The number of subscribers listed in the sidebar is only the number of users from YOUR instance that are subscribed. This might make you feel like a community is ‘small’ or ‘dead’ when it actually isn’t.

I also started to forget this till I was playing with the shields.io badges earlier and the numbers didn’t match up.

Here are some examples:

!fediverse@lemmy.world

  • My instance will see 310 subscribers
  • This instance will see 22.6K subscribers

!canada@lemmy.ca

  • My instance will see 6.03K subscribers
  • This instance will see 1.49K subscribers

Now my question is, what’s an accurate way to see the total number of subscribers? Is it in the home instance for a particular community?

If so, it might be worth adding the badges to the sidebars.

(!fediverse@lemmy.world)

(!asklemmy@lemmy.ml)

(!games@sh.itjust.works)

(!canada@lemmy.ca)

(!communitypromo@lemmy.ca)

(!houseplants@mander.xyz)

To do this quickly, go to https://shields.io/badges/lemmy and enter:

  • myCommunity@example.com for community
  • lemmy for logo
  • Total Subscribers for label
  • modify the colors and style as you like

You can also modify the community and instance here and paste it in:

![](https://img.shields.io/lemmy/fediverse%40lemmy.world?logo=lemmy&label=Total%20Subscribers)

swap the fediverse%40lemmy.world portion

  • NicoCharrua@lemmy.caEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    That’s a great idea! I didn’t know about shields.io. Just added it to !celeste@lemmy.ca

    I changed the link a little from the one you posted. Mine is:

    [![Subscriber Count](https://img.shields.io/lemmy/celeste%40lemmy.ca?logo=lemmy&label=Subscribers)](https://lemmy.ca/c/celeste)

    Subscriber Count

    • I added alt text (so if the image doesn’t load, or people are using screen readers, they can still understand what it is),
    • changed ‘Total Subscribers’ to just ‘Subscribers’,
    • and made the badge a link to the community in the original instance, so anyone wondering why the numbers don’t match up can click the badge to see where the number’s coming from.