive. i think we've come a long way since the transition from chapo.chat
second missing those users. some really great posting.
You reminded me that there's been a lot less waifu art lately, which I appreciate.
Far more explicitly pro trans than it was initially
The transgender communist cabal will seize power all across the globe, it is only a matter of time
We appreciate your hard work my man! I see you putting in work erry day
90/9/1 rule
90% of users are lurkers and they need to be bullied into posting
I would like to remind every hexbear that failure to post whatever inane bullshit floats to the top of your mind after reading anything at all on this website is counter-revolutionary. Good communists post. The only bad posting is no posting. And bad posting gets you dent to the posting
where they make you post anyway.9% engage with the content by commenting and sharing and posting once or twice, while the vast majority of the content is created by the 1% of posters who post daily or semi-daily.
Your experience on the site is largely determined by what sorting algo you use by default, IMO. (or what mega you browse if you primarily hang out in the megas)
If you use Hot sort you will see mostly new posts, but comments sections will be pretty empty. If you use Active, you'll see the posts with the most active comments section, but they'll all be like 12h to 2 days old. Etc.
So using Hot (or especially New), the comments can feel really empty: but you have the opportunity to be the one who starts the interesting discussions in the comments, or gets first dibs at the cheap jokes. Using Active you'll see the fullest comments sections and most struggle sessions
You can try both of them out using the selector on the front page, but if you want to change your default that's on your user settings page (in case it wasn't obvious)
I switched to Hot after we migrated and federated, but it took me a while to realize how drastically different the site experience was on Hot vs Active. I still default to Hot but sometimes I switch to Active to see slapfights or good posts that I missed
EDIT: Also to provide some data, our monthly active user count is actually up ~200 since 6 months ago. That's something like 10% growth? These things are hard to really judge precisely but I don't think there's any sign we're dying
I actually like scaled sort as it boosts smaller but active communities. Hot, New, and scaled are all relatively similar.
Yeah, I didnt call it out as I havent used it much, but I like the idea of it. I just dont think it matters that much on hexbear if you arent subbing to small, federated, on-topic comms
This is making me think of that "the fandom is dying!!" disc-horse I was constantly exposed to in my brony days... By all means that still hasn't happened, even though I and all the people I know are far less preoccupied with cartoon horses than we used to be; and by all means Hexbear is not dying either.
It would appear that online communities are only truly dead when people stop asking or debating if they're dead/dying. As long as people are still asking or arguing about that, then that signals that there are people who want the community to live, and as long as there's even two people who want that, then the community is not dead. And when people stop arguing, then, well, so what? Nobody wanted the community to keep on living, anyways. All those people who were previously worrying about the death of the community have stopped worrying by that point, and it's exactly that which allowed them to leave.
It's like getting a Twilight Zone oracle's vision of your own deathbed, and seeing that you will die feeling fulfilled, like you have achieved more or less everything you ever wanted to do, made peace with everything you couldn't do, and have no unfinished business remaining. You see that you will die painlessly on a day when you're ready to die, and you see that people are going to miss you but that life will go on nonetheless. The oracle tells you that all of this is going to happen no matter what you do, and that it might be a year from now or half a century, that's for you to figure out...
...And then you spend the rest of your life worrying about the day you stop worrying.
It may be natural, but it's also a bit silly, isn't it? Like, you aren't really fearing death at that point.
insufficient horse puns in this comment, please fixBack when I was a brony, there was neigh-verending disc-horse about whether the herd was on the verge of being put out to pasture, as it were, but all equus-perience hath shewn that this has not yet hay-ppened, and likewise for Hexbear. Online communities in fact remain in stable condition so long as ponies whinny about how "the end is neigh": the community can never be in its tail-end as long as even just two ponies worry, for worry shows a desire for the community to keep trotting. Therefore, any online community will end only when it behooves all its members.
It's like a Twilight Sparkle Zone oracle of one's deathbed, showing that one lived a foal life fulfilling mare or less all one's de-sires, leaving one ready for a painless canter to the Pearly Gaits. Though one made a cutie mark on the world, and one will be missed, life gallops on. The oracle neighs that all of this will happen regardless of one's own actions, but whether it's in a year-ling or half a century is for oneself to find out.
...And then one spends the rest of one's life mule-ing about the day one stops mule-ing.
Natural, perhaps, but also a bit foal-ish, neigh?
...And then you spend the rest of your life worrying about the day you stop worrying.
why would you do that, if you know you're going to die fulfilled?
That's literally my point: why would you do that? — And yet that's exactly what's going on when people ask "Is Hexbear dying?".
Hexbear will only die when Hexbears want it to, because as long as people want to use Hexbear, people will use Hexbear. Therefore, Hexbear will only die when everyone collectively feels fulfilled, and so it's ultimately irrational to worry about the site dying.
personally, things feel bleak in the world.
when things feel bleak, i don't feel like posting, i just feel like passively consumingI was about to say something like this using way more words. Current events make it difficult to be online, even in one of the safest online spaces I've found.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
As others have said, you're not the first to feel this way. I logged on yesterday for the first time in several months after thinking the same and I was pleasantly surprised at the level of activity. I've had mixed feelings about federation but feel like it paid off, though I mostly keep my feed to 'local'. Hell, 2024 might even be the year I finally make a post.
Don't let your dreams be dreams. This is what the badposting comm is for. No posts are bad posts but for folks who don't believe in themselves yet, that's a place to start.
But you can also just post directly the the chapotraphouse comm too like I always do. If my posts belong here everyone's posts belong here
yea sorry about that, the bureau is in sort of "transitional phase" or so the higher ups tell me and that means we can only get 2 agents on this place at anytime which means its me, or some boomer asshole in DC or some dumbass intern fresh out of harvard, which means we cant post as much
I'm sorry I've been touching grass and posting less
The magic of phones is that you can post while literally laying in grass. Get to it comrade
But then I'd have to be typing things instead of scrolling endlessly through nested comment threads
no sleep, only memes!
Discovering I'm a member of the 1%
