this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
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Well, it does make sense, doesn't it?
What we're interested in is not the number of users, but the trends: whether the number is increasing or decreasing over time. Starting the axis at 0 would not be useful in this regard, as the trend would be almost completely obscured.
If the goal is to visualize growth trends, I don't think raw user counts are the correct value to track on the Y-axis at all. That's where my head was at when I said it doesn't make sense. Abusing the Y-axis to try and coax data out in this case is just a symptom of having the wrong measure.
Daily new users. Percent user growth.
There is visible growth in posts and comments, which is good. However, I've also started seeing spam posts.
For something like that, you need a special graph, and I forget the name because no one uses it.
Y axis is "percent growth" and the X axis isn't at the bottom, it's in the middle.
Like, the only way I can describe it is a line graph because it technically is, but there's some name done it.
Capitalism doesn't like it tho, because there's "red numbers" and red numbers scare investors
At some point recognisability is also worth something. I can immediately read this graph, I understand it, it's good.
Occasionally it's used in a confusing way where people assume it starts at zero despite it not being the case, and sometimes intentionally so. But that's just the case here.