@selea @freemo Huuh. Weird. I haven't changed anything last week, I don't think. Qoto is still 2nd on the first row of servers, so it shouldn't be because of the "load more" button beyond the first 10

@Gargron

Indeed it is strange, things look perfectly normal. But I've heard from more than one instance now that there was a sudden drop in new users. Does M.S show any decrease in new users this last week from its baseline too?

@selea

@Gargron

For reference and to help you diagnose any potential problem I attached our user grapy. You can see we went from approximately 60 new users a day to 8 new users a day suddenly overnight on tuesday.

So something is up...

@selea

@Gargron

Long term graph for comparison (you can see this is very unusual for us)

@selea

@freemo @selea I don't really know what to make of it, joinmastodon.org traffic has mostly been consistent, no sudden drops

@Gargron

Yea neither do i.. If it weren't for the fact that other instances are reporting the same effect around the same time (as salea mentioned for their own instance) then I wouldnt even suspect joinmastodon.

@selea

@freemo @selea One semi-recent change was that Skeleton quit running Mastodon's Twitter account, but that would've affected joinmastodon.org traffic first, not individual instances, I'd think...

@Gargron

I would think so yes, id expect traffic to joinmastodon to show a hit before the instances if that were the case. Technologically everything seems to be working ont he site too, i can even follow the link to my instance and sign up.

Very strange I cant even theorize what could be up...

@selea

@freemo @selea Another wild possibility is if new users were coming from Google and Google decided to change the search rankings algorithm in a way that affects fediverse software negatively

That would explain the effect on multiple servers, but I have no data on how many sign-ups come from search engines anyway

@Gargron

I can speculate for us based on general usage. Prior to us being on joinmastodon our signup rate was about what it is at the moment 8 - 11 a day. The day we got back on joinmastodon it went to about 60 a day.

So for us the traffic we are getting now suggests it is most likely related to joinmastodon as we never had that many hits from google anyway.

@selea

@selea So your instance has seen the same effect? Yea I was worried it was just us as well at first. It appears something funky must be going on with joinmastodon then...

Hopefully @Gargron knows whats up and if he doesnt at least he has been alerted there is an issue.

It is strange because the site actually appears to be working fine.

@freemo

Well, I am not sure that it has something todo with joinmastodon.org actually, it _may_ just be a trend over the whole network. If I recall correctly, it looks like there is only 30-50% of new user registration network wide if I look at the @mastodonusercount? Normally I've seen number around 100 per hour,

@Gargron

@selea

The trends on that bot seem somewhat normal. QOTO saw about a 80% reduction in traffic, the bot you linked at worst shows a small barely noticeable reduction.

@mastodonusercount @Gargron

@freemo

Yes, I am probably imagining things when it comes to that account.
But still, I've seen a big reduction in new accounts too. Usually I have 6-7 new users/day, but now it is 1 every 2nd day

@Gargron

@selea

Yea taht would seem to be in line with the 80% reduction I and other admins have seen.

Though its important to note it doesnt appear to be **all** instances on joinmastodon at least. I have spoken to three people including yourself on joinmastodon so far.. Including me 3 said they saw a huge reduction one said he didnt.

@Gargron