this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2023
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I find Mastodon very stuffy and boring, is there a way to shake up my feed? I feel like I'm missing something about how the app works.
I'd recommend following the hashtags you want to see. It's sort of a build-your-own algorithm
This is a huge thing about the fediverse.
Users are used to being told what they want (algorithms) without any choice (centralised and only platform).
Whereas Lemmy and Mastodon require users to curate their stuff.
Perhaps some "meta fedi" sites would be useful. Things that generate lists of hashtags, instances and users "shake up" your experience
I found fishing for (and following) hashtags on Mastodon effective but Mastodon was also in much better shape to receive the waves of Twitter exoduses.
Lemmy lacks effective tools to organize a feed. I think many people recreated their favorite subreddits as communities but the userbase was too small to support them. Being able to create "multi-reddits" to group related micro-communities together to help mitigate the ghost town feeling as you raise the probably of at least one of them having something new to talk about.
I think naturally, Lemmy will gravitate to fewer, more generalized communities instead of many little hyper-specialized ones.
I'd love to see more smaller communities, tho. But, how to group communities?
Geographically is one way, if you want local news and banter.
By interest is another, if you want YouTube news/content but not Twitch news/content. Or just more generally "streaming content"?
It is an impossible problem to solve easily.
And the risk of any instance suddenly going offline is very real. Which means, gravitating to a more technically adept or well funded instance makes sense.
I feel like the current federation separation system isn't going to work. Or it's going to be "good enough" for a good while, but not really click.
Idk if separating "user instances" and "content instances" is better. Then some sort of "meta instances" that everyone actually interacts with.
Content instances can more specialise in the content they provide.
User instances specialise is currating their users.
And meta instances link users to content.
But then, that massively overcomplicates things. And who is going to want to run a user instance? Or a meta instance? Or a content instance? All require investment and work.
I think that would have been a healthier start, to focus attention and generate some liveliness, but people's preconceived notion is "Reddit" so that's where community creation went.
Re-reading your post before I hit submit.... I think I am just repeating what you are saying!
What I was saying:
I think the solution is "meta instances" or "meta communities" or "meta aggregators".
A community or instance that aggregates the smaller communities.
And some way for smaller communities to submit content to that aggregator.
Like, I'm browsing my instance's "all". I find a good meme that suits my "programming memes" interest. So, I submit that post to the aggregator.
Essentially like cross posting, but a community of all crossposts and everything is treated like it's on the original instance.
But as a primary feature. Where it's easy to "submit to aggregate subscription" or whatever.
But then we would get every instance with their own meta-community, and it's just a complication on top of communities and instances.
The trick is to have meta-meta-communities to aggregate the aggregators :)
Putting a list of similar instances and communities in the sidebar would help a ton. Yes, there is a list of communities on every instance, but I'm not scrolling through a hundred rows trying to determine which I might like based on the names.
Curation is the term. The question is how our doomscrolling is curated. Go to the big sites, they curate for engagement, and thus ragebait.
Here, maybe we need some communities that have people curating in a more positive direction...
Reddit also used to be that way. FFS I think the best time on the Internet was that when we were all on traditional phpBB-style forums, where there was no "algorithm" at all (though I admit the concept doesn't scale well and they too have their structural problems).
Have you seen the maple syrup meme video? (Sorry for the TikTok link.)
https://www.tiktok.com/@reddit/video/7231589390072597806
This was a pretty amazing feature of everyone using Reddit. Lemmy isnt close to that for specific interests yet. League of Legends was one of the biggest subreddits, but any league community here is basically dead.
It's a lot harder to get critical mass for Lemmy than it is for Mastodon. And Mastodon migration hasn't been what I think it should be. A good, reliable, large instance on .com or .net domain would probably go a long way for adoption.
Mozilla is supposedly releasing https://mozilla.social Mastodon instance I'm early 2023. Any day now... But it's understandable if they want to wait for some event to open.
God i miss traditional forums
This is a welcome change tbh. All these other platforms push rage bait and crap just to drive engagement numbers.
It's refreshing to go back a little to how the Internet used to be. You had to go and find what you liked, not have a million things pushed on you.
Subscribe to the hashtags you're interested in.
Tools help, and because the Fediverse API is completely accessible, folks have already come up with awesome stuff.
And that's just the beginning.
This is a brilliantly helpful reply.
I agree... it feels like the Fediverse doesn't quite have the same algorithms that the single-corporation services have, and I feel it most in the search to broaden the content I see. Hopefully the exploratory element picks up as time goes on!
The Fediverse doesn't do algorithmic pushing and that's a feature, not a bug.
The main ways to find new stuff on Mastodon are all actions taken by you, the user:
All these are things you do and you have to put a little work in to make them happen, but it's purely fueled by your own interests and wants instead of the traditional social-media algorithm which does a little aligned-interest stuff but is mostly powered by whoever has money to pay the platform to force them into your timeline. On Twitter or Facebook you get shown what the platform thinks they can get paid by showing you. On the Fediverse the rules of invasive centralized ad-choked personal-data-harvesting social media don't apply; you get shown what you actually want and request.
It's different and change can be scary, but when you get used to the idea that things don't have to work the old way anymore it can end up being a good thing.
If you think about it, this is actually the old way.
The problem is that I as an user don't necessarily know what I want to see. What if there is some super interesting hashtag out there, but I don't even know that it exists?
I simply haven't found as many good engaging posts in Mastodon, though, despite all that. It could be simply the challenge of building an interesting feed when you start from zero, but that's a challenge nonetheless.
Algorithmic identification of novel content is in my mind neither intrinsically sinister nor beneficial; like all things, it's a tool and the morality comes out of how it is used.
Things like (optional) recommendation tools could be a useful addition to Mastodon to help users find interesting threads. Could be run on a per instance basis.
If you think about it, this is actually the old way.
Thank God it doesn't
It's a bad feature lol. It should have algo content as an option. I'm tired of getting gaslighted and being told I'm not allowed to think this. We're on Lemmy because of its algo content with the active/hot feeds. That doesn't translate to Mastodon boosts.
Exactly, the reality is when I open Twitter I see content that is at least relevant to my interests, where as the sorting on Mastodon are of things that are of absolutely no interest. There's a lot that you can say about algorithms, but there's a reason it was the way it was in the first place.
have a look here https://lemmyverse.net/communities
Why isn't kbin magazines in that list of communities?
Follow hagstags and accounts you like. Also ask for follow recommendations and introduce yourself, some hosts share introductions to people.
Follow a lot of people to fill up your feed. Be generous with it, and if someone you followed continuously posts something you're not interested in, you can just unfollow, or put up a filter so those posts from that person do not show up.
There's also a feature to follow hashtags so they appear in your home feed, so just search hashtags of things you find interesting. That's a good way to find new people to follow as well! Advanced web view also allows you to make feeds for specific hashtags or hashtag combinations for even more control.
And if you happen to find an instance catered to your specific interests, you can make an account there, and you can even migrate an existing account so your followers come with. Chances are the local feed will be filled up with content you enjoy on such an instance.
And if you want to help your followers discover similar people, be sure to boost content you enjoy.
On Mastodon, you are in control of your feeds. Even on the federated timeline, to an extent (as filters work there as well).