Mastodon is cool, and I'd use it more if I could get used to the format. The Lemmy/Reddit forum style is my preference.
this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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I just don't understand how people find accounts they like to follow.
just follow hashtags you like, that way you'll see people who post about interesting stuff.
That's the main reason why I'm half and half on mastodon (besides the terrible user search and onboarding). I believe the way hashtags are implemented in microblogging services is so inorganic, and I prefer having a little help finding cool posts and people through some kinda filter. Bluesky has been a better experience in those aspects for me so far.
First, it's important to find an instance that caters to your interests, especially if you have more niche hobbies. Once you're set up, search for and follow hashtags related to your personal interests, and use those to find accounts you like. Use hashtags in your own posts so that people can discover you more easily, and browse users that follow you to see if they'd be interesting to follow back and expand your network out. Keep an eye on the local and federated timeline for interesting posts, which includes all posts from people on the same instance and from all federated instances. Eventually, as you build up a follow list (and especially as you follow highly active accounts) your followed accounts will start introducing you to new accounts themselves through boosting posts.
It's more work since you're building the network yourself instead of having it spoon-fed to you by an algorithm, but it's overall much more rewarding, and lets you tailor your experience to your own personal preferences.
I started by just following a bunch of hashtags and my feed was already quite interesting. Over the next few days I started following a few people who seemed to consistently post content that I found interesting.
I have the same issue on Lemmy, but at least there's All. I can't figure out where "All" is on Mastodon.
The equivalent to All would be the federated timeline, some apps don't show it though, and some may call it something else.
I guess the official "Mastodon" app doesn't show it, then. I'll look at the other options.
I prefer pull vs push media. Less intrusive. I have a feeling lemmy users may also like RSS feeds for the control it provides. I know in mastodon you decide who to follow, but the whole culture to encourage re-blogging means a lot of potential unwanted crap in our feeds.
Mastodon is a good reminder of why algorithmic feeds exist
The option for a chronological feed is nice, but without an algorithm filling in the gaps it’s really hard to get started on there
Meh, I'm sick of all the algorithmic crap. The internet used to be better when people needed a couple brain cells to use them.
ah, yes. content recommendation is only for stupid people. that's a good argument.
What I'm actually saying is, that user experience is obviously harder without the algorithms, but algorithms (ML ones) are what brought the internet to this state. So I'd rather live without them wherever that's viable.
I completely agree. I like the concept of Mastodon and like that it exists, but I just can't get into the idea of following individual or organizations rather than topics. Thankfully Lemmy is a thing.
Agreed
The problem is that #10 in this article is why 99% of people won’t leave Xitter for Mastodon. Most of the people with lots of followers on X aren’t on Mastodon. It’s really that simple. Some “influencers” need to be convinced to open up Mastodon accounts and advertise exclusive content on there for their followers. Until then, we will be stuck with a handful of journalists, Flipboard, and Stephen Fry.
I really don’t think that Mastodon needs influencers. It’s just normal people talking about normal stuff. Don’t need any “I‘m so glorious, and here’s my product that will make you think you’re glorious, too” kind of influencers there, thanks!
This, very much this. I've been having more pleasant discussions with random people replying to Mastodon posts compared to the brain parasites victim making their nest on xitter.
I mean, you guys are stuck with me as your only real celebrity for a while... (and the Debian logo design person.)
I remember back in 2000s 2 or 3 guys were so misinformed that Bruce Wills himself joined the comments and explained the movie industry doesn't work that way. Of course they didn't believe it was him and they ended up being video called by him to "prove" it is really him. I will find that page one day. In the 90s it was common that a famous actor/producer discuss ongoing things with the fans.
Xitter
LOL, my brain read that as "shitter" and I found that pretty fitting.
Please, just no. Keep those scum influencers away. It would immediately ruin the platform.
Jeri Ryan is on mastodon. I'm ok with that too.
Here's an alternative question: Do we really want the fediverse to take off like big tech did?
I sort of like that this little corner of the Internet isn't filled with a bunch of megacorporations and political bot farms trying to fiddle with our opinions to their benefit. Once it gets too big, it's going to lose something really important. Also, I fear that it could become impossible for a little operator to run an instance anymore.
Solid point. Kind of goes back to what we want out of our social media. If we want to follow the celebrities we like, we’re probably stuck with Xitter & other data harvesters (outside of the enlightened folks like Mr. Fry). I honestly use Mastodon slightly more than I use(ed) Twitter. Barely more than not at all.
This is how I feel about Bluesky. It's so good, but really needs more people.
Most people used Twitter and Facebook not as a social network but as a pastime. They didn't create or post anything, but simply lurked and browsed random stuff on the platform to amuse themselves and keep up with trends. The random content in feeds that articles like these complain about were rather the main feature of those platforms for many. And this is a feature Mastodon fails to provide for its own good.
You never wonder “why am I seeing this and how do I make it go away?”
I actually find myself wondering this a lot. Mastodon doesn't allow people to add comments to things they're reposting, so you're left guessing as to why they elected to insert something from an unfamiliar account into your timeline.
Mastodon is also short on tools for discovering interesting new posts and accounts that aren't already on your radar. In this regard I agree that it's behind the times. Threads handles this much better, giving you a classic chronological feed of people you're following plus an algorithmic feed that shows you things that are popular with people like you.
But I don't want anyone to make assumptions about "people like me". Those kinds of services are always ways off.
At best I could do with a feed from followers of my follows. But repost kinda does that already.
A comment to reposts would be nice though.
And it could do with an automated language filter. Because I'm getting a lot of German in my feed, would rather not.
Misskey translations coming in to save the day!
I've been trying to find my way on Mastodon with little success. Can anyone recommend ways to find or follow ? Also, I see that I can follow Lemmy/ Kbin sites on MAstodon but I can only see the title text. No images or comments come over.
Hashtags are the only way. You can follow mass hashtags though, which is nice. So if you want to know everything about a certain topic you would put in #favoritetopic and then push the follow sign for that topic. I have #seattle and #trails for example. Not every app lets you do this though but I know FOSS Tusky does and last I checked the official Mastodon does not.
That's a great tip. thank you
Mastodon will never “show me only what I want” without the content being there. I mostly used Twitter to keep up with pro wrestling. All of the wrestlers, journalists, and most of the fans are still all there. I just have to wait until Twitter gets bad enough that even they all end up moving off.
Fuck advertising. Sorry not sorry. I actively try to avoid products advertised ...it's not really possible but I try. Fuck advertising...I blame Pepsi
A fine brief on mastodon but it hardly "rewound" anything.
The fedi had been around long before mastodon and even facebook.