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Boost this toot if you're planning on sticking around Mastodon & the Fediverse whether or not it's more popular than Bluesky.
@JesseSkinner Mastodon is great, but to make it even better for professional use it might help if something like the "top-links" in the "catch-up" (Beta) window of #phanpy (https://phanpy.social/ ) is the home page by default for all users. These top-links are sorted by the number of times boosted by the ones *you follow*. This could be useful for #science, to highlight most important developments (e.g. publications) in your network. Now you easily miss them, causing some colleagues to leave.
@geertaarts @JesseSkinner Why should it be good for professional use? Not being good for professional use makes it more good for actually *social* use.
@maccruiskeen @JesseSkinner OK, also social. Let's say you follow 200 others, and you stick to them, because you like their messages. Let's say 100 of them post/boost 5 messages per day. That is 500 messages in your timeline/day. A more silent friend or colleague posts one message per month, which might be quite important for both the sender and receiver. It is quickly snowed under.
Many of my colleagues joined about a year ago, but most left to LinkedIn and Bluesky now. I think because of this
@geertaarts @maccruiskeen you can turn on notifications on a per-account basis - so those friends whose posts you don't want to miss, click their profile and click the bell icon and their posts will show up in your notifications.
@geertaarts @maccruiskeen @JesseSkinner This is specifically something I encountered myself. I solved it by unfollowing accounts, as well as turning off boosts, until I felt I was comfortable keeping track of all the accounts I followed. But that's me.
@geertaarts @maccruiskeen @JesseSkinner
So what’s you solution? Some kind of algorithm that sorts through posts and decides for you what you should see?
@marc_w @maccruiskeen @JesseSkinner The algorithm is specified above: Those posts with the highest recent number of boosts from your network appear at the top.
@geertaarts @maccruiskeen @JesseSkinner
Bot farms promoting posts with a particular slant are already a thing.
@marc_w @maccruiskeen @JesseSkinner Marc, sorry, I'm not sure I understand. To be clear, I love Mastodon, it is a great place, and would like to stay here. However, the reality is that a lot of colleagues (mostly researchers) joined Mastodon, but have now left. I think it is fair to ask why that's case. What makes Bluesky attractive to them? It might help if we all have a simple and transparrent algorithm in place that ensures you see the stuff you are keen to see.
@geertaarts @marc_w @maccruiskeen @JesseSkinner I love hashtag subscription here. Sadly, commercial monolithic systems do full text search so people become too lazy to use hashtags here. This makes it harder to discover new accounts of interest.
@geertaarts @marc_w @maccruiskeen @JesseSkinner did you know blue sky and fediverse (mastodon) can be federated? Check out @bsky.brid.gy for the integration, you can follow bsky accounts and they can follow you back
@marc_w @geertaarts @maccruiskeen @JesseSkinner
De-follow bot farms, and this algorithm won't influence your experience.
@elCelio @geertaarts @maccruiskeen @JesseSkinner
That's been tried on other platforms, but the bots always win.
@geertaarts @maccruiskeen @JesseSkinner
I support
In #Mastodon there's a phobia about algorithms, because of how they're used in other platforms: to collect data to promote ads and also to modify the experience of others
But a simple algorithm that counts how many times posts were boosted by the people you follow and puts them in a "most popular" feed, it doesn't influence others and uses only data that you already have in your home feed
It just save time to find the more interesting posts
@elCelio @geertaarts @maccruiskeen The key here, too, is that these algorithms are absolutely possible but they live in the client. So users can customize or choose the algorithm that they want, not have one forced down their throats...
@JesseSkinner @geertaarts @maccruiskeen
of course. but my instance is already a client to the fediverse.
and my instance has a "live feed" feature, where posts are shown in chronological order, and an "explore" feature where there is an algorithm that shows "newer posts with more boosts and favourites are ranked higher"
I already have as my "Home" a feature analogous to the "live feed".
I think it would be nice to have a feature analogous to the "explore" (but with a known algorithm).
@maccruiskeen @geertaarts @JesseSkinner there probably needs to be a separate LinkedInOdon
@geertaarts
> Mastodon is great, but to make it even better for professional use
Using Mastodon is only one way to participate in the fediverse. It wasn't even the first. There have always been a range of apps you can use, many of which have features Mastodon lacks;
https://fediverse.party/en/miscellaneous/
Existing professional tools can be modified to communicate over ActivityPub too, see;
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/alphaxiv-and-fediverse/4750
@geertaarts @JesseSkinner but that's already an option if people use Phanpy... If people want that, they can choose that.
I tried Phanpy and hated it.
That's surely the joy of the Fediverse - you can find the platform and app and everything that work for you?
@geertaarts @JesseSkinner Can’t this be solved by creating “Lists”?
@TheWolfOfSouthEnd @JesseSkinner I think not, but might be wrong. Let's say a colleague posts an occasional message related to work (I might be interested in), and another 10 on its favourite music taste (I might not be interested in). Do you think a list could solve this?