Editing to let people know that I will be blocking anyone who feels the need to tell me why this graph is inaccurate. I truly don't care, but feel free to chime in with your useless take and land a spot on my block list! π
this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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It's not exponentially growing. At best, the growth rate has exponentially increased. These are VERY different things.
It was exponentially growing, the platform would come screeching to a halt and crash.
Wait what? The whole point of exponential growth is that all itβs derivatives/integrals are also exponential.
Jesus fucking Christ, you people are miserably pedantic. Nothing about my original post is wrong, so please kindly shut the fuck up with your "well achtually" takes.
Ah, the classic response to being proven wrong on the Internet. Have a hissy fit like a 5-year-old and call everyone pedantic etc. You were objectively wrong but there's no problem with that, everyone is wrong about stuff all the time, the difference is how you handle that. You either act like a mentally grown person and just go "oh, damn, I didn't know that, thanks for correcting me" or act like you've done. No one is out to say that pixelfed isn't growing, but you're misrepresenting facts and then being a fucking child about being told so.
Actually, pedantry is correcting people for things that didn't actually need correcting because everyone understood the meaning from the context, so there isn't any reason for him to thank you because you didn't actually do anything of value.
Username checks out.
I'm not calling everyone pedantic. I'm calling you and the other guy who chimed in with pedantic takes pedantic. You can claim you're right all you want, but nothing about the title of the post "Pixelfed user count has gone vertical" is inaccurate. Whether it's the user count or the user growth rate that is exponential is irrelevant. Nothing about my post is misrepresenting the fact that on the graph, the number of users is going nearly straight up, exactly as the title describes. Feel free to keep trying to correct me, but I know I'm right because I have eyes and can identify basic shapes. I am very willing to admit when I am wrong, but this is not one of those cases.
I'm not sure if people are pedantic or sarcastic at this point
They seem to be serious. The more concerning thing is that people are agreeing with them. I guess common sense is not so common.
I got the same criticism about a similar graph a while ago. Numbers are on the left, people can clearly see how big of a change the graph shows, and I have no way to present the graph differently as it's straight from the website, but people still want to argue about it
Tbf graphics like that are commonly used to be deceitful, because people don't actually check the numbers on the left.
But in this case I think it probably doesn't matter lol
And then tell you're throwing a tantrum when you get annoyed by it.
Numeracy is certainly not so common
You're the one that made a false claim with a biased graph...it's okay to be wrong. I'm wrong all the time. No need to be so hostile about it. You could even edit your OP and add in the graph I threw together that normalizes the data. It's still a significant bump in users, which is cool.
The primary reason I am getting hostile is because there is a chorus of dumbasses who think they're being clever by pointing out that graphs look different when you view them on different time scales. No shit Sherlock. It doesn't negate the fact that this is probably the most significant increase in users the app has ever seen, which is really all my post is saying. On the graph, the line is vertical. Even zooming out 4 months, it's still vertical. Maybe zooming out further will make it less vertical, but that is beside the point. It's still growing fast. Even on your graph you can see the shift. Getting called a liar and having people try to minimize a significant trend is not something I will just let slide off my back. Keep arguing all you want, you're wasting your time.
Ah, so you don't actually understand why you're being called out. It isn't the timescale that "the dumbasses" are calling you out on. It's the Y-axis.
If you cut off the bottom, you can make any graph look vertical. Still, it's not insignificant and it's definitely a turn which is cool, but this is why people are upset at your post title.
The problem is less about the chart and the fact that you are taking a jump from a very short interval and trying to pass it off as something completely unprecedented.
"Lies, damn lies and statistics" is not about calling you a liar, but how people can selectively use different data points to present information that supports their thesis or confirms their biases. I wasn't calling you a liar, I am just disagreeing with you about this being "significant".
If this growth rate holds for the next two weeks, then I'll gladly change my tune and start talking about a trend. But so emphatically making projections out of one or two data points is a fool's errand.
You seem sensitive and very angry about it.
Sorry for getting annoyed when people needlessly correct others to make themselves seem smart.
Eh... It's important to not spread misinformation and correct it when you see it.
It's also important to just be ok with being wrong and get on with your life. No emotion needed.
I am very willing to admit when I'm wrong. However, the original post is not misinformation. The line on the graph is nearly vertical. That is objectively true. Even going back 120 days, the last few days are clearly vertical, and a sharp jump in users from previous time periods.
People just like to correct people to make themselves feel smart, and I have very little patience for that sort of thing. If someone makes a legitimate correction or proves to me that I am wrong, I am happy to be corrected, but needless and inaccurate corrections are just irritating.
If you're happy to be corrected, then let me please help.
Exponential growth is dependent on the original size, and is usually a multiple of that size. 10 going to 20 then going to 40 then going to 80 is exponential growth.
10 going to 20 then to 30 then to 40 is linear growth. The increments are not related to it's original size.
Going from 290k to 320k is barely a 10% increase. The way the graph is clipped LOOKS like an exponential line, but that's because it's clipped. If we showed the full data, 0 to 320k, it would not at all look exponential.
And even if we drop the mathematical meaning and go with the colloquial meaning, when people say exponential they usually mean doubling. So 290k to 580k.
People are calling you out because you exaggerated too hard. You called 10% growth exponential. That's just wrong on the face of it.
Now I will wait and see if you lied to me about being happy to be proven wrong.
Again, as mentioned several times, the original post says the line went vertical, which it just objectively did. You could change the timeline and it might not look so vertical, for example making it show every day or every few hours, but that would be less honest imo. Even zooming out 120 days, which is the maximum time frame I could find for this data (https://pixelfed.fediverse.observer/dailystats&days=120), it is still a straight vertical line, and very clearly the fastest it has grown for a while. That's not misinformation or exaggeration, it just simply isn't.
As far as exponentiality, the growth rate is absolutely exponential. From the 10th to the 12th, it grew by 2500, then from the 12th to the 14th it grew by 5000 users. Then from the 14th to the 16th it grew by 25000. So if you want to get really technical, it's not exponential because it's more than doubling each day, it's starting approach factorial growth. So I guess I will cede that technicality, but the point remains, if I was in a statistics course and someone told me to identify the type of trend that this graph represents, I would personally go with exponential. You're free to make your own interpretation of what sort of trend the graph shows, but you would be wrong. It's not my fault that you and others are conflating exponential number growth with exponential growth rate. I never claimed the raw number of users was growing exponentially, just that the rate of growth was exponential.
Now go ahead and call me a liar for stating facts.
Ahhh, I see the problem.
What you said sounded like "membership is growing exponentially", which is false.
What you intended was "The rate of membership growth is growing exponentially". Which is true.
These are two very different things. If you truly meant that second one in your comment, then all I can say is you chose some very strange wording for it. And I'm not the only one that misunderstood.