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I assume this latest bump is due to lemmy.world updating and now counting lurkers when assessing active users.
Its still only voters, lurkers that dont do any actions arent counted
Don’t forget that Reddit was made up of 90% lurkers, and less than 1% of active posters, the rest would comment but rarely post themselves. These numbers are great if we keep those statistics in mind
Commenters were already counted, though, so this bump is really just the vote-only population getting added. Which is still important to maintaining a healthy and varied front-page, mind you.
Why are they not separated out in any way? There should be separate bins for “active posters” “active commenters” and “active voters”. Otherwise you’re going to get some wacky data problems like this.
I think of a lurker as someone who doesn’t post - I guess your definition is someone who doesn’t interact at all (besides making an account and subscribing, I assume). But yes, I mean users who only vote are now counted (it’s not using views afaik).
Probably a lot more to do with people being pissed about reddit going public and selling their data to ai companies for profits.
I’d like to think that too but I still go to Reddit and browsed a lot of those threads. In almost all of them, people were making the claim that there was nowhere to go, with maybe the occasional person chiming in to name-drop Lemmy, followed by a couple more comments from people bad-mouthing it.
People are definitely mad at Reddit but there does seem to still be this overall sense that Lenny is not good enough yet
Lemmy is more work to get on and then find an apk to use. There needs to just be a simple and clear instruction set to get people over. Like a link to an instance they can easily join and here’s a good app to use. Sort by /all and top from last 24 hours.
Right now there are waaaay less users, so content is low compared to reddit, and you can’t just create your own sub at the drop of a hat.
Encouraging everyone onto a single instance kinda defeats the purpose, and I feel it’s not as much of an issue with the new join-lemmy.com redesign, which recommends an instance based on your interests.
I wrote up this post for anyone to reference to help onboard people to lemmy.
I guess, but I haven’t noticed a whole lot of point in picking an instance of interest, since a small amount of content comes from them all right now. I added a ton of instances to my feed so I’ve never noticed tchncs prioritized or specific to myself.
If everyone dogpiles into a single generic instance, it could push that instance into unsustainable territory financially (especially with a mass exodus), unless the user base is willing to donate to support the instance. Spreading the load out over many instances would ease the load on any one server admin.
Maybe make an auto sorting pool that instances sign up for and just evenly assign new users an instance, so they don’t even have to “try hard” to choose one, then?
Pretty sure it’s the jean/bean memes
My internet experience has been slower since switching to Mastodon and Lemmy/Kbin. And it’s so nice. The things I see are more interesting. The conversations are usually more well thought out. And lowest common denominator dopamine content isn’t being driven into my eyeballs by Algorithms. I’ve legitimately been happier since the Reddit API debacle.
Long live the Old Internet.
Seriously, it feels like 1999 internet. And I’m loving it!
Now give us EverQuest for that proper 1999 experience!
Ever try Project 1999?
Seriously, it feels like 1999 internet. And I’m loving it!
56K modem handshake sound intensifies
Blocking bots posting fake news makes it even better!
^^^^^
I come after the great reddit API purge. Haven’t looked back and I’m happy for it.
I’ve gotten part of my life back as a result.
Me as well. I occasionally peak back to some niche subreddits, but don’t contribute anymore. I’m hoping some pop up here over time.
What are some you’d like to see?
I miss a lot of the niche hobby subs, the non-image sex related subs, justrolledintotheshop, *swap subs, and some of the *sales subs. I have other forums where I can fulfill some of these and it was nice to have them all in one place.
I feel like the sports communities are lacking critical mass and for some reason I just don’t see content from some of the small communities (specifically magic the gathering for me) pop up on my feed. Like it’d be nice the algo pushed them more since I am subbed and want to participate.
for some reason I just don’t see content from some of the small communities
That’s odd. Do they at least show up in your home feed if you sort by new?
Hmmm yeah that seems to do the trick. mtg isn’t that active but I see some other the other niche coms when I sort that way.
You could also try the Scaled algorithm, which was recently added with the new update. It’s supposed to adjust for the size of the community so that the posts from large communities don’t overwhelm your feed
That worked! Thanks for the tip.
I’d like there to be an active beer money community and also one for foster parents myself. Those were quite useful on Reddit.
Survivor
It’s surprising the psychological difference of “net seventeen people think you’re an asshole” vs “twenty people think you’re an asshole, but three people get you”.
FYI, a browser plugin called Reddit Enhancement Suite (RES) exposed the vote breakdown on Reddit as well, although like all scores on reddit, it was fuzzed to confound cheaters.
That’s when the mods hit you with their downvote button
Lemmy is probably the best fedidiverse project so far and it’s not even close
just wish the default ui was better (i currently use photon)
I think the default UI is fine but the good thing is that neither of us are forced to use any UI - we are free to have third party apps and stuff like that :)
The sad thing is the users in the comments on Reddit was starting to sour my mood before I switched.
I’m using Alexandrite, find it good
It’s about as good as old reddit!? Isn’t that what people want? A website straight out of the early 2000s.😁
EDIT: probably cheaper to host for sure.
I too use Photon when on PC. However I do believe the majority of users here liked the old reddit style of things maybe. Might be why the default look of lemmy looks like it does? I’m only guessing here though!
For old reddit style theres mlmym which fills that niche better (e.g. for you that would be at https://old.lemmy.world)
Default UI is currently getting overhauled in a bunch of different ways. Lemmy-Leptos for Lemmy itself, and new UIs for Sublinks and Piefed as they get constructed
also, instances can change their default UI. lemdro.id defaults to photon for example
Super, super impressive.
Most web apps, especially social media - get that peak and then have this huge falloff (see Threads for a particularly grisly example). Lemmy seems really good at keeping its user base.
It reminds me that I need to contribute posts more often myself. I’m think the only reason I ever go back to reddit is that it has some specialized subs we just don’t have here yet. But sometimes you have to start posting to an audience of 0 to get things going.
the only reason I ever go back to reddit is that it has some specialized subs we just don’t have here yet. But sometimes you have to start posting to an audience of 0 to get things going.
Same. I’ve had some success with starting or reviving communities just by posting and commenting regularly, interspersed with a few cross-posts to related communities. Be the change you want to see in the world, and I hope more users will come!
I feel like a big hurdle is the way you have to type out cross posts. There was just something elegant about Reddits solution: /r/subreddit.
I feel like a big hurdle is the way you have to type out cross posts.
What typing are you referring to? I just click the cross-post button, which seems to do most of the work of filling in the title and URL fields, quoting the body text, etc.
I do wish that cross-posts were more embedded though, like Reddit cross-posts. It currently seems that if the original post is edited, these changes to not propagate to any cross-posts.
I’m pretty sure that 130 million monthly users was the absolute peak, which lasted for all of about 5 days.
See:
https://www.similarweb.com/amp/blog/insights/social-media-news/threads-first-month/
That’s old data. Threads suffered for a month but was fine. This is more recent. 141 million MAU https://famewall.io/statistics/threads-stats/
I definitely really like the quality of discussion on Lemmy, it makes me feel like it’s actually worthwhile to comment and discuss things again. It feels like how it felt when I started using reddit back in 2012 or so.
Yep. Been saying for a while that it feels like old Reddit.
I wonder if it’s a nerd-level thing. Reddit devolved as it turned into another social media outlet instead of a niche internet techie place.
It’s also a volume thing. By the time I reach a reddit comment thread what I wanted to say has already been said, and if I say it again my comment will drown in a sea of heavily upvoted comments. On lemmy you can be several days late to the party and still get both upvotes and responses.
I like the lack of in-jokes, one-liners and endless popculture references.
It’s only a matter of time…
The beans are coming.
the beans and jeans narwhal bacon midnight? poop coconut arms broken
My Lemmy life flashing before my eyes…
I remember people whining that lemmy is on its decline already. We are back and here to stay
(Edit typo)
I don’t think that initial peak was ever “real” anyway. I think it was due to people creating multiple accounts on different instances (or maybe even claiming multiple usernames on the same instance) before settling down with the one account they were actually going to consistently use.
Yeah that’s me. I signed up for and used beehaw for a month before switching to my current lemmy.ca. My old account would definitely be counted the same way as someone who signed up, got bored and left
There are definitely people that bounced off Lemmy for whatever reason. No idea how many though, I myself had 4 accounts on various instances before I settled on this one.
Definitely at least part of it was people who came to try it out and left (back to Reddit or wherever).
And your case too. I also did it. But we’d be 100% speculating if either of us guessed which was more common and how much.
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Yeah it’s weird to act like people were being unreasonable for pointing out that Lemmy was on a decline when the numbers quite literally showed a decline.
And it’s worth noting, no matter what the numbers say, the if users come here and it doesn’t feel as active as the numbers suggest, that’s still an issue.
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Don’t wanna do the ‘ackshually’ thing but it’s a little confusing so, I think you meant whining?
Thanks. I edited it because I sea it’s confusing (different from the typo in this comment)
I just joined today! So far really enjoying it.
Welcome!
Thanks for the warm welcome!
I just came back today! Never did anything before but just subscribed to like 100 sublemmies? Is that the right word lmao?
100 sublemmies? Is that the right word lmao?
no it isn’t, they’re called communities
Nah I read the official documentation they’re definitely sublemmies
There are many sublime sublemmies
I read two posts in the morning
I read two posts at night
I read two posts in the afternoon
It makes me feel alright
I read two posts in time of peace, and two in time of war
I read two posts before I read two posts, and then I read two more
Sublemmies, I like it
Welcome back!
reddit may have better subs, but here it’s 99% less bots and shills
I love it! So much comfy vibes here
Welcome!
I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE! god dam it i was supposed to be the cool one with this gif… nicely done…
I’ve heard about Lemmy for a while, and I just joined after getting permanently banned for “threatening violence” after posting “nice sub here” in a new subreddit. I wish I were joking, but it personally doesn’t surprise me that much when considering my past experiences. The appeal was denied.
Reddit’s most dedicated and longstanding users can only tolerate so many nonsensical and frivolous permanent account bans over the years before they flock to that beautiful forest sprouting up across the river. Lemmy should continue to grow because people like me intend to be here for the life of it.
My last few months on Reddit were spent tracking bot accounts, and taking note of suspicious patterns of certain subreddits refusing to take action against blatant propaganda bots. I’m glad to be past that, at least for now, and I wish the users I’m leaving behind luck. Things were nuts.
Just be aware Lemmy has its own share of issues and extremist views. It’s not as simple as Reddit is evil and Lemmy is good, both have their pros and cons at end of day and realistically they both probably have a role to play for people.
It is as simple as the fact that being banned from a Lemmy instance does not shutdown access to all of Lemmy’s communities like it does with Reddit.
This allows actual, messy, contextualized moderation to happen within communities according to the values of those communities without creating broader distortions in a global moderation policy and enforcement scheme.
In other words there are unfortunately transphobic communities on Reddit and Lemmy, but the difference is there are also (many) communities on Lemmy that if you start spouting transphobic bullshit a moderator will unceremoniously and fairly quickly shut you down without a bunch of techbro handwringing about censorship or general apathy towards violence against trans people.
This aspect does in fact make Lemmy clearly better than Reddit on the whole, because this is a fundamental issue to social networks and communities.
Not sure I understand tbh. Seems exactly the same?
You get banned in a reddit community you can’t access it, you get banned in a lemmy community you can’t access it.
I’ve been banned from reddit communities and can still access reddit. If you’ve been banned from Reddit completely you must have done some terrible shit.
In your example, you’re also suggesting a transphobic person has more scope on Lemmy to continue being transphobic than on Reddit. That’s not a good thing?
I am quite confused by your post tbh.
You get banned from reddit as a whole and you’re done, lemmy.world admin could ban me and I’d still have plenty of communities.
Who gets banned from Reddit as a whole though?
You’d have to literally be posting child porn or something.
Or is this just a conceptual argument that doesn’t actually mean anything in reality?
I’m not on reddit but people claim to be site banned for trivial things sometimes.
Welcome aboard the lemmy train!
Lmao, I was banned on reddit for reporting something somebody else wrote. Banned for abuse of the report system. Just want to repeat, it was a full reddit ban, not a subreddit ban.
I had submitted a total of 5 reports over the life of the account. The first 3 were acted on by the admins (clear calls to violence/racism) and 2 that passed admin review.
The first report I submitted on r/worldnews led to me being banned from reddit.
getting permanently banned for “threatening violence” after posting “nice sub here” in a new subreddit
A bot likely checked what other subreddits you were subscribed to and found one deemed not acceptable.
Yeah I got permabanned too.
I still post there occasionally. I made 4 new Reddit accounts from behind 7 proxies, but they all got banned due to browser fingerprinting. But I wised up and now the 5th one’s still not banned even though I access it from my home IP. I really try my best not to give such a hostile company more content, but there’s still a few local subs and specific content that isn’t big enough yet on Lemmy.
Yeah, I still browse reddit from time to time (mostly when lemme feed is dried up or I’m at my computer. I don’t browse it for hours like I used to, though. And I haven’t made a comment that wasn’t on r/lfg for months.
Most of my feed is about Canada, makes sense, I live there. But a vast majority of it is right wing propaganda. Anti immigration, pro PeePee, anti Trudeau, etc. Every week a new right wing subreddit crops up.
AFAIK, V0.19 adds anyone that votes to MAU instead of just commenters and posters, so any server thats converted is reporting better #s. With Lemmy.world now on 0.19, expect this to be even sharper.
adds anyone that votes to MAU instead of just commenters and posters
That seems fair. They’re interacting with Lemmy, so they’re using Lemmy, and should be counted.
The fediverse is growth hacking, nice.
What is MAU?
Monthly Active Users
What is MAU?
This is a wrong answer, but this song is what I always think of when I see ‘MAU’.
Well, that’s in my head now.
Seriously, right? Every freaking time someone mentions the term MAU that starts playing in my head.
Oh my God what terrible thing to Reddit happened in February
The IPO announcement w/ shares being offered to Reddit users. Also, the deal with AI training off of user data without consent. Hard to keep track these days lol.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we see another boom in active users and new accounts due to that. Just depends on how much this pushes users who were already annoyed over api changes over the edge.
Reddit can’t help but treat their mods and user base like absolute shit. So while it may not be much, there will be a slow and steady drip of users over time.
It seems more like there are infusions into Lemmy when Reddit makes some kind of change, and there’s a slow drip out of Lemmy
If you don’t know, Reddit updated their interface in February and made it worse by doing so. People who tolerated the older “new” interface can find a way to use that (at new.reddit) while the older interface is still there too (old.reddit).
Still, it seems like Reddit keeps making changes to drive away their older user base which hypothetically is drawing in new users (otherwise it seems a bit silly for them to be doing those changes).
Lemmy.world updated to 0.19.3, which count anyone who voted(lurker), as an active user, hence the bump in user. The same bump can be seen on january, where a lot instance started to updated to the latest version.
Well now I’m not a lurker… so uh… there…lol
I am a voter
That’s it? Wow, a lot fewer people were upset about the loss of 3rd party apps than I thought. We need to add at least 3 more zeroes to that number if this place stands a chance at taking down reddit.
Does it need to?
I… kinda like lemmy the way it is I guess? Sure, I wish some niche-communities were a bit more active (looking at you, /c/malefashionadvice). But then again on Lemmy I actually feel motivated to contribute actively. Because I know my content won’t be monetized by some corporate behemoth. So maybe this is just fine the way it is?
To be fair /r/malefashionadvice turned into a circlejerk of popular people posting fits (influencers?) and very little real advice outside of a preset notion of what was acceptable.
I don’t give two shits about taking down reddit. I just want somewhere else to go, and Lemmy works for that.
Every once in a while I check up on what reddit looks like now.
I find the same or similar topics posted, with 600 comments instead of 30, and 570 of those 600 are just whatever’s the first thing that pops into everyone’s mind after reading the post title.
I like it better here.Both sides have their benefits, and it’s a shame there is no good best-of-both-worlds. I get where you’re coming from, I never felt the urge to participate on Reddit because it was so often just shouting into the void and getting buried in hundreds of one-word replies and in-jokes and memes. Here I feel seen, and often feel like my contribution (although mostly just small comments) makes an impact.
At the same time, a huge critical mass of a userbase is completely necessary for niche communities to survive. Maybe not as overwhelmingly massive as Reddit’s, but magnitudes larger than Lemmy has right now. Lemmy has a very distinct userbase slant and if you’re in the target audience (tech, FOSS, Linux etc) you’re probably great here. But even common interests like sports struggle for traction, and true niche stuff has an extremely tough time.
Sports discussion and game threads are actually the only thing I really miss about Reddit, I find the time I spend on Lemmy much more productive/informative and less likely to get sucked down an argumentative rabbit hole.
Yeah, I feel that. Formula 1 does okay (maybe unsurprisingly due to it being tech adjacent), but even huge sports like soccer are mostly ghost towns.
Sports need folks having fluid communication about what’s happening right then and you need enough folks to be seeing and reacting to both the event/game and the comments at the same time for that, maybe one day we’ll get there
At the same time, a huge critical mass of a userbase is completely necessary for niche communities to survive. Maybe not as overwhelmingly massive as Reddit’s, but magnitudes larger than Lemmy has right now.
To confirm, you don’t think we have a minimum population base currently on Lemmy?
If so, how do you make that judgment? How are you measuring that? How are you quantifying that?
To confirm, you don’t think we have a minimum population base currently on Lemmy?
I mean, depends on what you view Lemmy as, right? It’s a great place to hang around and chat (depending on your interests). The people here are generally polite and friendly, and most interactions feel meaningful. It does not currently have enough content volume and niche communities to provide a viable Reddit alternative to most people.
If so, how do you make that judgment? How are you measuring that? How are you quantifying that?
Completely subjectively, though I didn’t think it was an unpopular opinion. I thought most people agreed niche communities struggle here. The exact number of users needed to reach critical mass I have no idea on, just a best guess extrapolating between where we are now and where Reddit was a decade ago. You can use Mastodon as another data point. I’m not on there, but I’m under the impression that Mastodon, too, has a little low userbase to truly feed niche communities, and it’s noticeably larger than Lemmy.
Completely subjectively, though I didn’t think it was an unpopular opinion.
Just for the record, I wasn’t thinking that your opinion is an unpopular one (in case you were addressing me directly).
Its just that I see people use a lack of population in ‘niche’ communities as a failure of Lemmy overall, and using some subjective made-up number to justify Lemmy’s overall failure, when there’s obviously traffic to major communities and ‘life’/activity on Lemmy on a daily basis.
I replied to another comment as well, where a person also used a number to justify an opinion, and it seems so arbitrary to me to be able to make those kind of firm decisions. So I wasn’t just ‘picking on you’. :) No offense was meant.
To me, it seems like Lemmy is currently growing over time, and is too early to ‘declare it dead’ (not saying you did that, but just in general).
Its just that I see people use a lack of population in ‘niche’ communities as a failure of Lemmy overall, and using some subjective made-up number to justify Lemmy’s overall failure, when there’s obviously traffic to major communities and ‘life’/activity on Lemmy on a daily basis.
It’s not so much a “failure” of Lemmy as it is an assessment of the situation (at this point in time). I wasn’t suggesting Lemmy was or will be a failure, nor that it’s dead. I like it here and I’m active most days. There still isn’t enough activity in niche subs for Lemmy to have mainstream appeal, though. Even a broad subject like Poetry is carried by a handful of people, and that is a fairly lively “niche sub”.
We’re currently still in the phase where determined, committed individuals have to spend concerted effort into keeping small subs going, rather than them being self-sustaining.
I do like it here, though, and I really hope the growth continues.
It doesn’t need to take down reddit. I’d like to see Lemmy at 1 million active users though. Just need enough critical mass to be able to branch into more smaller sublemmys which draws in the fans of those subs specifically and creates better curated content.
Yeah, 1 million would be about the right size for a better active community. 500k would probably do wonders too.
at 1 million active users though. Just need enough critical mass to be able to branch into more smaller sublemmys which draws in the fans of those subs specifically
I was responding kind of someone else as well, but where are these numbers coming from?
Is it truly 1 million? Or maybe 500k? Or maybe 2 million?
People seem to be using numbers so arbitrarily.
I think somewhere between 1-4 million would be a good cross section of interests without a critical mass of users
I think somewhere between 1-4 million would be a good cross section
500K (for example) people talking in communities wouldn’t be enough?
How did you derive the 1-4 million number?
Just a really quick estimate based on the size of the subreddits I once enjoyed that by their nature need to be larger. Things like /r/cfb, /r/nba, /r/FreeFolk
Thanks for the convo.
Oh, many more were upset - just too lazy to inconvenience themselves with switching platforms.
I’d say this is only half of the answer.
After browsing Lemmy for a while, you get the sense that the average user here is the type that gets upset about a social media company making changes to an API. That is a very specific type of person and you can see it in the comments.
I’d guess people get turned off by that type of person and leave.
I come here once Reddit and hacker news content is old. This isn’t a place I’d recommend to anyone, unfortunately. There are extremely strong biases all over and deep echo chambers. Users here seem like the perpetually online type. Most perspectives I’ve seen have been heavily influenced by online discourse rather than reality.
I visit this site less and less due to the user base.
The perpetually online type is on Mastodon.
Here on Lemmy are the people who disconnected from social media, block or boycott 95% of today’s internet and self-host matrix servers to discuss about self-hosting matrix servers.Complains about strong bias here like it isn’t just as bad or worse on reddit.
Personally, I think it is worse here as there is almost zero opposing voice. On Reddit, there are people from most sides of most topics. Here, in most conversations, there is only one side represented.
Now, I tend to agree with the bias here, on some things, some times. But even when I agree, I want to see arguments from the opposition. Otherwise, I never learn.
Even if you agree with something, you can play the ‘devils advocate’ and say what is wrong. You need to look at both sides.
I for example despise Apple. But i gotta admit their phones are pretty good if you just want a smartphone. Or if everything you have is apple, then the ecosystem is really nice.
Try to understand the other side, and be the opposing person. So these conversations can happen.
I don’t give a crap about the API. Reddit’s system of rando-bans are a fatal flaw to its usefullness.
I dont mean to be rude, but people that have been banned from Reddit coming here does not improve the community.
There are 2 kinds of people who get banned. People who actually deserve it and people who get rando-bans. A rando-ban is something you have no control over. It is caused by things like unwritten rules, nonsensical rules, or the unpaid intern mods having a bad day. Things that a warning could have easily taken care of. Lemmy cannot give you a rando-ban, but if you actually deserve a ban than multiple people can come together and do it.
My first rando-ban on reddit was posting too much content from the Washington Post. Even though I was only posting about 1 article per month I was “spamming”. It is wonderful knowing that on lemmy/kbin I can finally start submitting content again without risking a rando-ban.
If this place ends up with 70 million users, I won’t be one of them. Lemmy isn’t a for-profit company. It doesn’t need growth for the sake of growth.
Besides, lemmy growth isn’t a measure of Reddit shrinkage. Lots of people are just quitting without a replacement.
Imagine hosting an instance if Lemmy had that many users. I can imagine it being a full time job.
Agree to disagree. I miss having niche communities, and the only way to get them is with a large user base.
I don’t want Lemmy to go after Reddit. I want it to be its own thing.
With that being said, more users would mean having some living communities. Some major communities on lemmy.world like videos are hilariously empty, probably less so than small, local subreddits.
Slow but steady growth is better imo, especially since Lemmy’s moderation tools are still not that good and instance admins often get overwhelmed maintaining their own instances. Some instance admins got frustrated so much, they decided to create a new lemmy backend: https://github.com/sublinks/sublinks-api
I like the idea of a slow increase over time. I remember Reddit did that one chatroom experiment where you started out small. And then merged with larger and larger rooms. Small rooms had at least a chance to hang and chat and the larger rooms turned into twitch chat spam. To a degree maybe the same could be said for comments, on Reddit now I still see thousands of redundant replies to subjects whereas here it’s definitely still fresh if not shorter chains.
Though in terms of niche topics it may definitely need more traffic somehow. I think reddit benefits a lot from its search indexing and if Lemmy ever began to appear in search traffic more like forums did in early Google I could see that improving.
Old reddit isn’t dead yet
Are you trying to get the bots to migrate too?
I really like it here. Feels homey and not toxic. And I post a lot lol.
Thanks for your efforts keeping the Poetry comm alive! I know I mainly lurk there but I appreciate your posts!
I’m glad to hear! I don’t think everyone loves my tastes in poetry every day but I hope at least it makes people think.
There’s a few weirdos, but overall much better than reddit. And blocking is your friend.
Really like being able to block the porn instances too. I don’t care if people want porn but I don’t like randomly running across it, I personally don’t care for it.
