this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
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[–] GuyDudeman 138 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

So stupid. Just use Mastodon. No algorithms. No billionaires. No monetization. No bullshit. And some really great folks, too.

[–] Corvid 165 points 3 weeks ago (10 children)

No algorithms isn’t a selling point to the average user. My Mastodon feed is kinda sad and boring, if I’m not on top of it I’ll just miss interesting posts that happened in the days I didn’t open the app.

Bluesky custom feeds really help with that, while still providing the chronological no-algorithm view as your main feed. It’s just a more interesting experience for people that aren’t chronically online.

[–] [email protected] 68 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Yep, discovery is still a major pain point for pretty much every Fediverse platform. Probably the biggest issue the Fediverse faces right now, IMO.

Part of it is due to technical limitations due to the way ActivityPub/federation in general works. But another big part of it is (what feels to me like) a stubborn aversion to convenience, a trend I see a lot in FOSS dev communities. When you have devs that would be content reading a news feed off of a .TXT file passed to them on a 5" floppy, and users who want features on their platform, you end up with the situation we're in, where it's impossible to convince the mainstream user to migrate. If the mainstream user doesn't already know who is even on the platform in order to follow them, and has no effort-free way of discovering accounts to follow, they're not going to stick around. Especially when on just about any Mastodon server you join, your local/global feeds are almost all politics and high-level tech discussion.

I think that the average user would be supportive of FOSS and the Fediverse in general, and probably likes the idea of a non-corpo platform where they have more control over their feeds and their content. But I feel that it's not worth trading away discovery or "algorithmic" tools for most users.

I think if Mastodon (or a Mastodon-adjascent platform like Misskey or Pleroma) could find a way to develop an algorithmic recommendation engine that respects user privacy (perhaps basing recommendations on a file stored on the user's account, which they can modify/backup at will), we could see a sizable increase in Fedi users.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

There's a major section of mastodon users who like mastodon because it doesn't have any recommendation algorithms. Both from the side of "I don't want to be told what to click on" and the "I don't want an algorithm surfacing my posts in a way I'm not in complete control of"

This might curse it to forever be the platform with the smaller number of users, but the nice thing about activitypub is that there may be other services/clients that will be willing to take up that mantle for those that want it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Couldn't there be an implementation thay leaves everyone satisfied?

Sort of like implementating a new optional tab for discovery and allowing users to choose whether their posts appear on it. The implementation should of course be fully honest without dark patterns, though due to the lack of profit incentive it shouldn't be difficult to achieve a satisfying implementation.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

I don't think it would last long as a clean implementation.

The problem with having a completely open algorithm for discovery, you give spammers an instruction manual for how to consistently get to the top of the rankings.

Eventually these systems would always get abused and become completely filled with useless nonsense.

An alternative is to have the discovery completely exist on the client side, but I'm not sure how that would even work given the way activitypub works.

Personally I think any social media recommendation/discovery system is a dark pattern.

[–] rottingleaf 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

When you have devs that would be content reading a news feed off of a .TXT file passed to them on a 5" floppy

As a perpetually overloaded autistic person, yes please.

Seriously - something like federated Hotline would be so cool. Distributed - even better, of course.

OK, dreaming.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

I'd want the floppy disc to be a standard size though. You can't just chop a ¼" off like that. It won't work.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Follow hashtags, not just people. That makes your timeline much more interesting.

[–] Mbourgon 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Whatever interests you! Personally I'm following hashtags related to board games, specific programming languages, etc...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago

If the developers could fix search, it would go a long way in improving Mastodon.

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[–] rottingleaf 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

No algorithms.

Could we please use words for their actual meaning?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

How would you say "no obscure algorithm to determine your timeline, hiding posts of people who follow and showing posts of people you don't" without having to write a full paragraph each time?

[–] rottingleaf 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

"No algorithms" is a worse answer to this question than "no timelines", "no posts" and "no people".

"No trickery" maybe. "No recommendations" is another.

[–] logi 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

"Algorithmic timeline" might be appropriately specific?

[–] rottingleaf -1 points 3 weeks ago
[–] nutsack 9 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I very much appreciate the technology and philosophy behind Mastodon, but the content discovery on bluesky is much better. the feeds and the "popular with friends" tab are great. being able to click and see who someone is following is also quite good for discovery, and this seems to be broken for me on mastodon. on mastodon all i have is the wall of everything.

[–] GuyDudeman -2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Weird. You don’t use the search function?

[–] nutsack 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

and search for what? balls?

[–] GuyDudeman 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

There are absolutely mastodon servers primarily for dick and balls.

[–] nutsack 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] GuyDudeman 1 points 3 weeks ago

You want some links? I can get you links.

[–] PriorityMotif 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I didn't understand the appeal of following individuals on social media

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

It's like subscribing to a YouTube channel if you understand that. Some people consistently post interesting content so by following them, you will never miss out.

[–] nutsack 2 points 3 weeks ago

yeah I'm hilarious for example

[–] vzq 114 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Bluesky is my default social network when I don’t feel like having slap fights with nerds.

When I do feel like having slap fights with nerds, I come here. Or mastodon.

[–] [email protected] 131 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Using 2 different versions of a technology for different usecase?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)
[–] JoeKrogan 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Do you take sugar in your own tea ? Do you even drink tea ?

I'm partial to honey in my tea.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I actually don't like tea, but my SO does.

That said, username is from a song popularized by Three Dog Night: Mama Told Me.

[–] JoeKrogan 1 points 1 week ago

😄 Fair enough. Thanks for getting back to me

[–] xantoxis 10 points 3 weeks ago

This is gospel truth.

[–] xantoxis 47 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

With as much bad faith antisocial sociopathic shit Mark Zuckerberg has done, I truly don't understand why anyone would use anything associated with meta. He's Elon Musk with more experience at being.. that.

Bluesky isn't going to be the savior of social media, but with the death of Cohost it's the least bad option available.

[–] Squizzy 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Hes a cunt. Lets be clear, he is an enormous asshole, shut person who is likely making up for having not been liked. He is dangerous.

But he isnt Musk. There two different enormous turds.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'd say Zuck is smart enough not to show to the world what an asshole he is. That's the main difference between him and Musk.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Idk, I think he's pretty clear about that, just doesn't say it as loudly as Musk.

[–] vxx 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Leon is compromised, zuck is a greedy asshole.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

The problem for me is that everyone use Meta stuff so it's either lose out in making connections with other people or giving up privacy.

[–] NOT_RICK 42 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

“We're not like the other girls... we're not owned by a billionaire,”

Just founded by a billionaire. I guess it’s nice that they’re a public benefit corporation. Those are supposed to be better than regular corps, or am I being naive?

[–] [email protected] 52 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I really think the blue sky is bad stuff is overdramatic xbox vs PlayStation kind of stuff.

The fediverse needs a lot of work, blue sky is a different and interesting model that's different from what we've seen so far (even if they haven't let people start hosting their own blue sky instances).

I say let them complete...

[–] grue 8 points 3 weeks ago

I really think the blue sky is bad stuff is overdramatic xbox vs PlayStation kind of stuff.

That's a very apt analogy, in the sense that they're both shitty proprietary walled-gardens and people should actually be using something entirely different instead.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago

They also kicked Jack to the curb went he tried to go full Musk on content moderation.