InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "You Think You're A Man"

I. (i_) wrote,
@ 2011-11-12 23:45:00

State of IJ
So, IJ crossed the 1 million account mark maybe 11 months or so ago, and I'd kind of noticed that, and noticed that the pace of growth here was actually slightly increasing and remaining consistently higher than the growth at Dreamwidth, but somewhere over the summer, things changed.

That is, IJ started growing a *lot* faster and substantially faster than Dreamwidth. And IJ crossed the 2 million account mark about a month ago.

Graph of IJ and Dreamwidth numbers of accounts over the past year

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	integra 2011-11-13 06:01 am UTC (link)
	WOW! Very interesting to read..although my friends list isn't very active. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	i_ 2011-11-14 12:52 am UTC (link)
	Mine isn't all that active either :/ But there are people here somewhere, and a substantially larger percentage of the accounts here are active than at LJ or Dreamwidth (graph). (Reply to this) (Parent)

	bri 2011-11-13 10:05 pm UTC (link)
	That's pretty cool! I think IJ could really grow even more if we can update it and get new features, or fix the ones we currently have. :( (Reply to this) (Thread)

	i_ 2011-11-14 12:54 am UTC (link)
	quite possibly... but sometimes new features come with added brokenness--for instance, in implementing the feature on Dreamwidth that separates people you follow from people who can read your entries, they broke compatibility with most LJ clients (most, if not all, LJ clients cannot set custom friend group security on Dreamwidth). (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	bri 2011-11-14 01:15 am UTC (link)
	Very true, but I'd love to see a better PM system, notifications, and maybe in time--crossposting. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

i_
2011-11-14 01:19 am UTC (link)

I'd rather use email than PMs; notifications (at least the ones I use) seem to be working, at least right now; cross-posting is, to me, something for a client program to do rather than the site (having the site do it requires the site holding your passwords to other sites in some way, which is inherently insecure). but that's just me--I'd bet more people would agree with you than with me.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	bri 2011-11-14 01:40 am UTC (link)
	HEHEH, well, you know the security issues and are well-versed in the behind the scenes action. For peeps like me, I just like going to the site and doing it from there. HAH. You're right though, security is an issue! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	i_ 2011-11-14 02:29 am UTC (link)
	See, and I can't even remember the last time I posted from the web site (I nearly always use asLJ). (Reply to this) (Parent)

	i_ 2011-11-14 02:30 am UTC (link)
	That's also why I'm so much less aware of the web site—I post from asLJ and I go straight to my friends page to read it, so I spend almost no time at all on the main parts of the site. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	pharmacist 2011-11-15 11:39 am UTC (link)
	Hmm.. do you think DW's invite code system is a big factor or not really? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	i_ 2011-11-16 04:14 am UTC (link)
	I hadn't much thought about it... it's quite possible. Of course, when they opened, Dreamwidth already supposedly had hundreds of thousands of accounts, which seemed so utterly ridiculous that I still don't trust that their account numbers aren't just made up. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Belatedly...

ardath_rekha
2011-11-20 12:40 am UTC (link)

Well, a lot of those inflated numbers were due to OpenID place-holder accounts being created when people 'ported over their journal posts, including comments. So the numbers weren't pulled out of thin air, but they definitely included a group of non-participants who shouldn't have been counted. Inclusion of OpenID accounts at all is iffy, IMO, but especially inclusion of ones that were never requested by their "owners" is a bit skeevy. I was perfectly glad to be able to 'port over my comments, but the way it counted my fifteen friends who had no interest in DW (and, in fact, had stopped journaling a year or two earlier) as active members did bug me.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Belatedly... i_ 2011-11-20 06:30 am UTC (link)
	not all that belatedly. I didn't realize they were creating placeholder accounts for the comments on all ported-in entries. That simultaneously explains their really-high starting account numbers and is completely ludicrous. (Reply to this) (Parent)