Daniel Cook

It has been interesting to observe the steady collapse of both my home and local feed here as people I follow churn out / go inactive.

It is a basics logistics problem that happens in all social systems. You get a group together. People leave the group. There's no low cost / low energy method of topping off the group. Social density drops below stall limit.

I _could_ add a bunch of people to my follower list but that's a high cost action. Tapped my friend lists. Other feeds are high noise.

Jan 21, 2023 at 9:01pmWeb
Show threadploinkJan 21, 2023
@Danc it’s unfortunately is like a garden and requires constant pruning and replanting.
Show threadJesseJan 21, 2023
@Danc I’m curiou why you consider following new people a high cost action. Are you thinking of it as something to do all at once?
Show threadDaniel CookJan 21, 2023

@misc Even finding one high signal to noise person is rare. I add them when I stumble across them.

But it takes active searches to find even one. And the tools aren't great. There's no 'signal to noise' tracking system in Mastodon default.

Show threadJesseJan 22, 2023
@Danc I think I had an advantage in that I was following so many people on Twitter that I brought over a big chunk here, and that was a critical mass to find still more people through boosts. I guess my best recommendation would be to lower your threshold for following (partly by giving yourself permission to unfollow liberally as well). That said I'm intrigued by your comment about a signal to noise tracking system - what sort of thing do you have in mind?
Show threadDaniel CookJan 22, 2023

@misc A lot of it ties into algorithmic mechanisms. Top tweets and trending were two Twitter used. Doesn't need to be those mechanism, but something to surface high quality content from people who aren't in your immediate circle.

If following tweets that your circle recommend is a hill climbing algorithm, what is the system to let you jump hills?

Show threadJesseJan 22, 2023
@Danc Good question - hope you don’t mind me boosting — I think you put it well and I am curious what other people think.
Show threadManuel CorreiaJan 21, 2023
@Danc
I do enjoy how I can make a column to follow hashtags of things I care about, and those are easy to update. I can follow that stuff and react to it without clogging my personal feed.
Show threadDaniel CookJan 21, 2023
@gamesbymanuel I'll try that! Though it is interesting even a broad topic like '#gamedesign' has only12 people talking over the past 2 days.
Show threadManuel CorreiaJan 21, 2023
@Danc
True! I wish people used them more.
Show threadTodd JordanJan 21, 2023

@Danc Darn; I knew I didn't make it noisy enough.

You're not wrong. The initial thrill and gusto wains and the timelines slow down.

That doesn't mean we each need to follow 10K people to get a decent stream.

Perhaps it's a sign to set up focused streams on hashtags or small targeted groups of people.

Something to think about.

Show threadIsaac 'Atridas' Serrano GuaschJan 22, 2023
@Danc The wave from the bird site is over. I'm mainly back there again because most people I know stayed. Still put the geeky gamedevy stuff here, though.
Show threadScott 🌱Jan 23, 2023
@Danc I was thinking about this earlier today. We’re on a game development mastodon instance. I typically only follow game developers. So then why follow anyone on mastodon at all, when I can just participate in the local timeline instead? Sure, I pick out and follow my favourite people, mostly old names and faces I recognise from early twitter and even irc before that. But the local timeline is always the most lively and bound to be the most interesting purely because *everyone* is there.