rahaeli: these basic facts about every online platform out there are also the explanation for "but everyone on my timeline hates this change, why did the site do it". No matter who is on your timeline, they are massive outliers just by dint of posting enough to be on your timeline.

these basic facts about every online platform out there are also the explanation for "but everyone on my timeline hates this change, why did the site do it". No matter who is on your timeline, they are massive outliers just by dint of posting enough to be on your timeline.

Fun fact: the median bluesky user has made 7 posts, and is followed by one person. The mean number of posts per user is 96. Only 323,532 out of 5,950,015 users have posted more than 10o times. bsky.jazco.dev/stats

Atlas - Engagement-Based Social Graph for Bluesky by Jaz (jaz.bsky.social) bsky.jazco.dev

Bluesky is actually a major outlier in that about half its registered users have ever posted. That's really, really, really high.

I have posted more on bluesky in 8 months than my 10 years on the bad place. And the posts sometimes spur really cool conversations, which never happened there. Not all the time, which is also fine, because sometimes you just want to comment to acknowledge or appreciate the original post

Combine these stats with how bad humans are at gauging scale and impact it gets pretty clear why all these platforms have the lifecycle they do.

I suspect part of it is that it used to be quite common to see advice to newcomers to upload an avatar, put something in their bio, and make an initial post before starting to follow people to avoid getting blocked as a potential bot.

I’m not really a lurker? MIND. BLOWN.

20 posts puts you ahead of about 70% of users

Hurrah, I'm a Normal Boy here!

Me too!

Are posting and replies / comments counted differently? I haven’t posted anything here yet… should really fix that, maybe… but do drop replies in somewhat often.

I don't believe so

I wonder how far that's dropped as it opened up.

I wonder if that’s affected by the number of people who had registered at other places but then never actually used them for more than a few months.

There are a ton of reasons for it but it's always weird when a site has outlier behavior like that

Probably because the modal bluesky user has a graduate degree, and we're all nerds who like to talk to other nerds.

remember that map of Bluesky clusters I was in the Squid Cluster for reasons that are totally opaque to me, but apparently I follow cephalopod scientists

I endorse this message …

Yup, seeing those stats was eye-opening finding out I was consistently right around the 99.5% percentile for posts. I used to think I was a 'filthy casual' and no... I'm an upper echelon power user it turns out. O.o

Oh lord...I - and all my friends - must be Bluesky Georg.

Yep, apparently we are! That’s a wild realization to have

…..the heck now? I mean. I am fairly antisocial and introverted IRL, BUT WHY HAVE A SOCIAL MEDIA IF YOU ARE NOT GOING TO SOCIAL?? is that largely fakes/bots??

Most people read, not reply!

To follow interesting posts and discussions. A lot of people treat social media sort of like old talk radio. You spend most of your time listening, but occasionally call in to leave a comment

I started using Twitter more when Google killed Reader It’s my newsfeed But I also like arguing so I am clearly not using it just as a reader

Some of us prefer to read and occasionally react rather than posting. We were the ‘90s-era lurkers on Usenet who supported folks on email.

I have accounts on some social media that I don’t really use. I don’t post on Insta, for example, but I like seeing friends’ pix and reels

My brain finds it difficult to participate intensely in more than one social media platform at at time. When Bluesky began taking off, I began badly neglecting Mastodon. I'm on a number of Discords but only skim. It's easiest if I parcel out *types* of interactions to different platforms.

Now that you say that, I think I’m similar. I don’t like feeling like I have to be present and interactive in 15 different places. I like having one, maybe two places I can hang out and talk more.

Tightpussy Georg is an outlier adn should not be counted.

i really am lmao

This is so weird to me, a terminally online person. I don’t even post that much compared to the real Poasters! I believe you, but it doesn’t *seem* like it could possibly be right.

Ah yes, social media hinterlands. That's where I reside.

There's an interesting article in Nature from 2001 "Friends are stranger than strangers: if your friends were normal people they would not know you" around this except applied to 'real life'. The Nature site has the name of the openly available pre-print and Sci-Hub exists..

Ok but everyone on my timeline are the people using the site. The people who bounced… bounced! The question is how do you get more people and I guess if you have me, why bother, I’m here already.

A lot of those aren't the people who bounced! They're lurkers.

is there a good way to tell "Accounts that are current lurkers" from "accounts that have been completely inactive for months"?

You could probably get a significant chunk by checking to see if they've "liked" anything recently but you'd still probably mislabel some lurkers that way

There's no way to tell if you aren't the site itself (bsky doesn't have public likes)

Aaah, yes that would but a wrench in the plan

Do replies count as posts?

In this count, yes

There are a LOT of people using the site who never actually post anything at all, just follow people and read stuff Baffling to me, but far more normal than us edge cases

That's me on every site that isn't this one

Outrage culture strongly encourages LURK MOAR LEST THOU ART PERCEIVED AND CANCELLED. As an example: I got called a qualitatively Bad Person a few years ago due to my choice of how to euthanize a struggling fish in a failing aquarium.

And yet without the posters, platforms are nothing. It’s interesting.

I rarely post bc I'd sooner scream into the void. But I respond a lot because this remora action seems somewhat effective.

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