The problem with Mastodon is discoverability. The fact that if I follow 10 hashtags, it won't sort them on my homepage, but will be fully chronological.

Say I follow #photography. The top of my homepage would be the post posted 2s ago, no matter how bad it is. It is so hard to find quality content.

Now, Threads' algorithm is pretty bad, but it's still a lot easier to find quality content there instead of on Mastodon. Mastodon badly needs sorting by Hot, Active etc like there is on Lemmy.

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 26 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

I was listening to a podcast (by three software devs) just yesterday talking about algorithmic sorting on Threads vs chronological sorting on Mastodon. Nerds, it seems (of which I am one), prefer chronological sorting. This is because they have a community of people that they follow (I'm not using Mastodon, Threads, never used Twitter). They self-select for high-quality content. Normies, they theorized, don't have a specific group of people to follow, thus they need an algorithm to show quality content from celebs and such.

I'm curious how you self-identify and how many specific people you deliberately follow?

[–] StoicLime@lemm.ee 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I have selected some high-quality content to follow, but I still need to SORT through it. I'm into photography, but I don't want to see people taking a mirror selfie and it being on the top of my feed just because it was the latest one posted with the hashtag.

Reddit (and Lemmy) solve this by giving me the choice. I can sort by Hot or Active, and get a balance between recent but upvoted posts, and if I need to, I can always sort by New.

The user needs to have options. Mastodon currently isn't it for me, and won't be until they add it. Until they do, I would take Threads with a following feed over Mastodon.

I also feel like Bluesky is the one doing this really well too. They have custom algorithms, that users can create and people can enable them in the settings, like community plugins. I really, really love that concept and would love seeing something like that on Mastodon.

[–] Phoeniqz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Custom algorithms like community plugins is actually such an incredible good idea I wonder why we don't have it already on mastodon

[–] StoicLime@lemm.ee 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

That's my other issue with Mastodon, it's development doesn't seem that open, it feels like the head dude isn't really open to change. When asked about fixing search, he said it was "intentional" and he wanted people to search less. Seems weird, let the users have the choice, right?

Heck, even Bluesky, which is VC funded feels more open than Mastodon at times.

[–] Pazintach@lemmy.world -2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I particularly like Mastodon's chronological and weak search. You won't be easily found unless you wanted to, and your timeline is well-ordered and never will it be disturbed by some algorithms. To me these are its advantages.

[–] StoicLime@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

I don't like it because my feed gets flooded with low quality content that's only there because the poster used that particular hashtag. It needs sorting like Reddit, so that I can keep the good quality content on top, but also have a chronological option if I ever get bored.

It makes no sense to choose chronological when you can make it optional. Bluesky is much, much better in this regard.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

The brilliance of Google+ was solving this exact problem by having circles sharing, that is sharing of groups of people to follow. That way a nerd could share their group of say news people, then a normie could click one button and follow the same gorup. Bam! The normie got upgraded to nerd-level content.

Something equivalent can most likely be implemented for Mastodon.

[–] minnow@lemmy.world 5 points 2 years ago

Oddly, I thought that was one of the worst parts about Google+. I get your point though and I respect your opinion, I just thought it was interesting how we disagree 😄

[–] Grimm@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

I used the Lists feature like this on Twitter. One of my most popular ones is the “Official Xbox Feed” list that had Xbox employees, developers, and official accounts all in one place. I made it for personal use but it now has 100+ followers.

[–] TPetrichor@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

I used to use Twit before the Nazi jerk off came along. I used it to follow individual game makers as they made progress on their games, creative writers tweeting out little stories, and amazing artists I would find there.

I was definitely a Twitter Nerd before it became tainted.

[–] complacent_jerboa@lemmy.world 19 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Unfortunately, Threads is run by a very, very shitty corporation that sees you, me, and the rest of the fediverse as a new market to expand into (i.e. fresh meat). I wouldn't blame people from defederating with them — their incentives will clearly push them to violate many instances' rules against advertising.

[–] Suoko@feddit.it 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

The watch what you see with your own eyes now

[–] complacent_jerboa@lemmy.world 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

oh wow, fucking lol

wait, isn't that for their shitty VR headset?

[–] Suoko@feddit.it 3 points 2 years ago

Exactly, they're advanced, you know 🤮 It's getting 'really' disgusting, not just viirtually

[–] pimeys@lemmy.nauk.io 3 points 2 years ago

No no, they do not care about us. They have an audience of 1B people who care about branding and self-promotion. Here you have 12M people who are very critical what you do and hate advertisement.