I've been creeping around looking at a lot of people's accounts (I'm doing a survey) Noticed that people with very few followers have one thing in common: they have not boosted the posts of other people often if at all.
(When I see posts like this encouraging boosting I always think "well that person just wants boosts, whatever") That's not it. On twitter it was important to only boost exceptional content -- boost here to invite more people to join in talking about something. #mastodonhowto
@futurebird I've seen few people really concerned with their boosts.
Personally, I wish my exposure was better... but I've just been talking and trying to find my people. If it happens, awesome. If not... c'est la vie.
I'm curious if you've seen a lot of the same people boosting each other over and over. Something I have noticed.
You should boost your own replies if you want anyone beyond whoever is tagged in them to see them. That is, if they can stand on their own, and aren't just something like "oh wow!" or something obscure and technical.
Replies can be much more hidden here. Combine that with some of the bugs on thread display and IDK how well conversations will function if people don't do that.
@futurebird
Interesting that you consider replies more hidden. IME they're WAY more "public", since everything is a variant of "...and your followers, too". I live on my home feed and I get ~1,000 toots/day, replies and boosts and all.
@cobie
Re the cringey self-promo of self-boosting: there's a bunch of that on Twitter, too (repeated tweets) that always got on my nerves, but given how fast posts get lost on the river of time.... understandable. "Show me once/unit time" would help, there.
"Show me once/unit time" would help, there.
This turns out to be a kind of hard programming problem because it means tracking what every user has and has not seen (tiktok can do it)
I suspect it would be computationally expensive? Because it makes posts into a kind of notification, which can be viewed ... then not shown again. Can it be done it a lightweight way?
What about suppressing re-boosts of the same post from the same server in a short time when they occur?
So, client-side?
Easiest to implement that way.
Can do server too, but feels the team's anxiety to change is even worse there.
Not sure where you'd got it.
To filter out spurious repeated messages, it would be silly to have extra API call.
Rather opposite, existing calls should have a filter.
Filtering out incessant retoots of the same toot within time X.
Why? You don't need any extra assumptions, it's all taken into account.
Doing this kind of interaction client side or via a sever-side user profile could work - ala slack -
The post becomes the atomic unit or node and everything else an attribute or vertex.
I imagine GraphQL queries like:
1. how many times post boosted?
2. For each post boost, who did it and when?
3. …
Ha, you're keen to refactor, my instinct was least change 😅
Not so much refactor, more like use the relevant tool (Graph API) in the solution toolbox for the relevant problem challenge. This is a gap that needs the appropriate bridge building materials (code design pattern-Graph) and structure (API pattern).
The best part of Twitter was the unbiased algorithm and the worst part of Twitter was when Twitter management bent and biased the algorithm.
Mastodon needs an unbiased algorithm. Who do I like or boost more than others? Which topics do I like or boost more than others? That's what I want to see when I'm here.
Having every interesting post appear and disappear during the 99% of the day I'm not watching my timeline is not working well.
Does the "explore" section help much? Things seem to stick around there for longer.
I could be mistaken but Mastodon's "explore" seems to be global or at least instance-wide. It seems similar to Twitter's "trending".
Mastodon is too big now for a single Zeitgeist to be of much use. As a progressive software engineer and sailor my interests have little overlap with say a conservative accountant and football fan.
I realize FLOSS is a do-ocracy so I'm not complaining. But I would be very happy if Mastodon gained an unbiased "algorithm".
@mgb5000 @futurebird @tarheel @cobie One way you could construct that kind of unbiased algorithm is by following specific hashtags pertinent to your interests, while hiding boosts on your home timeline.
The former will pull in more content you want from sources you don’t necessarily follow while the latter makes room for it by thinning out the sheer volume of stuff in your timeline.
@enron @futurebird @tarheel @cobie
The top trending tag is currently #waterfallwednesday. 🤷
Very few posts use hashtags. See e.g. this entire thread. So relying on hashtags would miss a lot.
Hashtags and lists are something that us tech literate people can try but I don't think they really solve the problem for us and certainly not for people who just want to use the service to share ideas and who wouldn't know the difference between SQL and FORTRAN.
@counsellingkaren @enron @futurebird @tarheel @cobie
Maybe you overlooked my "I realize FLOSS is a do-ocracy so I'm not complaining.?
Maybe you forgot to include hashtags in your post saying that this site uses hashtags?
What do hashtags have to do with clout?
@counsellingkaren What does using a hash tag in a reply have to do with clout?
I use it so that I can find conversations to reference latter.
@mgb5000 @futurebird @tarheel @cobie
I already do this for myself by curating who I follow, who I put on lists, what phrases I mute, etc. There are so many ways to customize your feed.
@futurebird @cobie
I actually think it could be lightweight. Hash the toot url (e.g., "https://toot.cafe/@futurebird@sauropods.win/109593543842036760") into a timestamp. Depending on the data structure chosen, you could probably sort items by value (timestamp) and purge stuff older than, say, 30 days*, so after 30 days, you'll start seeing repeats, but there might be utility there, anyway.
*Configurable, since in an app, you're just eating your own memory, and if it's on the server, the admin can set a ceiling.
@[email protected] @[email protected] "Show me once/unit time" would help, there. This turns out to be a kind of hard programming problem because it means tracking what every user has and has not seen (tiktok can do it) I suspect it would be computationally expensive? Because it makes posts into a kind of notification, which can be viewed ... then not shown again. Can it be done it a lightweight way? What about suppressing re-boosts of the same post from the same server in a short time when they occur?
@stavvers
No, that's probably it, but 30 minutes doesn't seem like enough. It's good for really sharp boost storms, but my feeling is the same thing gets boosted repeatedly over the course of a day or two.
I don't know how much it's saving me since I don't see very many "also boosted by", if at all (I'll have to pay more attention).
@futurebird @cobie
@stavvers @futurebird @tarheel @cobie How about suppress repeated boosts of posts with more than N boosts (N configurable in the settings)?
The more times a post gets boosted, the more probable it is that you'll see it again. So we could check our timeline boosts. Ah, this a boost with 500 boosts count! Let's add its id to our popular posts list and the next time it appears, we won't show it!
This way only big posts will get added to the list and memory usage will be minimal.
@futurebird @tarheel @cobie how is a “view” defined?
For a user it probably means “I read it” but for a client app is requesting it sufficient? What if the client never scrolled to that post? Or didn’t scroll to the end of the post? How much of a post visible on screen counts as a full view? (I’m not sure but it is a judgement call)
What I would love is a client that might collapse posts I’ve seen when boosted
@Rycaut
Yeah, client app request is insufficient. I dunno, you saw when you've scrolled all the way through it (to the next toot, say, if it's truncated and you didn't bother to expand it).
The answer to the "how much?" question is "let the user decide; make a config param".
@futurebird @cobie
@tarheel @futurebird @cobie sure. But it is always worth keeping in mind that across ALL types of software the vast majority of users never change the defaults of that software from how they first get it (beyond any configuration that is required to launch the software) (saw this via a PhD thesis I read from decades ago but haven’t seen anything to contradict the findings)
“Tech” folk do tweak settings but forget most people don’t so defaults matter
I've self-boosted (I was bored, needed to relax? 😹) but it was mainly because I felt like something I have said really resonated with the Fedi and I wanted more people to see it at a different time.
I'll admit, I do want to see more followers. But that is mainly because I honestly feel like I have something to say to them.
@cobie @mentallyalex @futurebird Boosting your own posts was a normalized thing before the surge in users.
One of the quirks of things here is that Mastodon -- and AP clients in general, I suspect -- don't back-fetch content. You subscribe to a feed ,and you get what comes down the pipe after that point. So, to make things visible to newer users, people go back and re-share older content.
I'm not really sure why it's considered cringy to try and get the ideas or content you've shared publicly in front of the public, frankly. Like, that's kind of the point of sharing it int he first place, no?
@Kichae
honestly, I don't think it's too cringe. I self-promote all the time in my day-to-day life. Heck, I showed my amazing lunch off to my cat and then asked her not ten minutes later if she'd heard about my lunch.
I think its just the overall feeling of 'needy' that comes with self-promotion. If your content is 98% sales... you're a sales person. I don't follow sales people.
If you're 98% cat jokes, inclusivity humor, and 2% "buy my thing" or "read my post on..." I welcome it.
@mentallyalex
@Kichae
re: self-promotion cringe
yes, it's the fact that it comes off needy like you mentioned that lies at the core of the cringe i feel. like, "hey guys, did you see what i did here? huh? HUH? VALIDATE ME! VALIDATE ME!" again, perhaps this feeling is just a holdover from the rest of the social media experience i've uh.. experienced and the same need for validation being the driving force behind self-boosting isn't present here so much. /shrug.
@yassie_j @polyote @Kichae @cobie @mentallyalex @futurebird
sometimes i'll put a lot of time into a reply, do some research, edit for content and clarity
after a day or two, if it still seems like it might be an original idea, or maybe even not original but just synthesizes existing ideas in a new way, i'll boost it into a post so it's not buried in a thread
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