A reminder that on Mastodon you are the algorithm. If you’re seeing content you don’t want, block or filter it out. Boost things you want more of. You control what you see. It’s better than trying to control others. Focus on curating the kind of feed you’re interested in.

If you don’t want to see politics, unfollow people who post or boost a lot about politics.

The #birdsite is very passive in terms of what it demands from you. Mastodon isn’t. It’s a mind shift but it’s a good one to make.

@VickiKyriakakis I’m of the opinion the algorithmic timeline on Twitter was consistently better. Even with many of the same follows the timeline moves glacially and with less relevance
@palmerc @VickiKyriakakis
Here, you are the algorithm. Boost toots you like to see. I love the idea that no one else is deciding for me, it's entirely up to me.

@Sarahw @VickiKyriakakis Nope. I'm supportive of the aspirations of Mastodon. The reality is, it isn't as good in some fundamental ways. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having an algorithmic timeline that attempts to provide you the information relevant to your current interests. This could be done in parallel with a linear timeline.

Furthermore, the presentation of threaded messages is strictly terrible. Instead of doing the sane thing which is to group them, it posts them reversed

@Sarahw @VickiKyriakakis this 'here you're the algorithm' sounds like the same nonsense you hear in other corners of tech. Leveraging technology to our advantage, to improve our productivity is the name of the game. Who has time for grooming their timeline? I don't. I also don't compile my own kernels anymore.

Mastodon has the advantage of not being profit driven, so it could be even better at presenting users the news/messages they want when they want it and still offer the other style.

@palmerc but who can decide better than you what you want to see? As for not having time, surely you just do that as you go along?
Also, please excuse my ignorance, what does compiling my own kernels mean?
I agree about presentation, other people have used different apps that make Mastodon more user friendly.

@Sarahw Well let's start with the kernel.

Back in the day... early adopters of Linux had to spend time compiling their Linux kernel to get things just right. It was a point of pride and one of the things we loved about Linux. Do it yourself. Late 90s into the early 2000s.

The control Microsoft exerted over the tech industry was immense and it made everything a pain.

Twitter and Facebook are now turn of the century Microsoft.

@palmerc thanks but from a non technical person I still don't know what a kernel is 😁

@Sarahw OH, sorry, the kernel is the lowest level part of the operating system. It facilitates the basic running of the machine by coordinating your processor, memory, hard drive, graphics card and programs. It must know how to communicate with these different components, often in a manufacturer specific way.

Picture stolen from wikipedia

@palmerc ah, I get it now, thanks