Compiling this data was not as hard as I expected, let's go through the data and the shiny graphs!
Age of Beeple
Most are above 24! Seems we got an older average age compared to a lot of social media. It would be interesting to see how many came here with experiences from independent forums before Reddit.
Where Beeple reside
This one's a big graph. Though we can notice most people are from the US. Would be nice to see more countries represented though a big part of it likely has to do with language. (You will need to open the big graph in another tab, it's too big to show properly.)
Gender identity of Beeple
So, as expected, mostly men. However, less than expected which is nice to see. There should be outreach to at least equalize this.
Sexual orientation of Beeple
This is kinda surprising. It seems we managed to get a lot more LGBTQ+ people than expected considering most of you all come from Reddit - so this is nice to see. This is most likely because of our focus on a safe space.
Whiteness of Beeple
As expected, mostly white which is unfortunate. I think there's outreach to be done in that regard as well.
Neurodivergence of Beeple
We seem to have a really surprising amount of neurodivergent people! Definitely nice to see.
Beeple with disabilities
I.. have no idea how to interpret this data so I'll just say, shiny graph.
Beeple's awareness of the Fediverse
Most knew about the fediverse but still a good 20% had not heard about it so glad to see you all managed to find your way here!
How Beeple have been dealing with Beehaw
It seems most people feel relatively confident in their ability to use Beehaw and most people seem to enjoy it. That makes me really happy to see. Feels rewarding, feels good.
Conclusion
I wanna thank everyone for the feedback about the survey and its questions - we'll do better next time! I'm glad we did this survey because it shows the areas to work on in terms of outreach! Thank you all for your participation!
I just want to pipe in and and say thank you for caring about diversity. Lots of discourse here about how that's hostile to white people. In my opinion purposefully misinterpreting "unfortunate" to mean "white people not welcome" is a perfect representation of why WHY diversity matters.
Because as a POC it's clear to me that there are valid reasons why a white-dominated community can be... Uncomfortable. Like the very comments here that push back and pretend that race isn't a issue and that POC are racist ones for caring about it. Not bothering at all to understand where it's coming from and why it matters.
Edit: I didn't write this at first but I can't bite my tongue anymore. White people who get hositle over this have suffered from main character syndrome for way too long. You feel unwelcome because some online community simply wants more diversity? Why is it that in your mind one more POC means one less white person? Speaks more about your world view than anything else.
I've felt unwelcome my entire life because people resent my intrusion into their white bubbles. The whole point of Beehaw is that it's inclusive. I'm a snowflake who wants her safe space.
What is 'white' exactly and why is it unfortunate?
Where I am from, we don't make these distinctions on the color of a person. That and the fact that unless we are quantifying somehow the 'shade' of the skin color it's impossible to make any serious category.
I've always thought that the way americans divide people by color is really dumb and very antiquated, even bordering immorality.
I wouldn't bring that for future statistics. I don't understand why race is important in a medium where we can't see each others.
My only feedback is the words choices here were, unfortunate. It comes across as the author found undesired demographics which felt not inclusive.
In my opinion this is not being nice.
I am a minority in some parts of the graph and a majority in others. Reading this left my feeling I wasn't welcome here which I have felt ever day before reading this post.
Maybe an interesting question: how does this compare to the diversity of admins? I guess doing an actual survey is bad for your anonimity, but some idea could be cool
I understand the arguments given by many of us regarding why knowing the demographics is important. Maybe I shouldn't feel this way, but I bear the burden of having to deal with the crap that comes with being at the intersection of many of the categories that are discriminated against in real life, and reddit/lemmy was/is a place where I could engage with others while not having to shoulder most of that. So it bothers me a little that it is being brought up here too, albeit indirectly. On the other hand I can imagine how this would be different if there was actual discriminatory behaviour in beehaw itself.
Regarding the gender split... IIRC, most Reddit users are male. This actually does have a bit of an effect on Reddit's share of trans people. Worldwide, I believe it's about an even split between transmasculine and transfeminine people. But Reddit has more transfems than transmascs, and I'm pretty sure it's because people don't leave their preferred website when coming out as trans. In that same vein, I hear that tumblr leans more transmasc.
Well, as the graph shows before, it's also mostly U.S-based. Those are really good diversity numbers if you factor that into mind. Like, way better than expected.
Beeple has got to be the official term for us going forward!
Nice to see a pretty diverse crowd in here! A bit US health perhaps but that's too be expected. Doing my bit to represent the tiny percentages of other places :D
I absolutely spent time on forums both before and after Reddit's rise. Including there was a forum that was effectively a role playing game world in webforum format. It was pretty dope. I also was doing telnet to muds long after it was cool.
Nice breakdown of users. I'm happy to see there are a number of people in my age group. I often feel like an outlier (pretty sure I'm the oldest person/token grandpa in two of my discord servers haha)
Thanks for pulling this together, looks like it's generated some interesting discussion off the back of it (which, as a data analyst, is definitely considered a win).
Can we get a transcript/archived copy of the survey questions? Not the answers people provided, but just what questions were and the answers available to select from. Also an image transcription of the graphs would be helpful; the text in the images is difficult to read on Jerboa.
I'm curious where the decision to separate nonbinary and genderfluid into different categories came from. In the various queer communities I'm in, genderfluidity is considered to fall under the nonbinary umbrella, so breaking it out as a separate option while not breaking out other nonbinary identities looks a little odd to me.
I would be interested in knowing the trans/cis demographics as well; if, for all we know, Beehaw has equals numbers of trans men to cis men, this survey wouldn't reveal that or any other notable proportions.
I also want to include myself as another person who found the white/non-white question a bit uncomfortable. If it had asked me about being a person of color or some other phrasing, I wouldn't have blinked, but there is something unpleasant about being asked where I stand in a racial dichotomy as a biracial person. I don't know a better way to phrase the question that still captures the intent, though.
Thanks for sharing the numbers! I've never been very good at knowing the usefulness of data as a consumer, but it's neat to know the average of users. 😁