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Mastodon announces new European non-profit, change of CEO

blog.joinmastodon.org

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Re: Mastodon announces new European non-profit, change of CEO

#51

Post by BeetleB »

runako wrote: post #36
WorldMaker wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as well as a lack of algorithmic curation, which a lot of people deem very important. Twitter ran for enough of its early years without that and it still had "mainstream appeal". (Blogs and RSS for even more years.) I'm happier without algorithmic curation. I think a lot of people over-estimate what algorithmic curation is worth to them. Partly because algorithmic curation is a big business, tied in pretzel knots w…

I tried Mastodon before Threads & Bluesky, and I can say that the lack of algo was the part I liked the least. I tend to follow a lot of people, and like to see a mix of their posts. But on Mastodon, what I got instead was "who is posting right now?" I'm in EST, for example, which means that unless my Asian follows are up in the middle of the night, I will generally not see their posts on Mastodon. Also some people p…

You can make lists in Mastodon, and put the noisy people there and exclude them from your main feed.

You can put all your Asian follows in a separate list as well if you want to quickly catch up with them.

No algorithm has its down sides, but I doubt they'll put in an algorithm that I'll like more than "no algorithm".

I'll add that I think algorithms should be the responsibility of the client, and not the server. The web client is merely one client. There's not much preventing any of the numerous other clients from implementing an algorithm.

Re: Mastodon announces new European non-profit, change of CEO

#52

Post by INTPenis »

andreamonaco wrote: post #19

I'm not very optimistic about the technical direction of Mastodon. Mastodon had a minimal HTML-only interface before, you could read posts and replies of each profile. They removed it some time ago, now you just see a blank page if you don't have JS, and I think it's a huge mistake; it was a clear albeit small advantage over mainstream social networks.

I also loved the HTML interface, I hate having to temporarily enable JS on a bunch of weird domains just to read threads. But I also hosted a node for many years and realize how heavy it is to render stuff server side. So the decision is clearly to make it less resource hungry for selfhosters.

Re: Mastodon announces new European non-profit, change of CEO

#53

Post by dingnuts »

sangnoir wrote: post #42
WorldMaker wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as well as a lack of algorithmic curation, which a lot of people deem very important. Twitter ran for enough of its early years without that and it still had "mainstream appeal". (Blogs and RSS for even more years.) I'm happier without algorithmic curation. I think a lot of people over-estimate what algorithmic curation is worth to them. Partly because algorithmic curation is a big business, tied in pretzel knots w…

> Partly because algorithmic curation is a big business, tied in pretzel knots with advertising, and is marketed by major companies as a huge "improvement" or "user need" (to sell more ads) You might have inadvertently fallen for the fallacy of composition. What to describe is only one type of algorithm; one meant to maximize engagement/revenue. Mastodon has the potential for a user-centric "Bring your own algorithm"…

Mastodon simply cannot be that user centric because the user can only control the subset of the Fediverse that your instance is able and allowed to see. Given that single user instances are largely nonviable due to the abundance of blocking in the 'verse in lieu of adequate spam controls, which ActivityPub fundamentally lacks, your choice of homeserver matters more than anything. And of course, there's no good way to choose one as a new user. Most newcomers will simply give up when faced with the choice. Even with great interest I've gotten stuck at this stage multiple times, myself. No homeserver seems welcoming, and they're all a little culty.

HN looks at the federated model and thinks about how much control the homeserver operator has and imagine themselves in that position as a "user" when the truth is that each homeserver is a small fiefdom run by a dictator and users have even less control over what they see there than they do in the corporate networks

Re: Mastodon announces new European non-profit, change of CEO

#54

Post by mvdtnz »

andreamonaco wrote: post #19

I'm not very optimistic about the technical direction of Mastodon. Mastodon had a minimal HTML-only interface before, you could read posts and replies of each profile. They removed it some time ago, now you just see a blank page if you don't have JS, and I think it's a huge mistake; it was a clear albeit small advantage over mainstream social networks.

A truly overwhelming majority of users browse with JS enabled. Designing or even considering those who don't is (in the most literal way possible) a waste of time.

Re: Mastodon announces new European non-profit, change of CEO

#55

Post by ClassyJacket »

solarkraft wrote: post #3

Mastodon is on the right track. They’ve been doing so much right, the UX has improved considerably. I think there’s some mainstream appeal, but there are also ecosystem issues that aren’t solved easily, as well as a lack of algorithmic curation, which a lot of people deem very important.

Algorithmic curation is exactly what ruined the existing social networks. They were absolutely better without it.

Re: Mastodon announces new European non-profit, change of CEO

#56

Post by AlexandrB »

braiamp wrote: post #43
WorldMaker wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as well as a lack of algorithmic curation, which a lot of people deem very important. Twitter ran for enough of its early years without that and it still had "mainstream appeal". (Blogs and RSS for even more years.) I'm happier without algorithmic curation. I think a lot of people over-estimate what algorithmic curation is worth to them. Partly because algorithmic curation is a big business, tied in pretzel knots w…

> I think a lot of people over-estimate what algorithmic curation is worth to them They don't. They are addicted to it. Imagine a world where you scroll in Instagram and you reach the end. What are you going to do?

"Addicted" is negative value. Back when Facebook was not a never-ending feed, people would reach the end and go do something productive instead of spending all night on it.

Re: Mastodon announces new European non-profit, change of CEO

#57

Post by vidarh »

dingnuts wrote: post #53
sangnoir wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Partly because algorithmic curation is a big business, tied in pretzel knots with advertising, and is marketed by major companies as a huge "improvement" or "user need" (to sell more ads) You might have inadvertently fallen for the fallacy of composition. What to describe is only one type of algorithm; one meant to maximize engagement/revenue. Mastodon has the potential for a user-centric "Bring your own algorithm"…

Mastodon simply cannot be that user centric because the user can only control the subset of the Fediverse that your instance is able and allowed to see. Given that single user instances are largely nonviable due to the abundance of blocking in the 'verse in lieu of adequate spam controls, which ActivityPub fundamentally lacks, your choice of homeserver matters more than anything. And of course, there's no good way to…

I used a single user instance, and it's perfectly viable. If anything it's less hassle with respect to blocks.

Relays can also easily mitigate the issue you describe, as can an algo provider that simply boost all entries it puts in your feed.

Re: Mastodon announces new European non-profit, change of CEO

#58

Post by AlexandrB »

wmf wrote: post #26
seydor wrote: post #9

It's usually bad news when implementing control by commitee to a mass medium. Like what happens with publicly-owned TV

Control of the Mastodon software isn't control of the Fediverse.

From the announcement:

> Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we’re going to invest deeply in trust & safety. We want everyone, especially marginalized communities, to feel safe on our platform. We’re working on building a stronger trust & safety function—including hiring—which will contribute to new features, educate instance admins about best practices, assess community needs, and partner with organizations like IFTAS to share insights and expand the availability of resources in this critical area.

Re: Mastodon announces new European non-profit, change of CEO

#59

Post by jknoepfler »

dgrin91 wrote: post #23
andreamonaco wrote: post #19

I'm not very optimistic about the technical direction of Mastodon. Mastodon had a minimal HTML-only interface before, you could read posts and replies of each profile. They removed it some time ago, now you just see a blank page if you don't have JS, and I think it's a huge mistake; it was a clear albeit small advantage over mainstream social networks.

The hilarious dichotomy of HN - this post says UX is going wrong because of JS requirements and HTML only was better, while the one below (currently this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42682927 ) says UX is getting better.

I mean, yeah. I read opinions I sharply disagree with all the time on this forum. If I didn't I probably wouldn't post here. ( Because contradicting opinions enrich my own, not because "someone's wrong on the internet again").

Re: Mastodon announces new European non-profit, change of CEO

#60

Post by hbn »

WorldMaker wrote: post #8
solarkraft wrote: post #3

Mastodon is on the right track. They’ve been doing so much right, the UX has improved considerably. I think there’s some mainstream appeal, but there are also ecosystem issues that aren’t solved easily, as well as a lack of algorithmic curation, which a lot of people deem very important.

> as well as a lack of algorithmic curation, which a lot of people deem very important. Twitter ran for enough of its early years without that and it still had "mainstream appeal". (Blogs and RSS for even more years.) I'm happier without algorithmic curation. I think a lot of people over-estimate what algorithmic curation is worth to them. Partly because algorithmic curation is a big business, tied in pretzel knots w…

I've said this for a while too. People got mad when their chronological feeds disappeared, and I think it should be kept around as a separate view you can pop into (and this does exist on twitter), but people follow so many accounts, and those accounts post so much, chances are when you go into the chronological feed, you won't see anything that really interests you. That's my experience any time I go into the Following tab on twitter.

It seems much wiser to seed out a new post from someone to a few people's feeds, see if it gets their interest, and if so, boost it to more people that would be interested.

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