Paul CantrellOct 11

Apparently there’s another influx of new folks here, so I guess I should give my best tidbit of advice:

You have to really actively seek out people to follow here, much more than you’re used to — and until you do, this place will feel •dead•. Cool stuff isn’t just going to show up. You won’t get many helpful suggestions. No tech giant marketing dept is spending millions to draw you in. It’s going to be •work•. It’s kind of a drag, tbh.

But: your people are out there!! You just have work to seek them out, one account at a time.

Show threadPaul CantrellOct 11

A thing I did when I was new to find good accounts to follow:

Whenever I saw a post I liked, I didn’t just follow that person. I looked at (1) who they were boosting in their timeline and (2) who •they• were following, so that each new good follow might turn into 5 or 10 new follows.

A week or two of that really helped me find my way to the communities I was looking for.

Show threadJeffrey YasskinOct 11
@inthehands I wonder if @scottjenson might be able to think of a way to put this behavior into the default client...
Show threadScott Jenson
@jyasskin @inthehands we're actually working on this pretty hard right now. For 4.6 (early 2026) we're working on adding a stronger way to add recommended accounts. It's a version of BSky's starter packs but with some more trust and safety wrappers around it.
Oct 12 at 12:06amWeb
Show threadJeffrey YasskinOct 12
@scottjenson Yep, I've seen the great progress on making it less dead to start with, but @inthehands pointed out a useful way to grow your network once you find a new person, which might be a good addition to the Follow flow.
Show threadScott JensonOct 12

@jyasskin @inthehands Oh yeah, of course, that's a great flow. The trick is how best to encourage that. What they describe is exactly what I did. It's great advice.

I'd love to hear ideas on how to make that easier! If there are any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Show threadJeffrey YasskinOct 12
@scottjenson @inthehands 2 ideas, which might already be in your plans: 1) encourage people to build their own starter packs organically, as we follow and boost people. E.g. the Nth time I star or boost someone's post, include a subtle prompt to add them to my starter pack (and maybe include a way to categorize them in case I want to build several starter packs).
2) when I follow someone, show a list of that person's starter packs (or their frequently starred and boosted people if they haven't made a starter pack), so I can take their recommendations on who to also follow. It might make sense to give me a "consider following these people" queue in case I don't have time to consider each person right away.
Show threadScott JensonOct 12
@jyasskin @inthehands these are great ideas. I thought your prompt was to encourage following BEFORE we introduce packs. For example we could add some prompts to follow people to the welcome email, or some nudge when people are following with <X followers to follow more, etc