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- cross-posted to:
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Mastodon, the decentralized Twitter / X alternative, is adding lists to its Android app, according to a blog post from CEO and founder Eugen Rochko. Lists are available as part of the most recent Mastodon for Android update.
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I’d really just prefer a recommendation algorithm. I tried curating it for months and I rarely go on mastodon. Because I’m either seeing 100000 posts that I’m not interested in to find one decent one, or reading posts from the very few people I know I like and closing the app in 2 minutes. I’m honestly not a fan of the purely chronological approach.
An algo requires analyzing user data, which is exactly what the fediverse doesn’t want. There are front ends that surface popular Mastodon posts, but that’s about it and that’s how they like it.
If it’s based on what I like and repost, and recommends things that people with similar likes and reposts enjoy, that information is already out there. No extra data collection required. Doesn’t need to be mandatory either, just a separate feed.
Fediverse could absolutely do better on just that data, though I do want to note the really effective (or addictive) algorithms for TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, etc. work on a hell of a lot more data than that. Not just what you directly interacted with, but did you even just click on the link? Did you go to the comment section? How long were you in the comment section? What comments did you expand? When you follow a link or look at an image, how long till you go to the next post?
Like I said, there are ways to do better with what we have, but the “ideal” behavior is secretly fueled by a whole lot of extra data collection that gets distributed everywhere.
Oh I know, and I fully agree with getting rid of that. I’m not looking for ideal, I’m just looking for SOMETHING better than “oh you aren’t finding interesting content? Subscribe to hashtags that get spammed with BS by thousands of bots per day. Or search some obscure websites for ‘trendy’ mastodon users to follow. Or y’know what, this instance probably isn’t for you, research a bunch of other instances and see if something works better.”
The experience right now seems like one, to me, that a very small niche of people would enjoy. And that’s fine if they want to stay that way, just wish there was something better. And I think it’ll come with time.
Then you should make that!
I can’t, given I don’t have the time or webdev experience. So I’ll comment about features I think would be nice in the currently most popular fediverse twitter clone.
They just implemented search and you have to opt in. There’s a value system in place that may change over time (many things do!), but that ain’t happening any time soon. It took a huge push to even allow search.
which is exactly what the fediverse doesn’t want
Did the fediverse tell you that itself?
There’s no single vision of the fediverse. There’s no arbiter of truth on the fediverse. So count me in the camp of people who would absolutely love an app on the fediverse that tailors content to me.
That’s right, there is no single vision. That’s why there’s so many different front ends. I currently pay $5/month to 4 different ones cause I like where they’re going. Which do you support?
So obviously we’re talking about it and you want one and there isn’t one. Why do you think that is? Do you think that maybe projects and protocols “speak” direction by the implementation? Do you think that the fact there’s a bunch of front ends and apps for Lemmy and Mastodon and all the rest and NONE of them have this feature might be a clue that the fediverse is trying to tell you something?
No, I mean, I guess “the fediverse” didn’t come right out and say it to me, but I guess I can read between the lines.
But I’m super excited to see your investment in what you want! Post back here with what you come up with.
There is a happy balance between using publicly available data to improve user experience and instead using it to manipulate and drive engagement.
Everytime I say this, I get gaslit into being told it’s actually way better this way! It’s boring as hell lol.
Same. And I really gave it a chance, but it’s just not better unless you’re using it as a small chronological feed of people on your local instance. Which I know some people enjoy. I know interesting people and posts are on there, I know there are hilarious people on there, because I follow some of them. But the vast majority of them I discovered by random chance, it took a long time, and I’m still too bored by the app to bother opening it. Not to mention, if some important news is trending, I don’t see it right away. Which is something I’d always valued twitter for. I could pretty much be “in the know” within seconds of opening the app.
The people are there, the content is there, there’s 100% a discoverability problem
The trending content was at least interesting on Twitter too. With Mastodon, there’s only one specific one that is almost entirely dominated with the exact same political opinions. I’m so tired of the same politics being entirely my feed.
Lol exactly. It’s often like the same exact 4 accounts on that trending page too. And it’s always these topics:
- Trump
- Musk
- Current war
- LGBT
- Linux
It’s just politics and Linux. Which is fine if you like that, I like Linux, but not this much. Being completely overwhelmed by political takes was part of why I left Twitter, with the blue checks being boosted. I’m so tired of seeing that same dude in a suit with a white beard bitching about [insert today’s controversial political topic] every time I open it. It’s like he has residency on the page.
Fediverse in general really needs to adopt the multireddit approach to feed categories, or in other worlds let us group them properly. Sometimes I want to see news, sometimes I want to hear from some content creators and other times I might want to see what my friends are up to. Keeping it all in one feed (even worse if it’s just chronological) is just a terrible way of handling it.
Dunno if lists are quite that but maybe we’re finally moving towards it at least.
we already have this feature on the Tusky app but I’m glad Mastodon is adding it to the native app
Huh, admittedly I’ve only been on Mastodon since Juli, but I remember always having had the Lists function, or at least since I joined anyway… I’ve been classifying certain topics in Lists together for a while now, while they all stay in my home screen… I really hope the update isn’t that it now removes them from home to “declutter” the only tab that gathers everything you follow for bored scrolling? That would be terrible…
This is specifically for the Android app
So it only added a base functionality that others already had at least 4 months late? 😅 They should call it Mastodon Explorer. 😅
The update adds the option to remove accounts on a list from to declutter the home feed. It’s off by default
Optional is always a good thing. 😅
Lists are kinda useless, because you have to follow everyone you put in a list
I thought this as well, but I’ve started to think they could be useful if I follow way more aggressively, and create a list that is “what I want on my feed” and default to that. It’s stupidly cumbersome, but would have the desired effect. Of course you’re right that they should just let you add directly to a list - I think the reasoning for the current functionality is to limit stalking/harassment, though I don’t exactly understand how that is inhibited at all.
You have to give up any global feed though
I assume it’s so you can have one for news, and one for nudes, depending on the reason why you opened mastodon. No boner-killing BBC articles in the middle of a fap session.
Or you can make multiple accounts. The app makes it super simple to swap accounts on the fly.
Nah, I like to live dangerously
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Mastodon, the decentralized Twitter / X alternative, is adding lists to its Android app, according to a blog post from CEO and founder Eugen Rochko.
“With the new update, you now have the ability to create custom lists and categorize your follows based on specific topics or interests, while removing them from your home feed,” Rochko writes.
The feature is coming to iOS, but according to spokesperson Renaud Chaput, “we are currently refactoring the app to solve some performance and crash issues, so the work is taking a bit longer than on our Android version.”
Rochko adds that “our iOS and web teams are also working steadily on new features and improvements.”
I had a handful of lists on X, formerly Twitter, that I used to rely on quite a bit; they were a really handy way to get updates from people and accounts you didn’t want to always show up in your home feed.
But even though X isn’t the platform it once was, Mastodon, which is powered by ActivityPub, is facing fierce competition from other Twitter alternatives like Bluesky (which is building its own decentralized social networking protocol) and Meta’s Threads (which has promised to eventually integrate with ActivityPub).
The original article contains 352 words, the summary contains 201 words. Saved 43%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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