When I go to a community page (not signed in) I see thousands of subscribers, but when I access the community from within my account, I am shown dramatically less subscribers. I am a new convert from Reddit and don’t understand what is going on.

Another community I wanted to join with 1.5k subscribers and lots of posts, came up as zero subscribers and no posts when I searched for and went when signed in. It showed that it was the correct community page, but nothing there.

Am I on a bad server?

screenshot

  • opt9@feddit.chOP
    1·
    1 year ago

    I think I got it now. The reason I saw history from other communities on my server is because others had subscribed (from my server) and started a history for my server from the time they subscribed. In this case now, I was the first and so no history. Is that correct?

    Also when I see a very low subscribed number for a community on another server (from my server) it is because that number shows how many people from my server are subscribed only. When I visit the server where the community is hosted and see a large subscribed number, does that represent the total number of subscribed to that community across all servers or the number of subscribed only for the server that hosts the community?

    Thanks

    • RoundSparrow@lemmy.ml
      3·
      1 year ago

      The reason I saw history from other communities on my server is because others had subscribed (from my server) and started a history for my server from the time they subscribed. In this case now, I was the first and so no history. Is that correct?

      yes, that is likely the explanation and why people get confused. if you are on a popular server, it is unlikely you are the very first and it can appear that it is automatic.

      Also when I see a very low subscribed number for a community on another server (from my server) it is because that number shows how many people from my server are subscribed only.

      Yes, which I actually consider a bug, not a feature ;) It under-represents the community and makes it look unpopular.

      • opt9@feddit.chOP
        2·
        1 year ago

        So is there a place I can see the total subscribers for a community over all servers? Is that the number that shows when I visit a community on the server it was created on?

        • RoundSparrow@lemmy.ml
          2·
          1 year ago

          Is that the number that shows when I visit a community on the server it was created on?

          yes. The “home instance” of a community has the total subscribers list. But replication has been imperfect, especially in 0.18.1 and earlier. There were a lot of problems with stuck subscribe “pending” and lists not being accurate. And just a few days ago I was testing Lemmy’s latest server code and found that a user deleting their account does not unsubscribe from the communities they follow… so the number can also be inflated.