SaputoNov 17, 2022
Ted

The Official Applications are great if you're on a huge instance, but it only prominently features your Home feed, the one you directly curate.

The Local feed is just the community on your instance, and can be a lovely thing to interact with! In the Official applications, this is hididen under the Search icon, with the tab Community.

Meanwhile, the Federated feed is a combination of ALL the public Local feeds from every instance yours is connected with! It's a firehose, but a wonderful way to discover new people! The Official applications do not surface the Federated feed at all.

Especially if you're newer to the Fediverse, or on a smaller instance, I strongly recommend checking out some of the third party applications, such as MetaText or Toot! for iOS, or Tusky for Android, or tooot for either, to be able to experience all this platform has to offer!

#fediTips

Nov 14, 2022 at 4:55amWeb
Show threadIgnis 小火龙Nov 14, 2022
@esdin I’ll like to recommend https://tooot.app as well. Very underrated.
tooot 📱

一款简洁的长毛象手机客户端。专为中文用户社区打造。A simple yet elegant mobile app client for Mastodon. Catered mainly for Chinese community.

Show threadTedNov 14, 2022
@ignis I keep forgetting to recommend tooot and need to rectify that; adding to that last post!
Show threadLauren HetheringtonNov 17, 2022
@esdin is it weird that I actually quite like the mobile view right in my browser 😆​ I miss my pinned columns from desktop, but otherwise it seems pretty full featured. (though I guess an actual app might be nice)
Show thread3rdSectorMichaelNov 17, 2022
@esdin thanks! As I'm following people on a few instances, but think I may have picked the wrong instance, but want to find the right one if I'm switching. Something that might be easier with one of those apps.
Show threadTedNov 17, 2022
@3rdSectorMichael Defiinitely recommend looking at the instances you might
want to call home and checking their public feeds! Can give you a sense of what their community is like ^_^
Show threadMike SandersNov 18, 2022
@esdin I’d also like to recommend Metatext, which seems pretty good so far: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/metatext/id1523996615😀
Show threadBrawliNov 18, 2022
@esdin I am using Mastodon as a web app standalone, which I assume means it runs through my browser as a standalone app. I am really liking it. The right side of my mastodon is all the different feed types, settings, lists, favourites, explore, notifications. All laid out in a nice little sidebar
Show threadCreatrix TiaraNov 18, 2022
@esdin fyi it's not the public local feeds of every _instance_ people on your instance are following, it's just the people they're following. For instance, the rest of mage.town doesn't get ALL of peoplemaking.games's Local feed just because I follow you
Show threadClay Disarray Nov 18, 2022
@esdin this is really useful, thank you! I’ve just installed Metatext 👍
Show threadMatthew HembyNov 20, 2022

@esdin could you do something innovative with the federated feed, on the client level? Or would that inevitably be an algorithm? Maybe one you could tune?

I’ve heard concern on overly specific servers creating echo chambers/post anxiety. Could make community silo-ing worse than Twitter ever was. (eg. the one I’m on, which feels weird to post life stuff to)

Show threadTedNov 20, 2022

@heavypixel heard similar concerns from foks! Culture is hard to divert, but that should ONLY affect your Local Feed.

Theoretically you could do some cliient retuning of the Federated data? I'm not familiair enough with ActiviityPub at a low level to know how much control you'd have, but at some point you get the plaintext

Show threadMatthew HembyNov 20, 2022

@esdin feels like in lieu of an API you would need some sort of broad caching service, which would be complicated and expensive.

But, yeah, im not that technical on #activitypub plumbing (yet).

Show threadAlienKnightNov 20, 2022
@esdin I recently swapped to Tusky, it just... is better lol. I don't entirely know why the ~official~ apps are so bad, but I have a feeling it was just rushed and not intended to be used so widely so soon