I really hope y'all understand I'm trying to improve the experience here and in so doing make this a healthier and more attractive place to be.
I didn't want to be a squeaky wheel but you know what they say...
@TechConnectify Hey, I completely agree with you.
I've found this place to be teeming with techno-luddites, and it's just baffling to me.
Love that you're here, and appreciate that you're willing to make a stink in order to improve things. 👍🏼
So, let's flip that around. What would make a good Quality Filter for you? (Mastodon has a good API and there's lots of programmers, here so...)
Would you only want to see posts from followers? Folk who've had an account for longer than N days? ...?
Probably should skip any AI like quality filter, since those aren't great for a lot of reasons, but are there certain patterns to look out for?
Be the exec you always dreamed of and list your requirements.
@hyenagirl64 I'm definitely spending too much time on this, but you don't need to worry about my mental health.
I am, however, steadfast in my belief that more people need to be thinking about this. Right now, I get the sense that there is a lot of denialism floating around this place because for many of the users that are in positions of power, they don't see the problems.
I have to put those problems in front of them. I wish more people did.
@TechConnectify I feel like something that's continually getting lost here is the fact that different people have different needs.
Mastodon seems like it was built around/inherited the idea of old-old Twitter, where it was a place for talking to people, and if folks were an ass you could just block them and move on. It's a simple system, but it works for most folks.
As Twitter grew and became that town square experience as we knew it, folks with large followings had more need for automated...
@TechConnectify ...systems to help them curate their experience. They would just deal with a flood of too much info otherwise, some of it particularly harmful.
While Mastodon definitely hasn't been built to handle these situations, the nice thing about the system it's built on is that it allows for that flexibility, so different folks can have different experiences.
I'm not sure if you were verified on Twitter or not, but I know a lot of those automatic filtering features were reserved for...
@gothpanda I know you're in the middle of the thread, but I need you to know right now. I was not verified.
A lot of people think I'm talking about some special filter reserved for special people. No. This was a feature that was turned on by default when I joined in 2018
@TechConnectify "The fediverse is great because you can make it be whatever you want!"
"This isn't working for me because the tools don't exist to make it what I want."
"Stop complaining, it works for me! Have you considered that perhaps you're just a bad person?"
A Twitter like "Reply Quality Filter" is not technically feasible with the technology used for Mastodon's Federation (ActivityPub). So acting out in a "squeaky" way can't produce one.
An alternative "filter" option that already exists is the option for posts to only appear in the feeds of people who follow you. Thus removing you from the completely public arena, into one you can vet and control?
@jay it could definitely be done on the client side, or perhaps the instance side.
And, picking apart some ideas I've seen, if tags were added on by an instance as the post were distributed around the fediverse, other instances could potentially benefit from the analysis done on another server.
Now, that second part probably feels like it goes too far. Another weird fork thing where stuff is going to break in translation.
But I don't believe this is impossible.
@TechConnectify have you filed any of this in the GitHub repo? Talked to Gargron about it?
@Pxtl @TechConnectify Still waiting on that call back from Mastodon Systems Incorporated customer service dept.
@JustinH @Pxtl okay, and I'm sorry for bringing the example I'm going to bring up, and feel free to feel less of me as a person.
When I would tag YouTube creators on Twitter and tell them I was having a problem, you know what would happen a lot? The human person tweeting at me would tell me "I appreciate your feedback! Please go fill out this form and make that feedback again."
And you know what this felt like? Passing off the problem to someone else.
@JustinH @Pxtl if you are going to insist that I need to file a GitHub repo or whatever the heck I'm supposed to do in order to get my problems believed or listened to, it's pretty maddening.
There are people listening to me, I am talking to you now, there are many, many other people who are seeing many, many other people express these problems.
I would hope that would be enough to get some balls rolling. Otherwise, this is maddeningly bureaucratic.
@hyenagirl64 okay, I have to be honest with you here. You are being way too cynical. I understand what you're talking about, and I understand the perversion of the advertising incentive.
But this is not limiting what other people can see. And even on Twitter, I only ever used the following feed. I never quite understood what people were even on about with the "algorithm" hiding stuff unless they used the Home feed.
@hyenagirl64 that feature was implemented because when you have 30,000 some followers it becomes miserable to use the platform. Every reply is signal which means that every reply is noise.
That is how it is here right now. And I'm telling you, and anyone who will listen, that this platform is miserable.
@TechConnectify @Pxtl The github repo *is* the feedback form...
@JustinH @Pxtl let me put it another way. I don't use GitHub. I don't even really know much about what it is! I ran into it at one point in the past working on some 3D printing thing and from there it has been in my brain as a weird fiddly thing for nerds.
So. You are asking me to go into a space that I'm not familiar with and, with no agency at all, submit some form so that hopefully somebody somewhere else will understand what I'm saying and take action.
Do you understand the friction here?
@JustinH @Pxtl if that's not bureaucratic, or that's not some way of saying "I refuse to empathize with people who will not take action to help themselves" I don't know what it is.
This is me telling you now, and I tried to tell it with a story of how the YouTube creators tactic of saying "thanks for the feedback! It's meaningless though until you do this" is utterly maddening.
@TechConnectify@mas.to @JustinH@twit.social @Pxtl@mastodon.social That's where the developers prefer to get their feedback. You want to work with the developers or against them?
@ignaloidas @Pxtl @JustinH I'd like developers to respect users a little more, frankly.
Frankly, it's astounding to me that people don't understand what this feels like.
@JustinH @Pxtl and just to be clear, cuz I fear I may be misunderstood here, I am not suggesting that you personally or anyone involved in this thread needs to make these things happen on my behalf. I don't even know if you are in a position to do that.
I am just highlighting my personal irritation with "unless feedback goes through certain channels it's not valid feedback"
And I can't get into details, but I have specific reasons to not trust the process here.
@TechConnectify @Pxtl No I know, I'm not offended, just trying to help you wrap your brain around the open source world.
(Most) everyone contributing to Mastodon at all levels is a volunteer. Getting frustrated at "Mastodon" for a feature you feel is missing is like getting upset at a soup kitchen ladler for not carrying a gluten free option. It's a reasonable complaint, but not an efficient path to actually fixing the problem.
@JustinH @Pxtl Good, I was worried I was stepping in something.
I will just put it this way, though - in my life experience, fixating solely on a to-do list without looking at the broader picture is a mistake. If nothing else, I would hope somebody on the dev team is monitoring the goings-on and tweaking which things should be prioritized.
That thing in particular is the thing that I don't think happens enough if at all.
@JustinH @Pxtl again, I don't want to get into the details of a private conversation especially because it happened a while ago and I might have misinterpreted what I was hearing, but it didn't go very well from my perspective. An actual human speaking to someone in a position of power that things were not going well, was not met very sympathetically.
@TechConnectify@mas.to @JustinH@twit.social @Pxtl@mastodon.social a lot of github devs HATE it when you just @ them outside of the repo and ask them to fix it. in the best of cases, they'll link you to the issue tracker (even if they're the only one editing the repo, which in a project as large as masto, they're not) and in the worst they'll get mad at you for not using the issue tracker.
the github issues board is how they organize and assign issues/features and gives a central place for all the developers and managers to see and respond to the issue. telling them to do something outside of the issues board is functionally useless to them.
most issue/bug report pages give you a form to fill out, and a lot of them make it very simple to submit one, and even if you don't have all the information required, they'd usually either be willing to help you or direct you towards the wiki pages.
best case scenario someone's already opened an issue and you can bump it by giving it a star.
@Jessica @JustinH @Pxtl I will grant that my frustration here likely comes from the fact that I actually worked in customer service roles for years. In the hospitality industry specifically. And in those roles, it was literally my job to make other people's problems my problem to solve.
That may very well be an unreasonable expectation for me to have in this circumstance, but to be honest it does feel pretty dehumanizing to be on the other side now and not see any of those principles.
@TechConnectify @Jessica @Pxtl I find it helpful to see myself as a contributor, not a customer. Even just "filling out the feedback form" is a contribution! That moves it from "dehumanizing" to "empowering" pretty quickly.
@TechConnectify @JustinH @Pxtl Oh, given Mastodon's governance, I have no doubt that this return via the "official channel" will be ignored at best and instantly rejected at worst.
On the other hand, I don't see the point of repeating the problem here over and over again. Most people who understand it have already acknowledged it, the stubborn will remain stubborn. It's just going to loop…
@TechConnectify @JustinH @Pxtl (Mastodon is notorious for not really listening to the community, which is why a number of people are going to compatible projects that more readily accept this kind of functionality instead. And over time, if enough people grumble (quote-boost) or enough other projects implement them (formatting), Mastodon may end up reluctantly agreeing to implement it. Sometimes only partially (formatting is read-only AFAIK)).
So yeah, even if most of your readers agree on the problem, good luck to make things change :D
@breizh I mean, this is pretty much why I'm going to take the tactic of quasi-boosting the drivel I'm forced to see.
I'm going to try to do it respectfully so that people that don't want to engage with it don't have to see it, but I want some more signals coming through the feed that hopefully people in power will see.
And if I have to make the platform a little annoying in the meantime, well... walk a mile in my shoes is all I can say
@TechConnectify @JustinH while Mastodon is volunteer-run, it's got a good stable of donors. Its Patreon take isnt bad for example, but I don't know how much hosting costs eat out of that.
But it's very visible that they don't seem great at prioritizing. Like, "group all the like/toot notifications for a single toot together into one entry" has been getting bickering instead of actions since *2017*:
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/1483#issuecomment-1822235189
@Pxtl @JustinH oh boy. I didn't know it went back that far.
This is also probably part of the friction where I describe features that Twitter implemented after Mastodon had already started. If they stopped using Twitter at that point, they don't know what I'm talking about.
I'm pretty much running into this left and right when I talk about the quality filter. Lots of people assume this was something for blue checks or that it hid way more stuff than it did.
@TechConnectify I've seen you, and other highly-followed "fedizens", say that part of the problem is a lack of positive responses to drown out, or at least balance, the inconsiderate ones.
As someone who tries to be considerate, I also discard many of my responses because they don't add substance, and instead just "like" the original post and some responses I agree with.
I don't know how visible that is to you, though. Feels like the considerate people not feeling like there is something to 'splain at you about amplifies negativity, but more noise doesn't seem like a great solution either, and if we chide the chiders that isn't to me obviously helping either. Proverbial rock vs hard place I guess.
😢
@mcdanlj likes are visible, but also kind of not. It's infuriating.
Honestly, notifications need to be stacked. They just have to be stacked. It is baffling to me that people don't understand this. Because right now, I get an individual notification for every single like which is overwhelming as it happens, and then you can't really keep track of that affirmation without going to the post and clicking on how many likes it has.
It's uh, not great! But I do see it. It's just clunky.
@mcdanlj either way, I appreciate your thoughts here. And the fact that you made me think through this particular part of it is highlighting another failure.
My understanding, or at least supposition, is that making likes less visible was deliberate. Trying to tamp down on the addictive nature of social media. I think that was a noble goal, but it makes them hardly useful
Thank you for raising these issues. Random thoughts:
- The party/host analogy is great and hopefully becomes widely accepted.
- While town squares and other social forums have been around for a long time, social media is new and we are still developing our cultural norms.
- Cultural norms are more important than technology for addressing these issues.
- Other users should chime in to criticize such behaviors to support posters.
- Discussions like these are vital.
@mastodonmigration @TechConnectify I’d disagree with there assertion that cultural norms are more important then technology.
In a ‘the medium is the message’ vein, the cultural norms are derived as a response to the inherent attributes of the technology. Different platforms feel different because their tech design encourages different behavior.
Fighting against the tech by trying to enforce norms is an uphill battle, much easier to create the tech in a way that encourages good cultural norms.
@Ethan @mastodonmigration I honestly think you're not really in disagreement, but the problem is that right now the technology does not support there even *being* cultural norms.
A big point of contention for me right now is that the crowd can't really contribute anything. Every post just gets a big bucket of replies, and when that bucket is so big and unsorted, people just throw thoughts at it without seeing what's already said.
Plus, little to no visibility of affirmation is also problematic
@Ethan @mastodonmigration A lot of people seem to use this space with a peer-to-peer mindset and ignore the fact that there's a public square component.
So when you are not a big presence here, it will feel tight knit and usable. But once you get above maybe 5,000 followers, it just becomes impossible to manage.
Smaller users simply don't see that problem, and with the general suspicion towards large accounts, it can be difficult for folks to understand what I'm saying I need.
@TechConnectify has anyone considered the cost of such a feature? You want an intelligent filter, right? That’s going to cost compute time to someone. Mastodon is a pauper’s social network. I think that explains why so little people see the value. Unconsciously, we all know we’re on a social network that’s not pumped up by investor money who want the thing to go stratospheric so can spend spend spend on expensive features. It’s really sad for you. You should have stayed on Twitter.
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