mp3,
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

I need to follow specific users on Mastodon to tailor my experience. On Lemmy, I follow entire communities where people can engage, all grouped by posts. It feels way less chaotic.

I know I could follow tags on Mastodon, but IMO their discoverability is even worse than communities, and if someone decides to spam a tag with irrelevant content there’s not much I can do but to block the account.

With communities, there’s at least some moderation happening.

But then maybe it’s my own bias, I always preferred interacting on Reddit vs Twitter.

ShittyKopper,

Mastodon feels like a fucking funeral.

You’re clearly nowhere near the good parts, then.

In my experience, once when you find your way into the correct circles the microblog-verse makes the “shitposting” of Lemmy look like r/memes. I do agree that discoverability could be better though, it took me 4-5 months before I got the hang of it. And now I barely check Lemmy despite my Lemmy account being older than my earliest microblog account (under this name, anyway).

One important thing is that your instance matters quite a bit more than here. Starting on a large general purpose instance (especially if it’s mastodon.social) and just following Large Accounts and Nobody Else like most people recommend for some reason is just setting yourself up for disappointment. Instead, get on a smaller interest-specific instance (rule of thumb: the weirder the domain the better your experience will be!) and follow the local timeline (and on good software, the bubble/recommended timelines). And post stuff/interact with people. Don’t be that one person that does nothing but boost news bots and occasionally butt into replies of people asking rhetorical questions they already know the answer for.

(Perhaps Lemmy is better at news or whatever, I wouldn’t know as I block all news communities I can find – I just don’t see the point as all the discussion around most news ends up predictable, unproductive (not that internet communities necessarily need to be “productive”), and unnecessarily angry)

Also in a world with usable™ Misskey forks and Akkoma I think the limitations of Mastodon the software are really starting to show, and I urge anyone who’s been disappointed in Mastodon to try other microblog software. (Quotes are already a thing if you know where to look! So are emoji reactions, because people have more emotions than :star:)

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

I’ve had limited experience with Akkoma and I personally love the early 2000s aesthetic, it’s also more feature complete and transparent to the end user than Mastodon (also MUCH lighter on server resources, compared to most other twitter-like alternatives). I also experimented with Mastodon and noticed that whatever I posted on the akkoma instance couldn’t be seen while browsing from the mastodon instance: mastodon doesn’t “discover” akkoma content and won’t show anything unless you’re following a user from there, which kinda sucks.

I might give it another try, look for a specific instance focused on something I’m interested in, even if just slightly, and try to blend in, instead of being the weird antisocial dude in the corner. No promises, tho.

ShittyKopper,

mastodon doesn’t “discover” akkoma content and won’t show anything unless you’re following a user from there, which kinda sucks.

I mean – that’s how all of them work. Even Lemmy. Unless your instance administrator joins relays (which have tradeoffs between privacy / effectiveness of blocking) your instance is only ever aware of posts from followed people (and reply threads followed people are involved in)

(also MUCH lighter on server resources, compared to most other twitter-like alternatives)

Mastodon is just unusually heavy, really. Even Misskey & forks are lighter than Masto on the server side (preferring being bloated on the client instead)

1984,
@1984@lemmy.today avatar

Because Twitter-like services are not fun… I never thought they were fun. :)

Omega_Haxors,

They were fun after Tumblr shut down if you know what I mean.

Aurix,

Mastodon went in two seriously wrong directions, but seems to remedy them which is difficult. First they have no proper quote supporting and failing to realize all communication works this way on the internet. Be it comments on articles, all the newspapers quoting others and thus creating those articles etc. Second the lack of algorithms due to a misguided opinion they are inherently evil. What we got instead is a random feed of random messages where a news like structure like on Twitter is not possible. Extremely important events are buried behind tons of crappy posts. And the only region for whom the explore tab is working is America as nothing is localized. Also scrolling through the feed doesn’t tell you what seems to garner attraction by the number of comments. So most clicks are wasted on deadend topics.

exocrinous,

I’m pretty sure Mastodon has algorithms. All internet infrastructure runs on algorithms, except for weird experimental AI stuff.

akrz,

Hard agree on the algorithm point.

BruceLee,

So what would be the solution as I believe many fedinautes and mastonautes agree on the fact that the way traditional social network did their algorithms is bad. Should the community develop a new kind of algorithm? Or a functionality to build your own?

akrz,

I would love for some interoperable interface with a few default choices and then the option to load customized open source options!

Omega_Haxors,

It stems from a somewhat reactionary (in a “I don’t want chemicals in my food” way) prospective where they knew the outcome of algorithms was bad but didn’t understand why it was bad. Now they have their own algorithm and it’s repeating a lot of the same mistakes.

akrz,

The chemicals analogy is actually pretty genius!

Omega_Haxors,

We’ve all seen a “I don’t want chemicals in my food” reactionary. They’re not racist or anything just fueled more by anger than by principal.

Kierunkowy74,
Kierunkowy74 avatar

And the only region for whom the explore tab is working is America as nothing is localized.

Explore tab is sorted by language, not by region, so it works too for any sufficiently large foreign language country (Spain/Latin America, Portugal/Brazil, Italy, France, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Czechia, Russia, China, South Korea, Japan).

I wish Mastodon implemented Akkoma-style bubbles of related instances, which would allow to create, like, Explore tab but only from (manually selected) several Australian instances.

Aurix,

That wasn’t clear to me by the UI and I didn’t see the easy switch option.

JoYo,
@JoYo@lemmy.ml avatar

it sounds like bluesky would fit your use case. mastodon is not a twitter clone and never has been.

Aurix,

Twitter has two tabs, one with and the other one with less algorithms, Mastodon should do that as well. The discussion is about improving it and Bluesky is in its infancy.

JoYo,
@JoYo@lemmy.ml avatar

what you are trying to do is not what mastodon is for.

mastodon has already achieved its goal.

your efforts are better targeted towards bluesky and their Feeds API. it’s exactly what you are asking for.

MacedWindow,
@MacedWindow@lemmy.world avatar

I’m always surprised at the lack of interactions on Mastadon. Most toots seem to never get a single like or comment, even from users with lots of followers. Always makes me feel like I’m missing something.

exocrinous,

Mastodon just doesn’t have any users compared to Lemmy I guess.

kratoz29,

Plenty of reasons already shared, I just want to add that I felt (still feel) the same about Reddit vs Twitter.

aStonedSanta,

The difference is mastadon is how interesting your friends are. Lenny is how interesting the entire lemmy populous is.

OpenStars,
@OpenStars@startrek.website avatar

Maybe it is the…

img

manucode,

I share the same experience. Lemmy imitates Reddit, Mastodon imitates Twitter. The concept of Twitter might be more reliant on algorithms than that of Reddit, algorithms that Mastodon mostly lacks. Bluesky is a Twitter alternative designed for federation that has algorithms, and it appears more lively to me. The same might be true for Threads but I won’t test this out.

Jedi,
@Jedi@bolha.forum avatar

I believe it’s how the data is structured.

Lemmy is focused on themes and topics, with the “user” not being the focus (you can’t even follow a user on Lemmy).

That’s reversed on Mastodon, with focus on the users you follow, and the topics (hashtags, groups, etc) being optional.

For some people, Lemmy is better, for others, Mastodon or other microblog platform. The fact that both can exist in the same network is magical to me.

otl,
@otl@hachyderm.io avatar

@Jedi Agreed! Am I on Mastodon or Lemmy when I read and replied to this thread? Doesn’t matter :D

@asklemmy

pr06lefs, (edited )

I still don’t know how to find people with similar interests on mastodon. There may be lots of interesting stuff happening there but how would I know? Plus posting on there feels like shouting into the void since I only have a handful of followers.

Tabitha,

Also I don’t want to follow randos who sometimes post about cool things, sometimes post the $50 hamburger they ate, and sometimes post unfiltered rampant misogyny, I want to follow cool ideas and topics directly.

themadcodger,
@themadcodger@kbin.earth avatar

If you're interested, follow hash tags not people. Well, you can follow people too if you find someone you vibe with. Also following groups can help … until someone forgets what 'reply all' means.

anarchost,

I think it’s the gamification. Mastodon degamifies Twitter in a way Lemmy can’t really do with the classic Reddit system.

Votes go up, votes go down, you can see people winning and losing here. It’s fun, even if it’s in a bad way.

Omega_Haxors,

I like how votes have no sway in moderating and discoverability. It keeps people honest instead of just trying to game the system.

anarchost,

That’s true, I noticed on a couple subreddits that votes don’t matter unless you’re mildly popular, and it’s even possible to get comments throttled for being unpopular enough. Downvotes don’t do much besides pushing your comments off the screen for the most part.

pruwybn,
@pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Try following George Takei, Star Trek Minus Context, and/or the various cat accounts, e.g Cats of Yore.

xnx,

Up/downvotes help us all essentially be eachothers “algorithm” so its easier to find interesting stuff. Also comment sections are the best part of Lemmy style websites while mastodon is a mess to follow because the default app doesnt even have threaded replies, theres no downvotes, and you cant subscribe to a post to get notifications or come back to it later and posts dont appear on google searches so a post doesn’t get any use after a day or two. Lemmy posts bring me benefits months/years after theyre made because they appear when I google for information

anarchost,

Mastodon having a way bigger algorithm curve before you start seeing interesting stuff remains throughout.

maxenmajs,
@maxenmajs@lemmy.world avatar

It’s harder to find the good stuff on Mastodon because you have to follow individuals or novelty accounts.

Quacksalber,

I think that is the biggest issue with Mastodon and federation in general: Limited discoverability. I’ve spoken to a few artists that still post on Twitter. They won’t join Mastodon, because it is so hard to develop consistent reach.

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