My Fediverse Advice:
* Follow more people. No, even more people than that. Basically, if you find a real person and their posts are good follow 'em
* If you get a good reply to a post boost it. If you make a good reply to a post boost it. Replies are not visible in the feed unless you do this. As long as the post is an OK start to a conversation or interesting boost it.
* Write thoughtful replies. And if you put effort into a reply boost it or probably only the people tagged will see it.
>Replies are not visible in the feed unless you do this
i did not know this (and does not seem to be the case ime). could it have to do with the "quiet public" visibility setting?
I don't think it's obvious that they are kind of buried if you aren't looking from your own account.
odd. i see picrelated just fine - not my reply, not boosted, not buried.
it is kind of inconvenient though that when i see a reply in the tl there is no "go to start of thread" button or anything; if i click the post itself it may or may not load the context.
e.g. 2nd post just doesnt load the rest of the presumed thread
(i do boost great replies #mandatoryvirtuesignal but i did not know i had to do it with mine as well)
There are three things I would love to see change about the fedi... no... four really:
1. I still want to be able to quote boost.
2. Better threading or let me know WHY I can't see what post a person is replying to when I click on it.
3. A little better grouping of posts. This has been improving ... but more things like "this was boosted 5 times and 2 times by people you follow"
4. For the love of GOD that issue where you get taken to another server's page and can't do anything.
agree on all 4 counts
note that fedi ≠ masto comes into play here. e.g. misskey is discordified and a bit confusing, but it has a working multi-column view, and the "post detail" view appears in a popup on top of that
in the 10% of cases when i want to open a post in a new tab, i have to dig through some menus or something - but otoh misskey has never redirected me to another server
Misskeyakkomabluskipostbellboyidfk
4. is the worst (I'm logged in, why was I logged out?) but I also really dislike all of the mysterious messages that "You may be able to see more if you click here" and then you don't see anything or "Do you want to see more from this user (who your server has shadowbanned)?"
@richpuchalsky @futurebird @unspeaker I believe the later issue is being worked on. Wonder how the former could be solved, perhaps a rel tag. (Sorry for tech-thinking out loud)
It would be good if when your server retrieved a message because you were interested in it your server also automatically retrieved all of the replies to that message from other servers that your server gets messages from.
I use the search function all the time because of point 4. And visit profiles looking for specific things and all that. Very inconvenient on the phone, less so on the desktop, but it feels too much like work.
"Paste the link in the search bar"
I often end up following some of the best people after doing this but I worry it is too technical and obscure of a thing for many users to do so people are not making connections they ought to make easily.
>Paste the link in the search bar
>too technical and obscure
while that might be the reality, it's one hell of a sad reality
@unspeaker @futurebird @angelastella that's called friction. If the goal is to grow the fediverse then points of friction need to be identified and reduced.
@unspeaker @futurebird @angelastella AP is a web technology, and the fact that this is possible is possible. For the sake of convenience though, the best solution would probably be for web browsers to be extended to avoid the issues you mention. AFAIU this is not currently inside the scope of the protocol.
@futurebird @angelastella @unspeaker
In respect of finding people to follow, I recently came across this interesting site - Followgraph - that "allows you to expand your connection graph and find new people to follow. It works by looking up your "follows' follows"...
@id1om @futurebird @angelastella @unspeaker
do they let you download the information into a CVS or JSON file? that's the only valuable utility to a site like that if you can't run that on your own server.
@blogdiva @futurebird @angelastella @unspeaker
The site says of CSV
"While it would be a useful feature, Followgraph does not plan to offer this functionality as it would facilitate inorganic and potentially malicious behaviour."
Perhaps exporting the html of results and processing them to obtain requisite data is the way forward there.
@id1om
There is also @FediFollows with daily lists of accounts to follow on a specific topic.
@futurebird @angelastella @unspeaker
@futurebird @angelastella @unspeaker
Oh yeah, #4 is so not obvious and antithetical to usability. Also why the awkward copy-paste QT workaround is so annoying. Bluesky is taking off so much faster for such reasons.
@birdpoof @futurebird @unspeaker
I don't think we're just two usability tweaks from them...
@angelastella @birdpoof @futurebird
it's a pincer move. they don't simply achieve good usability - extensively funded proprietary software *defines* the usability expectations of the audience
@unspeaker @angelastella @futurebird
That's certainly true to an extent, though merely counting clicks is a simple way to measure a feature's usability and accessibility.
For the same behavior of "follow an account" that was linked/QTed, I think we can agree that Mastodon has the most clicks and keyboard actions (copy/paste) of any social media.
Blocking a linked account is the same PITA. (Bluesky tripped and fell on account blocking as well, but it's still fewer clicks)
@birdpoof @angelastella @futurebird
fewer steps is definitely a valid metric, also fewer conceptual objects
the problem with many free software alternatives to big proprietary stuff is that they try to imitate "the whole thing" but it ends up feeling like a knock off
would be compatible with the engineer mindset of foss devs to start with the explicit goal of "achieve the same things with fewer steps" and see what grows from there
even if it ends up completely different, people will learn
@futurebird @angelastella @unspeaker Seems like in-app remote ActivityPub link opening may be on the way: https://github.com/swicg/activitypub-html-discovery/issues/20
@futurebird @unspeaker 1. is supposedly in the pipeline at least. But yeah.
without qb, how will i know that people like what i boost? all the engagement goes directly to the original poster
Well this is exactly the issue. It's hard to start a conversation *about* something. For example now and then I'll necro an old post of my own. With a quote boost I could give it context. eg "This is what I said back in march ..."
SO useful.
1 more example: I could have quote boosted the first time I posted this image & then people might see the cool conversation it started. But, I just re-used the image because we don't have quote boost.
@futurebird @unspeaker @joakimfors well, at least single step. I copy/paste the link to post (share, then copy link, in the UI I use).
Works the same as QT did as far as I can tell
@futurebird @unspeaker @joakimfors To me, using ivory, this post looks exactly like a quote-boost.
Searchability, by keywords, but especially by date.
@futurebird on 2, I recommend the substitoot add-on: https://github.com/virtulis/substitoot
On 4, this add-on might help: https://github.com/rugk/mastodon-simplified-federation
@collectifission @futurebird Oh. It's amazing, I just wish it wasn't needed.
@futurebird @unspeaker I definitely agree about number one.
@futurebird @unspeaker I want the numbers removed altogether as they’re always incorrect – the amount of people who liked a thing is always a total lie, the amount of votes in a poll is always a complete lie, the amount of reposts is always complete lies, if it’s not possible to show the true amount of any of those numbers I want them to not even bother showing a number at all
@futurebird @unspeaker #4 drives me nuts. Why does this still happen?
@futurebird @unspeaker My #1 on my wish list is for post composition windows to automatically remain open and NOT LOSE YOUR DRAFT when you navigate away from Tusky (or other app) and then navigate back!
@futurebird @unspeaker I'd also like to be clearer on what features (or misfeatures) are:
(1) Specific to Tusky (or other app)
(2) Specific to mastodon.social (or other server)
(3) General to the whole Fediverse.
For example: I notice that people I follow can write long posts, but I can't. Is this some setting I haven't turned on yet, or do I need to switch from mastodon.social to another server if I want to write long posts?
@dedicto @futurebird @unspeaker The latter. It's specific servers where longer posts and other features work
@project1enigma @futurebird @unspeaker I'm wondering, then, which server I should switch to. Would zeroes.ca allow longer posts? And does it welcome those from this meth lab of a nation called the USA, or are only Canadians welcome? (I'm #ZeroCOVID myself.)
@dedicto I think you'll need to check out the servers on your own or ask around for recommendations. I can't serve with the later though as I'm not on such a server.
Sometimes the server's about page may help (if it says something like Glitch edition of mastodon, for example, it'll often have the added features enabled).
Or Fedi garden (which by the way says that zeroes . ca is apparently open to people from all over the world).
@dedicto @project1enigma @futurebird @unspeaker I'm from the US and they let me join and 4000 characters per post. I'm also #ZeroCovid
i think it's the server.
also mastodon can display some custom formatting but doesn't allow you to add it
big bummer for ppl who write about code and want to include monospace snippets
@dedicto @futurebird @unspeaker switch from mastodon.social (good idea in general) to something else, and it doesn’t even have to be a mastodon-based instance, many of the other fediverse things (like the iceshrimp one I use) have longer post limits
@dedicto @futurebird @unspeaker For your example question, post maximum length is a server feature. So your limit is set by the admin at mastodon.social.
@dedicto @futurebird @unspeaker for no 3 there is a setting you can change in Mastodon to enable longer posts but it's a code change not a configuration one.
However they maybe using something other than Mastodon which allows for longer posts
@dedicto @futurebird @unspeaker
This is a setting that instance owners can change. 500 characters is just the default for Mastodon servers, not a requirement of the protocol. Some of the other software tools have different defaults.
@dedicto @futurebird @unspeaker the draft losing while navigating away from Tusky is my big complaint.
@futurebird @unspeaker for 2 it is if your server isn't federated with or has blocked that person’s server. If I am super interested, i’ll make the effort to pop over to my other account that is federated with more servers
@futurebird @unspeaker I HATE #4 OMG
@blogdiva @futurebird @unspeaker Oh man yes. I actually _want_ to go to the other server's page often ... but I want to know that's what I'm getting, and have a way to load it in my server's context. (I suspect #4 is really just #1 in disguise)
But on the topic of #4: I would love to be able to moderate replies a bit, so that my post has a canonical set of 'good replies' to it. Show the good conversation, not the bad. Let me put some work into pruning and shaping if I'm the OP.
@aredridel @futurebird @unspeaker the mangled threading is such a problem, OMG.
still blows my mind they don't have themeing. nobody should have to fork the whole fucking thing to work on the ui/ux.
this is why i have stuck with drupal, and now backdrop, all these years. separating the ui from the backend fucking works.
i hate twig, but get me phptemplate or twig and i’ll go to fucking town working on the ui/ux.
@blogdiva @futurebird @unspeaker Aye. I'll give 'em a little more credit on the theming side since I actually think it's extremely difficult to separate well, and really ossifies your structure sometimes. (or you constantly break themes) — wordpress suffers this a lot, trying to maintain compatibility makes their code SO complex and fragile
That said Masto's frontend sucks terribly and I hate the code so much
@aredridel @futurebird @unspeaker i last coded a theme for WP, was for friend, wanna say it was like 15 years ago? ugh. meh.
true story, i got my hands on b2 and it was clunky. i was on matt’s waiting list to test his fork, LOL
never did. tested b2evolution, didn't like it. someone told me of movabletype, so used that and after getting DDoSed via the comments, i switched to Drupal & never looked back.
their modularity is so clean, bad themes are the problem, not the core codebase.
@aredridel @blogdiva @futurebird @unspeaker Every time I try to imagine better social media I keep coming back to Google+. There, your posts were your domain. You had full and separate control over who could see the post and who could reply to the post. You could delete replies. At least that's how I remember it. That's how it should be. I shouldn't be forced to let my posts become a platform for somebody else's message if I don't want to.
@cheddarcrisp @blogdiva @futurebird @unspeaker I'm torn on that but I sure don't want "my" space advertising the bad replies. I can't control the discourse, but I don't want to amplify and publish the bad stuff.