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
Some people I'm friends with have other people's boosts turned off, which is strange to me (why follow someone who annoys you at all?) but then sometimes boost stuff themselves... 🤦♂️
That seems hypocritical to me, sorry friends. 😂
I can understand having boosts turned off for some people.
If you just want to see their original top level posts, if they are super active ... (uh like I am) it could be annoying.
I don't think it's ... like a block.
@futurebird No, it's definitely not the same, I just grumpily reject the notion of turning off all boosts (which they did) and then boosting stuff to. your own followers. 😂
But yeah, turning off some boosts on an individual basis is a different thing.
@jph @futurebird Or, put another way, “my boosts don’t stink”
😂
Personally I enjoying seeing what people I follow boost anyway. 🤷♂️
@futurebird yes, completely agreed.
Wrt disabling boosts, I’m solely referring to a friend who wholesale blocks them all and still apparently boosts things. 😂 And I’m not hating on him because I love the man, but I can’t buy that stance.
Maybe he just wants to be like a radio tower. A beacon in the night.
@futurebird @scottaw
I just want a "don't show me stuff I've already seen" feature in whatever app (or the desktop). Boosts I've never seen from people I follow: perfectly fine. The same post boosted five times in two days, multiplied by 100 other equally scintillating posts: less fine.
I'm on board with that "we're the algorithm" thing, but I think there's room for improvement.
Re follower counts: participation ==> moar followers, just by virtue of getting under people's noses.
@scottaw @futurebird I have some follows which I follow because they tend to post cool stuff. Or because I consider them friends.
And then they decide to go in a frenzy and start boosting kinky or noisy stuff that I'm not in the mood to watch (like tragedy / outrage posts that I've already seen all the 🤬 day and I'm out of spoons already). Or that obnoxious image bot that I hate...
"Hide boosts" does it for me. Minimal conflict and I still get to see my friend's self posts.
@scottaw @futurebird I am not comfortable with this notion of judging how other people use their accounts.
That is an individual choice, and we all should be free to choose the way that works for us, without needing to worry what the neighbors will think and say about us.
@Supertapani @futurebird I’m not asking anyone not to. But refusing to see something yourself and then doing that same thing to others? 🤷♂️ Jerk move.
If you’re asking me to change how I feel about that, it’s a very simple no. 🤷♂️
@futurebird I've found on many occasions that what would get me followers is either writing a post that gains traction, or simply giving a ⭐ or 🔁 to something I like or find funny. Most accounts (save sometimes for larger ones) around the fediverse are actually very responsive to interaction.
I almost always interact in some way with any reply I get, and I usually skim unfamiliar accounts that engage with my posts to see if I might enjoy following them. There is a certain give-and-take and while sometimes I just do not have the spoons to give, even just pressing those two buttons is sometimes all it takes.
@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.
I just worry about users feeling isolated. I like that the numbers are less in your face here. But it's nice to get a response when you write something, --and if someone isn't networked in enough they will say stuff and no one will respond. That's no fun.
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.
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