Preface
I’m writing this on the eve of Ontario’s 2025 election. I know that this is unfortunately another election that is not held under a proportional representation (PR) electoral system.
I am just an ordinary Canadian citizen – I don’t consider myself an activist, yet I can recognize an unfair and abusive system.
But now is not the time to let pessimism dissuade us from the democracy we deserve. With Duverger’s Law (i.e., in non-PR electoral systems, a trend towards a two-parties), we are running out of time to act. Canada’s 2021 effective number of parties is 2.76 - this number will decrease over time, and will eventually end Canadian democracy as we know it today.
I’m not writing this to get donation money (although here is the Fair Vote Canada donation site), but this is just the reality with live with and the future we are fighting for.
Proposed 2025 objective
to be in the top 100 most subscribed communities for lemmy.ca. Achieved on 2025-03-02.- As of writing this post (2025-02-26), [email protected] is currently 111th rank with 261 subscribers.
To be in the top 100, this would technically mean having >= 296 subscribers, but for simplicity, let’s set the goal to be >= 300 subscribers before 2026. That’s just ~40 new subscribers by the end of the year. Achieved on 2025-03-02.Where we currently are https://lemmy.ca/communities?listingType=Local&sort=TopAll&page=3, and where we want to be https://lemmy.ca/communities?listingType=Local&sort=TopAll&page=2 (or on page=1, of course). Achieved on 2025-03-02.
While I love a good, yeasty, loaf of bread 🍞, [email protected] has 638 subscribers, which is 144.4% more than our 261. I suppose you could say I’m jealous.
Next steps
Before the end of March 2025, please comment on whether:
- this is a good objective to have
- if it’s not a good objective, what other objectives should we pursue
- Ideas on how to achieve our objectives
Statistics
| Date | users/month | u/m % of c/Canada | mod/u/m | posts | comments | Subscribers | subscribers % of c/Canada |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-02-26 | - | - | - | - | - | 261 | - |
| 2025-02-28 | 785 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2025-03-03 | 866 | 11.994% | 23.09‱ | 205 | 629 | 323 | 3.968% |
| 2025-03-04 | 942 | 13.120% | 21.23‱ | 211 | 654 | 342 | 4.191% |
| 2025-03-05 | 894 | 12.556% | 22.37‱ | 213 | 665 | 354 | 4.317% |
| 2025-03-06 | 891 | 11.770% | 22.45‱ | 218 | 674 | 374 | 4.539% |
| 2025-03-07 | 904 | 10.984% | 22.12‱ | 219 | 683 | 377 | 4.531% |
| 2025-03-08 | 951 | 11.149% | 21.03‱ | 229 | 694 | 389 | 4.587% |
| 2025-03-09 | 971 | 11.174% | 20.60‱ | 232 | 706 | 406 | 4.749% |
| 2025-03-10 | 1.02k | 11.384% | 19.61‱ | 237 | 740 | 421 | 4.867% |
| 2025-03-11 | 1.04k | 11.441% | 19.608‱ | 238 | 750 | 437 | 5.017% |
| 2025-03-12 | 1.05k | 11.254% | 19.048‱ | 239 | 751 | 441 | 5.029% |
| 2025-03-13 | 1.12K | 11.655% | 17.857‱ | 247 | 804 | 442 | 5.017% |
| 2025-03-14 | 1.17k | 12.037% | 17.094‱ | 259 | 828 | 448 | 5.062% |
| 2025-03-15 | 1.19k | 12.143% | 16.807‱ | 270 | 853 | 452 | 5.079% |
| 2025-03-16 | 1.22k | 12.449% | 16.393‱ | 273 | 868 | 459 | 5.140% |
| 2025-03-17 | 1.3k | 13.333% | 15.385‱ | 280 | 907 | 465 | 5.196% |
| 2025-03-18 | 1.33K | 13.516% | 15.038‱ | 291 | 952 | 469 | 5.229% |
| 2025-03-19 | 1.36k | 13.977% | 14.706‱ | 296 | 989 | 471 | 5.233% |
| 2025-03-20 | 1.41k | 9.78k (u/m Canada) | 2 (mods) | 310 | 1.04k | 474 | 9.02k (subs Canada) |
| 2025-03-21 | 1.48k | 10k | 2 | 332 | 1.04k | 479 | 9.04k |
| 2025-03-22 | 1.51k | 10.3k | 2 | 348 | 1.1k | 481 | 9.06k |
| 2025-03-23 | 1.53k | 10.4k | 2 | 361 | 1.13k | 485 | 9.08k |
| 2025-03-24 | 1.55k | 10.4k | 2 | 370 | 1.18k | 490 | 9.1k |
| 2025-03-25 | 1.58k | 10.5k | 2 | 382 | 1.22k | 509 | 9.13k |
| 2025-03-26 | 1.64k | 10.6k | 2 | 417 | 1.27k | 533 | 9.15k |
| 2025-03-27 | 1.71k | 10.6k | 2 | 450 | 1.35k | 554 | 9.16k |
| 2025-03-28 | 1.75k | 10.8k | 2 | 476 | 1.4k | 558 | 9.22k |
| 2025-03-29 | 1.79k | 10.9k | 2 | 494 | 1.45k | 562 | 9.26k |
| 2025-03-30 | 1.83k | 11k | 2 | 516 | 1.47k | 562 | 9.27k |
| 2025-03-31 | 1.87k | 11.1k | 2 | 537 | 1.52k | 571 | 9.31k |
| 2025-04-01 | 1.92k | 11.2k | 2 | 570 | 1.55k | 572 | 9.33k |
They kind of go hand in hand though. Given Lemmy’s demographics, the “general Canadian politics” posts which get the most traction are going to be anti-conservative ones.
My main concern with general politics posts is that they will dilute the core message of PR. Too much “clutter” in people’s feeds might also cause the people who are most interested in PR to unsubscribe.
Not really. You can have one without the other.
We also need general politics posts to grow the movement to new people who have never heard of proportional representation before. I’ve generally tried to keep topics to democracy, or from PR supporting parties, or PR itself. It’s not like there are no rules.
This isn’t what I’ve found to be the case based on the community statistics I’ve been tracking every day. The data suggests more activity consisent with what I’ve mentioned earlier (topics to democracy, or from PR supporting parties, or PR itself).
I’m sorry that you believe this is not what the PR community needs, but if you can come up with more PR content, by all means post them to the community. I’m just a volunteer, so you really shouldn’t be expecting anything from me for a free service.
That’s an interesting idea, though I don’t think it is the only way to achieve that goal. I think mentioning PR in and crossposting to general Canadian politics communities could work too.
I’m not sure that raw engagement is necessarily the best metric to track. Outrage is great for engagement, but often does not lead to constructive action. For example, I’ve increases in “haha, PP bad” comments, which, while they might be true, exacerbate political division and do directly advance awareness of PR.
Is your strategy to use engagement-optimized posts as a sort of advertisement for the community? That would be an interesting idea, though I am unsure of its effectiveness.
Of course. I hope I didn’t come across as ungrateful. I’d love to see this community succeed at its goals of getting PR implemented across Canada. Thank you for all the work that you do. :)