When we measure for activity – not accounts – Mastodon isn’t even in first place. Misskey is.
Mastodon is in 2nd place.
And other server types, like Pixelfed, aren’t doing so shabby either.
But what’s more interesting is what this all means when you also take into consideration account sign-ups.
It’s true that according to total accounts, mastodon.social is the biggest server on the Fediverse with 1,159,110 accounts. In comparison, misskey.io only has 183,549 accounts.
As someone who actively monitors both misskey.io and mastodon.social, it actually looks like mastodon.social produces more spam. I have yet to encounter spam on misskey.io, nor have I received spam from there. I can’t say the same about mastodon.social – seeing how I received crypto spam to my inbox from there twice last month.
What’s going on?
First, I must acknowledge a fact. The Fediverse is simply more popular in Japan. When I look at the 10 most active servers on the Fediverse, 6 of them are Japanese. Yes, even the Mastodon servers.
And in Japan, it looks like Misskey is overtaking Mastodon. This is not yet true in terms of sheer account numbers, but the fastest growing servers are clearly Misskey. In terms of raw post production, though, Misskey has already overtaken Mastodon.
Something I often hear is, “So what if something’s big in Japan? Lots of bands are big in Japan too, and we don’t hear a whisper from them here in the West.”
While comparing software to music is silly, it is a mistake for Westerners to ignore the cultural impact of Japan and other Asian nations.
We live in an era where many Western kids grow up with Japanese video games, anime, and J-Pop. Many of them don’t even look at Japanese media as “foreign”. It’s simply part of their cultural rubric.
Why do I bring this up? Because while the majority of Fediverse accounts are from the West, the majority of Fediverse content is from Japan. And while there is a language barrier, it’s only a matter of time before that content finds its way out West.
But if you’re a content producer making stuff for the Fediverse, I also think it’s important to ask yourself, “What are Japanese content producers doing right?”
As it turns out, a lot. The Japanese Fediverse is less focused on technology and politics, more focused on art. And there’s a ready community willing to interact with that art.
This is not so true for the West’s version of the Fediverse. Over here, the culture is to deem art “unimportant”. There have been times when I’ve shared thoughts on video games and music, and someone came out of the woodwork to tell me I was wrong for doing this since some political thing in the USA was happening, and I was insensitive for sharing my interests.
For the Fediverse to take root in the West, it must be as much about art as it is about politics and tech.
All this said, there is a further fact that likewise underlies my contention: the 3rd most active server on the Fediverse is pixelfed.social, Pixelfed’s flagship server.
Why is this? Because #Pixelfed is based on images, not text. Which also means that, as a result of content filtering, it is more focused on art than politics and technology.
Interestingly, pixelfed.social is focused on English speakers. As it turns out, the desire to share art is universal – not exclusive to people who speak Japanese. Most people like art.
Don’t get me wrong, politics and technology have an important effect on our daily lives. But it’s art that makes life worth living.
My takeaway: if we want the Fediverse to be as big in the West as it is in Japan, we need to share art.
I am sorry for not being on the ball regarding @JokeBot's jokes and announcements regarding the framework. I've been busy with other stuff, including my projects, and I've been having some stomach issues this weekend. I just realized that one of @JokeBot's jokes was not good of quality as expected, so I went into its account, manually deleted the joke. and I had @JokeBot re-post a new and improved version of that joke. I will make a few announcements/polls regarding the JokeBot framework on my alt account, @ivan18rod, later tonight.
@atomicpoet Good thing I have @JokeBot on the fediverse for some funny jokes! BTW you can almost make your own, but compatibility with Misskey/Calckey is in alpha.
I am Ivan Rodriguez. I am a college student in #Amarillo, #Texas. I am learning to become a full-stack #webdeveloper, and although I have not used all of them, I know the basics of many of the mainstream #programming languages (see the color-coded doughnut chart below).
Besides programming, I am an ameture #journalist (when I have the time and energy to do so), and I like learning more about the world; I decided to open this alt to talk about programming-related stuff and my projects (one of which is @JokeBot BTW).
I just got in contact with the yardoc #devs, and I am hoping I get a response soon, so I can fix the @JokeBot#documentation in the next release. I'll have to switch to RDoc if the issues don't get fixed soon.
After a few arduous months of getting the JokeBot #framework off the ground, I have finally got the framework core polished and ready for wider adoption. The #mastodon adapter will enter its release candidate phase and become stable (hopefully) later today, and the #misskey adapter will enter development afterwards.
With @JokeBot up and running, I have the docs mostly ready to use, except there are a few broken links that lead to 404s as well as some a11y issues. I'm fixing to get in contact with the #yardoc team to troubleshoot the issues, but they probably won't be fixed any time soon, so I didn't see the point for pushing back the release until those issues are resolved. Other than that, I'm glad that I'm making progress! 🥳
So, @JokeBot got some #offensive#commentary on one of its #jokes earlier today; I won't disclose who did it and what they did, but I reported their #comment, and it was gone after a minute or so.
I would like to bring up a very important moral: just because bots don't have feelings, doesn't mean that they can be #harassed. Bots deserve #respect because their operators deserve respect, and there are people running those accounts.
@cliffwade I have my main account, this one; I have an alt account, @ivan18rod (for Quality Assurance purposes; I may delete it once my job is done there); and my bot account, @JokeBot.
Hello, everyone! Sorry for the late @JokeBot post! I've been very busy being a QA tech and stopping a proverbial stampede of mastodons, but I still have other stuff to do, so I will be inactive probably for the rest of tonight.
I decided to create a Calckey account since I couldn’t get my local enviroment install, so I created a account on Calckey Social (you won’t find it since it’s under a different username). Well, trying the Mastodon API compatability, Elk wouldn’t authorize the account at all. I can get Ivory to authorize, but afterwards, the app would crash repeatedly.
I guess the Mastodon API compatability not ready for prime time, yet.
@chikorita157 Yikes. I was just about to announce that @JokeBot could run on Calckey with the Mastodon adapter, but I'm glad I saw your post before I got ready to make the announcement.
I created an account on botsin.space to showcase a framework I made, also called JokeBot, for posting #jokes on the fediverse; I originally posted jokes on my current account, but it was posting a bit too "loudly." Hence, that's why @JokeBot is here.
@JokeBot is currently fully operational; I already boosted its first post, and I will continue to boost its posts for my existing followers to see them.