This is your reminder...
There is no algorithm that brings posts to your timeline. The only posts you will see under your Home tab will be either people that you follow, or the boosts from people that you follow.
BOOSTING IS THE LIFE BLOOD OF MASTODON.
If you read something that is interesting, funny, thought provoking, news worthy, or beautiful, then BOOST IT.
Hitting "Favorite" lets the poster know that you liked it BUT IT DOESN'T LET ANYONE ELSE KNOW.
Keep Mastodon alive. BOOST.
Corollary: provide alt-text for your images. Many people, me included, don't boost posts with no alt-text.
Occasionally I add alt-text in a reply, but it's not the same.
@EricLawton @Mrfunkedude @meganL
I've made it my policy too.
No #alttext, no boost.
@EricLawton @Mrfunkedude @meganL
In general anyway. I might be a bit inconsistent/forgetful.
Dagnabbit, Pascaline! I usually add it, but sometimes if it's just for someone and real quick, I don't. But that's really rare. I sometimes go overboard with the Alts 
A few weeks ago someone , and I won't mention your name B Kahle, placed a photo with an Alt. At least he TRIED. The alt said 'photo'.
I mean!
I laughed so hard and decided to let him know. No reaction, of course, as usual.
@EricLawton @Mrfunkedude @meganL this is an interesting stance. If the alt text is for accessibility reasons, it makes posts even more inaccessible if people don't share them. The chances that someone doesn't add alt text in the replies increases significantly if the post is worth sharing but isn't shared.
Tumblr has a pretty good culture of adding alt text to posts that need it, one that I wish Masto would adopt.
@crocodisle @EricLawton @Mrfunkedude @meganL
Good thinking!
I'm not a user of #screenreader software so I don't know whether this is valid for the Fediverse:
it was either on Twix or Bluesky that a user of such software wrote that the or their screenreader skips a post completely –if it contains an image without ALTtxt.
It just won't read the post out loud.
So adding an ALTtxt in a reply would not make the post accessible.
@anlomedad @EricLawton @Mrfunkedude @meganL
Adding alt text in the reply is better than nothing though. If screenreading software is skipping posts that sounds like an accessibility bug in either the reader or the frontend.
Not sharing a post one would otherwise share because it's not accessible enough already doesn't make the post more accessible on a site with no algorithm, is what I'm trying to say.
@EricLawton @Mrfunkedude @meganL Meanwhile, I’ll happily provide #AltText to any un-alt-texted image I come across (provided I have the time to do so). Accessibility is just that important to me.
@enoch_exe_inc @EricLawton @Mrfunkedude @meganL 
^this^. I find Alt-ing images quite hard. It commonly takes me 2, 3 and more times as long to add alt-text to an image as it does to write my thoughts.
That said, I often quite like the result. There's room to add easter eggs and little treasures that don't fit in the main post, especially source urls. But, the level 2 difficulty does stop me from expressing myself sometimes.
@maphew @enoch_exe_inc @EricLawton @Mrfunkedude @meganL
I try very hard to add alt-text to my images, but it is often harder than the original post, especially where some of my images are abstract or complex, and just as often, the result is "no images, too much trouble." The good intentions of "no forwarding" is good, but I think the results are often unintended and benefit nobody except to make the non-forwarder feel good.
@jstevenyork don't force yourself to add alt text to every post you make... this kinda depends on the content and your reach obviously, but e.g. if no one usually sees your posts except your few followers that you all know personally and do not include any blind people, then adding alt text is just a waste of time. If you find that 10 people boosted your post or sth you can always edit it to add alt text later.
Nachan @EricLawton @Mrfunkedude @meganL This is a legitimate question since I've been asked to add alt-text to my art but never saw a reason to and i want to understand; What does alt-text add when all I do is post art?
Don't get me wrong here. For informational purpose, to describe an image containing information about, for example, a news report; then alt-text is great.
But when it comes to art I've never understood the point. Does it allow users to enjoy art from just reading text...?
@pale_nachan @EricLawton @meganL It’s for people with vision issues.
I would expect as much. But question remains if it matters for art.
Lets focus on abstract art. Does a person with vision impairment enjoy art by reading the objective (or subjective) description of the art?
I can write:
"Red and Blue colors blending in a swirl to create a representation of [...]" but that'd lose the purpose as abstract art is up to the beholder and not the artist.
This was intended, by the way, to be a response to @EricLawton reply to OP. Just to be clear.
They won't get out of it what a sighted person gets, but a brief description is a courtesy.
Without it, they don't even know that it's not words on a poster.
That's fair, i guess. I'll do my best for that purpose.
Someone I know lost his blind wife, he would describe the sunset, art, and much more, mentioning colour and all, the blending, the soft edges, the shadows, the light. She loved it, it made her happy even though she had never been able to see. It added an extra dimension, an unseen tapestry of unknown fabric that she could almost touch.
Alts can do that.
And yes, they take a bit of time and an extra effort but are also a great option to add more text.
@EricLawton @Mrfunkedude @meganL
I find it difficult to know what people want in alt text. There are two extremes I often see and a whole progression in-between. At one end is a narrative description of what the picture shows and it's context, with very little visual description. At the other end of the scale is a purely visual description. I'll illustrate both below.
Trying to put myself in the position of someone visually prepared, I think I would prefer the narrative description, probably with a few descriptive additions such as "the bright blue of my jacket contrasts with the grey, brown, and dark green background".
PLEASE do not boost posts with no alt-text! @EricLawton @Mrfunkedude @meganL
If there's no alt-text, my filters (against US-pol and A.I., mostly …) won't work and your boost will put that in my timeline and force me to choose whether I should unfollow you.
Similarly: please NEVER boost posts that use euphemisms or tricksy ways to foil filtering for commonly-filtered trigger-toppics like... er... US-pol and AI.
(Note: people are free to post about these things and anyone is free to boost them but PLEASE respect that some people need to filter those topics and act to support a filterable Fediverse that is safe for those of us with that need. Otherwise, Fedi just becomes yet another ableist Internet thing that we'll leave and resent.)
I am gonna boost this post as hard as I can
@Dennis5891 BOOOOOOOOOSSSSSTTAH!!!
Jakob Givoni @Mrfunkedude I just see three icons with numbers next to them under a post. I don't know which one (if any) of them means "BOOST". Using standard Mastodon app on Android. 
@jgivoni It's the one that looks like it's two arrows going in a circle.
@Mrfunkedude Good to know, I'm definitely going to boost more now! I semi-assumed it was the star until now... Wonder how someone came up with the arrows icon... Looks like "repost" to me. Thanks 
@jgivoni No problem. I'm glad that you understand now. Enjoy your stay here! 
@doctorambient @Mrfunkedude 
That makes sense in a totally non-intuitive way. I wonder how many failed boosts normal people experience on average before figuring that out 
@jgivoni @Mrfunkedude I have spoken to a lot of people here who've had a very hard time figuring out these differences. It's not at all obvious coming from other places, that's absolutely true!
@jgivoni @doctorambient @Mrfunkedude 
You are NOT alone, Jakob.
Eye, too, was baffled by the icons and their meaning at the start of my time here.
@Mrfunkedude @jgivoni Or as Eye like to describe it, Mr Dude, 2 little arrows chasing one another around a tiny rectangle = "Boost," on the Fediverse.
@jgivoni @Mrfunkedude I thought that icon was pretty standard for "share/re-post" on social media in general. Maybe the issue isn't the icon but the word "boost". Could just be "share" and "like" instead of "boost" and "favorite"
@alemarcati Exactly. It's the word "boost" that seems unique to this platform. Intuitively I thought that too boost something I should indicate that I "like" it.
#FBPE @Mrfunkedude Um ... "there is no algorithm" ... follow by ... an actual description of the algorithm:
"The only posts you will see under your Home tab will be either people that you follow, or the boosts from people that you follow."
@TimWardCam I'm using the common usage of the word "algorithm" which most people know as code that factors in your past behavior, interactions, and preferences to curate a personalized experience.
While I understand the technical usage is to say that it's a set of rules and instructions that determines the content you see on your social media feeds, I use the common definition to illustrate the difference between here and other similar services.
Hope that clears it up.
@Mrfunkedude I do hate it when people take perfectly good technical terms and turn them into meaningless gibberish. Like "organic" as a description of food - what "inorganic" foods *are* there, apart perhaps from salt and water?
@TimWardCam @Mrfunkedude
Me too. I have a list.
@Mrfunkedude Thank you for that - I had Tim 'splaining that I was wrong when I said no algorithm too.
One minor point: at least on some instances/servers, there is a "what's happening" or some other similarly named feed. That feed *does* take into account likes as indicators that a post is important enough to feature.
I do realize that most Mastodon users either don't know about such feeds or don't watch them, so I'm not disagreeing with your main point, but likes are used in other ways in the Mastodon universe. Although your point is absolutely right!
@doctorambient I get your point. It's just that I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible for new people. Also because of limited character usage.
Thanks for understanding.
@Mrfunkedude Absolutely! Your point is very important for new users!
The reason that I mention it is that I think it's a much more interesting feed, at least on my server, than the feed that shows the entire federated universe.
It's funny, the kinds of people who come here to avoid an algorithm like on other sites, are exactly the kinds of people who, when put into a similar algorithm but without commercial interests, actually produce very interesting results.
@doctorambient @Mrfunkedude On my server at least, the only thing I see lke that is the trending section, and I’m pretty sure that’s based on number of boosts, not likes. I’ve never heard of number of likes having any effect on visibility of a post.
Sorry, I got the name wrong. It is the "explore|posts" feed specifically that I was talking about, and the attached picture shows what mine says. I could be being lied to, but...
"Trending now," I thought, was based on the number of posts with a particular hashtag. I think you might be right about boosts being included in those counts.
(Sorry about all the edits!!)
@doctorambient @ducky @Mrfunkedude I spend most of my Mastodon time under Explore - Posts which *does* seem to take favorites into account
@juancnuno @doctorambient @ducky Just so that we're clear, I said... "There is no algorithm that brings posts to your timeline. The only posts you will see under your Home tab "
The "Explore" tab is not part of YOUR timeline. This is why I also clarified by saying "Home tab". Your "Home, Notifications, or list" tabs are specific to YOU. The "Explore" tab is not.
Hope that clears up any potential confusion.
@Mrfunkedude @juancnuno @ducky
Oh sorry! This kinda spiraled off into a separate discussion of other aspects of Mastodon. I apologize if you thought I was making some negative response to your original post, I absolutely wasn't intending that.
Sorry for any confusion I caused!
Perhaps amusingly, you have been the main post I've seen on the explore|posts tab all day! 
@Mrfunkedude @juancnuno @doctorambient Yes, sorry, I meant explore - posts. I remembered the name incorrectly. I thought that that was based on number of boosts in the last 24 hours, but I don't recall why. I could be wrong!
@Mrfunkedude thank you, I wondered.
@kwile Happy to help!
@Mrfunkedude Just a minor comment on what you posted: you will also see posts containing hashtags that you follow in your home feed, even if you don’t follow that person and it’s not boosted by someone you do.
Whether you see a post or not gets even a bit more complicated than that, but it’s not necessary to know the other intricacies of it since there’s not much we can do with that knowledge.
I don't favourite much. I prefer to reply if I like something, usually a photo, even just a few words tells the poster I cared enough to write something rather than just click on an icon. If something engages me I usually try to make a thoughtful comment, even if i am disagreeing.
@Mrfunkedude
I like to use the star when i feel its "not important enough" or i dont want to spam my home instance again (they dont want pure boosters) or because i feel uncute
OR
As boost + star to show how much i agree and like it
@Mrfunkedude Aha, good to know!
@Mrfunkedude after using twitter for many many years it took me a while to unlearn the algo driven feed. This is important and how I discover a lot of interesting / funny / thought provoking content. However, it does nothing to take you out of your bubble unless you seek out communities that hold different convictions / opinions than yours.
@Mrfunkedude @JugglingWithEggs Starring isn’t entirely invisible. I can see that ~175 people starred your post, and my client (Mona) lets me see who they are. I don’t immediately see a way to get from a user to that user’s starred posts; is that the ”not let[ting] anyone else know” you mean?