seldoSeen several "put content warnings on politics" posts and I don't know how to tell white people that 90% of all life is politics. You're asking people to hide the stuff you find unpalatable and that's not a reasonable thing to expect other people to do for you.
This is why I continue to think the federated and local timelines are an anti-feature. I do not want randos who don't follow me in the first place seeing my content and then complaining about it.
If you want my content, follow me. If you don't want it, don't follow me. Being randomly exposed to content that we dislike was the thing people complained about The Algorithm.
TinyExplosions š¾@seldo that works fine if folk know you already -I think there needs to be *some* discoverability (though The Algorithm probably isnāt the way). Firehose seems useful, albeit flawed if random folk are flinging abuse. Guess Iām lucky Iām a nobody so no one sees my toots!
RenamedPM@TinyExplosions @seldo For my own case, I find that my primary means of discovery is seeing people engage in replies to others (or me, but mostly others), in ways I want to see more of. That prompts me to look at their profile, and possibly follow if I like what I see.
That applies to both Twitter and here... the signal-to-noise ratio for algorithmically-surfaced or server / federated feeds isn't great in terms of "will this point out people I want to follow."
@renamedpm @seldo I do think that is the *main* way people surface new/interesting people to follow, but itās also quite insular, and tends to leave you with a fairly tight echo chamber, which Iād personally like to avoid, but I donāt think thereās a nailed on ārightā way to overcome this stuff
@TinyExplosions @seldo It shouldn't lead to an echo chamber unless your initial few people you choose to follow are all very similar and don't have any diversity among those who engage in their threads.
Otherwise, IMO that methodology should (and in my experience does) trend *away* from echo-chamber-ness, unless you deliberately cultivate one. All it takes is one interesting reply to lead to an interesting account with lots more interesting discussion, etc. etc.
@TinyExplosions @seldo I do also agree with you that there's no one "right" way to do discovery. I just wanted to raise it as a counterpoint to "this is what we need the instance / federated / algorithmic feeds for, and not looking at them isn't an option."
@renamedpm @seldo I quite like the federated idea. Itās kinda nice to have an instance with a defined premise (for example mastodon.radio) that I can jump over too, look at a federated feed and just see stuff on a specific topic. Itās a pleasant way to browse, and fits my mental model well I think (though Iām still not quite there with having loads of accounts on all the instances!)
@TinyExplosions @seldo Mmm, I like the idea that communities can organise around common ideals or interests, too. It's a neat way of doing that, without making it insular in the way that e.g. a Discord server is. You can be part of a "home" community, but still easily interact with everybody else.
@renamedpm @seldo not sure I agree with that. Might be a ālargeā echo chamber, but still can lack diversity. For example youād probably find that your list of people you followed all leaned a certain way politically (and similar to you), and so likely have similar views on the big issue topics (such as diversity, human rights, etc etc). Itās only natural for us to seek that out, and probably no matter who you put in front of someoneās eyeballs, the same result happens
@TinyExplosions @seldo Not in my experience. I've ended up w/ a pretty diverse list of people I follow, w/ all kinds of political leanings. Take a look at who I follow on Twitter if you're curious; that's a *long* way from being an EC.
Why do you think an EC is inevitable? I can't see how that could happen unless you only select similar people to follow. Choosing to follow interesting views you disagree w/ or lean differently to is just as easy as picking ones which align w/ your own views.
@renamedpm I guess itās mostly human nature -one tends to only like things that reinforce their natural proclivities, and not generally want to āpolluteā their timelines with stuff that runs counter to that (itās why lists in Twitter were great for seeing what certain areas where doing without explicitly following people). On reflection though, maybe Iām just describing my own failings, not how others work -the joys of generalisation!
@TinyExplosions Maybe we just tick differently? I don't see "following friends" as the goal - I follow plenty of people I suspect I'd find it quite difficult to be friends with!
My primary goal when selecting follows is to surface views that make me think, make me question my own beliefs, etc. I like to be challenged, to learn things, to have to justify my own position (or change my mind if shown to be wrong), and see things from angles I may not have considered before.
@renamedpm itās always seemed a bit like restricting oneself to only friends, and friends of friends for a viewpoint, but maybe with the whole six degrees of separation stuff you do end up with a very broad base that way. This is exactly why I wouldnāt be suited to be someone having to set direction on this stuff for an org!