• hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    1227·
    19 days ago

    I hate the fact that the vertical axis starts at 7 million, making the drop seem deceptively large

    • Ekky@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      4014·
      19 days ago

      Seems fine to me, the axes are easy to understand and there would be a lot of unnecessary whitespace otherwise. Though, it does require some reading comprehension, and that one actually looks at it and not just skims over.

      • hikaru755@lemmy.worldEnglish
        221·
        19 days ago

        I agree that this way of displaying the data is appropriate, but it would be nice to have a very visible indicator of this. Some kind of highlighted “fold” line or something at the very bottom of the chart, maybe. If I can deduce the units from context, and the trend is more interesting than absolute numbers, then I’m not going to look at the axes most of the time

      • Feathercrown@lemmy.worldEnglish
        224·
        19 days ago

        This reading comprehension joke it overused and it doesn’t even make sense here. It’s well-known that you need at least one of those little zigzag indicators when the graph doesn’t start at 0 in most cases to avoid people misinterpreting the graph and to make it much more visually clear.

        • Ekky@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          84·
          19 days ago

          I was of the impression that reading a graph also required understanding of regular writing/reading, but I’m no native speaker, so I’ll gladly stand corrected.

          I’m not sure what you mean by “one of those little zigzag indicators”, do you perhaps mean leap/break in data denoted by the “Squiggle”? I don’t think any data below 7m is included in this graph, so, if I understand you correctly, then that wouldn’t be a proper use of said squiggle.

          • Feathercrown@lemmy.worldEnglish
            81·
            19 days ago

            Yes, I mean an axis break to denote that part of the axis has been omitted. Using it to show a gap between 0 and the lowest included data in the dataset is very common and is a proper use even according to your own source:

            A zigzag on the line of the x- or y-axis in a line or a bar graph indicating that the data being displayed does not include all of the values that exist on the number line being used

            Beginning the Y axis at 0 and using an axis break to go from there to 7 million allows you to see the same amount of detail as you can in the OP, while visually signalling to the reader that the scale on that axis does not show a full 0 to 10 million range. This increases the chance that they’ll read the graph correctly. You can justifiably blame someone for reading it wrong, but the point of a graph is to communicate, so minimizing the chance for misinterpretation is a good idea.

      • douglasg14b@lemmy.worldEnglish
        34·
        19 days ago

        Using compressed axes to display data was literally “How to identify misleading statistics 101” in middle school for us…

        It seems fine to you but for the majority of people it’s misleading most people look at the lines and the relative distance between them to make judgment calls. Not literally the entire point of graphs, to visually display information.

        This is a well-known effect and is taught in pretty much every major curriculum.

        • Ekky@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          61·
          19 days ago

          And the above was literally how I was thought to represent data in university. Maximize the areas of interest, make sure to properly label your axes (lest they become misleading), and remember to trim empty space where relevant.

          But it appears that proper graphs for science and engineering reports may not be used for representing data to the common man, as it must be assumed that, even for the most simple of graphs, the common man will only look at the funny line, but not the graph itself.

          • douglasg14b@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            7 days ago

            Yep. You essentially summed up my point.

            There’s a difference between data display for academia and data display for the general public.

            The general public is generally not well educated on understanding the data that’s presented to them. Big change in line up or down regardless of scale means big change. It could be from 100 to 100.8, but if the scale is zoomed in then that could be presented as a +80% change.

            And often is and sometimes with the axes removed and shown on the news specifically to be manipulative.

            I really don’t understand why I’m being downvoted above… This was literally part of my grade school education on identifying and avoiding misinformation. And later on, around how the general public understands data visualizations. They are largely understood at a glance and taken at face value without reading the axes.

            This is a easy way to push misinformation. Not by actually pushing real misinformation but by taking advantage of the general public’s tendency to not read it carefully.

            Which is manipulative. Which is why it’s taught in some places as part of the standard educational curriculum…

    • Ledivin@lemmy.worldEnglish
      73·
      19 days ago

      A 20% drop in use on American Thanksgiving doesn’t seem even remotely outlandish to me

        • Zorque@lemmy.worldEnglish
          83·
          19 days ago

          Well, yeah. Posters actually put in effort. Commenters are lazy people who just shit out their terrible opinions.

          • Miles O'Brien@startrek.websiteEnglish
            7·
            19 days ago

            Commenters are the worst.

            Especially the ones that have custom profiles with names and shit.

            Like Bro you aren’t fooling anyone, we all know you aren’t really a squid that flies.

          • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.netEnglish
            3·
            19 days ago

            I dunno if people would post so much for upvotes alone. Comments are nice, and I get friendly ones pretty frequently on my posts, and try to leave just as many on others posts :)

            Edit: wait, I think I just wooshed myself

            • Zorque@lemmy.worldEnglish
              21·
              19 days ago

              It was mostly curmudgeonly humor, but really it does take less effort in general to make comments than it does to make posts. So it would make sense that it would see less of a dip when people are busy. It’s easy to just jump on and make a few comments or participate in a discussion than to put the effort into making a post of some kind.

              It really depends on the kind of person, though. I’d imagine some people find it easier to provide content than to comment on it or respond to others doing so.

      • Psythik@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        19 days ago

        For sure; I sure wasn’t on my phone at all that day, and I’m usually on Lemmy daily. Too busy cooking and mingling with family.

    • Revonult@lemmy.worldEnglish
      151·
      19 days ago

      It’s Thanksgiving. Either a massive drop in posters due to travel or family or whoever was sending the data was similarly out.

  • AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.worldEnglish
    161·
    19 days ago

    It’s Thanksgiving. A lot of people visiting with friends/family. Idk how to access the numbers but I’d imagine last year was about the same

  • pcouy@lemmy.pierre-couy.frEnglish
    15·
    19 days ago

    Something’s odd with the numbers from fediverse observer. Numbers shown in monthly graphs should be about 30 times higher than numbers shown in daily graphs, but they are about the same

  • Red_October@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    18 days ago

    We were busy those nights, and if you didn’t get the memo it’s best to stop asking questions while you still can.

            • Blaze (he/him)@feddit.orgOPEnglish
              5·
              19 days ago

              Is it? That would make more sense. And then, the number of posts would go down if a very large instance would not report for a day (huge instance in this case, we are talking an instance with 2 millions posts out of 9)?

    • Andy@slrpnk.netEnglish
      71·
      19 days ago

      That looks much more like a data artifact than an accurate representation of behavior.

      I think that the trajectory of the three low dots matches the overall slope very closely in a way that looks far more like a flat subtraction of all three. If it was behavioral, I think you’d see the behavior come and go over the course of several days.

  • Mwa@lemm.eeEnglish
    51·
    19 days ago

    Ik Lemmy is a small social media,is this why I feel like Lemmy is dead.