Tech so loves to repeat the same loops, and IMO I think it’s on us the fediverse for really failing to communicate the value of instances as well as making them easy.
(Number of people that have told me they think mastadon sounds like a good idea, but they don’t know how to pick the right instance). I try and smack them and say "it’s just like e-mail, you and your friends don’t have to choose gmail, your friend can be on yahoo, and you still talk to eachother. Whcih makes sense when explained, but it seems like few hear that kind of comparison.
So… we have a new platform, to replace twitter… yay!.. should we take counts on how long before either enshittification begins, flooding of ads or changes to be unusable), or it sells out to another already established billionare that abuses the power of media control etc…
That’s lazy journalism. There’s a functional search bar as well as trending hashtags.
There will never be suggestions by design, but there’s accounts like FediFollow and guides on how to get started with Mastodon. If you meet those people in the future, tell them to follow hashtags for topics they like, and encourage them to start using hashtags. They’ll find people that way.
This is also by design: there’s no suggestions, because there’s no algorithm. You decide what goes on in your feed (boosting is another important part of that). If you’ve looked at everything, explore a new hashtag, follow more people, check the Local or Global feeds, or Satan forbid anyone actually take that as a sign to take a break and go touch grass.
Also no quote tweets. And many people are used to algorithms now. I love Mastodon but I have to say Bluesky is more polished. Mastodon can be weird about threads and replies to posts. Sometimes I see a reply before I see the post, especially in the “lists” view.
Chronological timeline is great but it has its own issues too. For example people living in different time zones will have their posts buried when everyone is asleep. The algorithm, for better or worse, shuffles things around which can work for you or against you. If you browse for 5 mins here and there, algorithm helps you see the most relevant posts in that widow. Having both chronological and algorthimic feeds would be so helpful to me in Mastodon. I know there a front end that does a “catch up” feature, but it’s a bit hacky
Honestly that’s the most poorly designed part of mastodon, replies aren’t arranged chronologically. You click on a comment you see a few replies to it then go back and scroll down you see some more replies but they are just tagged comments to the person they replied like it doesn’t make any sense at all
Honestly, mastodon uses a open protocol, so in my opinion having an algorithm feed is a missing feature of the client/frontend that is used to interact with mastodon rather than a mastodon backend issue.
Tech so loves to repeat the same loops, and IMO I think it’s on us the fediverse for really failing to communicate the value of instances as well as making them easy.
(Number of people that have told me they think mastadon sounds like a good idea, but they don’t know how to pick the right instance). I try and smack them and say "it’s just like e-mail, you and your friends don’t have to choose gmail, your friend can be on yahoo, and you still talk to eachother. Whcih makes sense when explained, but it seems like few hear that kind of comparison.
So… we have a new platform, to replace twitter… yay!.. should we take counts on how long before either enshittification begins, flooding of ads or changes to be unusable), or it sells out to another already established billionare that abuses the power of media control etc…
A bunch of people came over to Mastodon when Elon bought Twitter, but they left because it was missing features. The big ones I saw were
That’s lazy journalism. There’s a functional search bar as well as trending hashtags.
There will never be suggestions by design, but there’s accounts like FediFollow and guides on how to get started with Mastodon. If you meet those people in the future, tell them to follow hashtags for topics they like, and encourage them to start using hashtags. They’ll find people that way.
This is also by design: there’s no suggestions, because there’s no algorithm. You decide what goes on in your feed (boosting is another important part of that). If you’ve looked at everything, explore a new hashtag, follow more people, check the Local or Global feeds, or Satan forbid anyone actually take that as a sign to take a break and go touch grass.
Also no quote tweets. And many people are used to algorithms now. I love Mastodon but I have to say Bluesky is more polished. Mastodon can be weird about threads and replies to posts. Sometimes I see a reply before I see the post, especially in the “lists” view. Chronological timeline is great but it has its own issues too. For example people living in different time zones will have their posts buried when everyone is asleep. The algorithm, for better or worse, shuffles things around which can work for you or against you. If you browse for 5 mins here and there, algorithm helps you see the most relevant posts in that widow. Having both chronological and algorthimic feeds would be so helpful to me in Mastodon. I know there a front end that does a “catch up” feature, but it’s a bit hacky
Honestly that’s the most poorly designed part of mastodon, replies aren’t arranged chronologically. You click on a comment you see a few replies to it then go back and scroll down you see some more replies but they are just tagged comments to the person they replied like it doesn’t make any sense at all
Honestly, mastodon uses a open protocol, so in my opinion having an algorithm feed is a missing feature of the client/frontend that is used to interact with mastodon rather than a mastodon backend issue.