Discovery here IS bad, and — I hate to say it — the solution to that is an (entirely optional) algorithm that surfaces potential follows and compelling content right out of the gate.
Algorithms aren’t inherently evil. Hell, “show posts in reverse chronological order” is in itself an algorithm.
What matters are 1) choice and 2) the intention with which the algorithm was designed.
#Mastodon https://mastodon.social/@mimsical/110865836818850808
I was able to bootstrap myself here relatively easily because I was both part of the deluge of Twitter users in November of 2022 as well as highly-motivated to make it work because I hated what Twitter was becoming and inherently grokked the benefit of federation.
That’s not going to be the common case.
If Mastodon is to expand far beyond low-hanging fruit like me it absolutely needs to meet users halfway.
@jeff would it not be enough to ask new people "type in a few hashtags you're interested in or select from this well-curated list of popular hashtags" and then auto-follow these hashtags for them?
Boom, their timeline gets filled out immediately with stuff they're interested in, no need to have any kind of "recommendation algorithm" involved.
Sidenote: this is less of a problem on smaller instances with lively and relevant local timelines, I feel.
> I dont get to see post from people I follow from other timezones
I get such posts boosted into my timeline all the time.
> there is no real way for me to find people posts or news local to me
That's a fair point.
> Making multiple algorithms available, making them open to analysis, and making them opt in/out sounds just fine to me.
I am worried about the power dynamics of this. Such tools tend towards "winner takes all" situations, I feel.
@SarraceniaWilds : "there is no real way for me to find people posts or news local to me"
@rysiek : "That's a fair point."
The solution is: hashtags of geographical names.
@jeff
@bauser first of all, there is a bunch of other software on fedi than just Mastodon.
Secondly, I don't think saying things like "[fedi] designers are so afraid of the world" is actually helpful as far as finding solutions to this is concerned.
It ignores — and I would even say: ridicules — the very real experience of people who got doxxed or otherwise harassed thanks to the design of other social networks, and decided to take precautions against that here.
@bauser I'm sure you'd agree that summarizing your position in this using terms like "ignorant of how certain tools can power harassment" would be a pretty low blow. Maybe let's exercise some civility and at least try to pretend we respect the (very real, often coming from personal experiences) concerns of others involved in this conversation.
@bauser I'm not convinced that calling people's lived experiences "stupid fear" is the winning strategy here, but you do you my friend. 🤷♀️
@rysiek @bauser @xdej @SarraceniaWilds Yeah, I’m not going to co-sign that framing.
I do think, though, that there’s a tendency on here to reflexively dismiss a lot of pretty basic functionality needs outright rather than constructively engage with attempts to make them work more safely.
Discovery doesn’t inherently preclude adding privacy controls, opt-in/opt-out, etc, but a lot of these people aren’t even interested in having that discussion.
@rysiek @bauser @xdej @SarraceniaWilds Also, it’s worth noting that a lot of features that are de rigueur on Mastodon now have also been used for harassment campaigns.
A hashtag, for example, served as the rallying point (and even very identity) of the ‘GamerGate’ harassment mob.
Jeff C. 🇺🇦🇬🇱
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
Veebs
Xdej
Michael Bauser