“I tried the fediverse and didn’t follow anyone and it sucked, so I stopped and went back to Twitter again.”
These people would have hated Twitter circa 2008 when it had pretty much exactly the same issue.
But that’s the point of social media: to find likeminded people with common interests. Somewhere along the line that changed into social media being a thing that tells you what you think, and what you should be liking.
That’s easy, but it’s mental refined sugar. It’s just incredibly crap for you.
If you want interesting, fun and stimulating stuff, follow interesting, fun and stimulating people.
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Sarah Brown
in reply to Sarah Brown • •I mean, the fediverse has well over a million regularly active users, and many more occasional ones. Some of those are gonna be writing stuff you want to read.
If someone looks vaguely interesting, FOLLOW THEM. They will likely be boosting other stuff you find interesting. Follow the people who post that. This way you will home on on “your people”.
It’s really that simple.
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Marion Grau, Roy Van Sloun, Wilfried Klaebe, Anders Puck Nielsen, Mark Andrew, Jürgen, Merry H, Kriszta Satori, Russ Cheshire, Ben Todd, Jock, Tobias, Eddie Cochrane, John Caveney woke is me🛠️, MarkNW, Lisa St.John, Cimeryd, smy20011, Benjamim, Wil Broussard, was @bigdoofenergy on twitter, Jey 🇵🇸 :crab:, Alex Walker, António Manuel Dias, Isa, Sarah Beck, Mark Stoneman, Primetime, Michael Knudsen %n%n%n%n, Kyle, Dark Matter Zine, Mike Jones 🐵, Henrik, DRoach, Chuck, just Chuck, LGsMom, Eilonwy and pgs reshared this.
Miguel Arroz
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •I created a Twitter account very early (my sequential user ID had 5 digits) and then didn’t use it for 4 years or so because nothing really happened there. On mastodon I found a lot of people (many moving from Twitter, but many new to me) almost immediately.
But I reckon it really depends on your interests. For many topics, mastodon is a void. The vanPoli tag has 3 posts per week or so. All the debate about Vancouver urban planning and cycling is still on Twitter.
Nisse
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@zimowski If you aren’t seeing the other people on your server, there are two reasons for this. Either defederation (unlikely unless you’re looking for shitheads on shithead instances), or far more likely, they aren’t federated to your server because NOBODY IS FOLLOWING THEM THERE.
I repeat, if posts aren’t making it to your server, it’s because NOBODY IS ASKING FOR THEM.
If you want to see someone’s posts on your server, maybe try following them?
Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@zimowski My feed is full of people posting food, art, stuff they like, etc.
And I’ve been on the internet since 1992. It was never “very innocent”.
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Anders Puck Nielsen
Unknown parent • • •Sarah Brown
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Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@zimowski “Enjoying aggression”
I just went to my feed and looked at the first posts. They are, in order:
A news article about taxation
A picture of a friend’s pet
An article about renewable energy use and how it’s increasing
A technical support question about video hosting
Someone posting their daily Wordle result
Landscape photography
News about Ukraine
Commentary on what Twitter’s death means for LGBT rights
Someone saying good morning.
Oh, and these are all within 5 minutes.
Honestly, the only aggression here (other than reporting on the Russian stuff but, you know, current events), is coming from you.
Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@zimowski yes. It appears someone on your Mastodon server follows me, and hence sees my posts.
But I myself do not use it.
Anders Puck Nielsen
Unknown parent • • •Sarah Brown likes this.
Kincaid
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Wow. My first block over here. It's been 9 months
(Yes obvs I have pale male & stale priv)
Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Kincaid • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •like this
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Dave Heinemann 🇦🇺
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •> Somewhere along the line that changed into social media being a thing that tells you what you think, and what you should be liking.
I really appreciate that Mastodon has no algorithm. I've set up my timeline with exactly the kind of people and content I want to see, and it's finite in quantity. There's no algorithm to push an agenda on me, or to keep me engaged with a never-ending feed of content.
There's only what I asked for. No more, no less.
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Sarah Brown
in reply to Dave Heinemann 🇦🇺 • •JIM
in reply to Dave Heinemann 🇦🇺 • • •I appreciate being my own admin. I love being able to curate my instance feed's trends without having to stifle anyone else's experience.
Sam
Unknown parent • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Sam • •Sam
Unknown parent • • •like this
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Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@zimowski Because I likely replied to someone else’s post and they clicked through to my profile.
Servers fetch posts if someone on the local server interacts with them.
David Gerard
Unknown parent • • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •Anders Puck Nielsen
Unknown parent • • •Anders Puck Nielsen
Unknown parent • • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •like this
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Anders Puck Nielsen
Unknown parent • • •Shimriez likes this.
Hans Bot – 🙃
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Like it or not, most prefer to be entertained instead
Alexandra Lanes
Unknown parent • •Anders Puck Nielsen
Unknown parent • • •Probably Paul
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
in reply to Probably Paul • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@zimowski You are so very close to getting it.
It’s because you are interacting with me. You complain that it should happen automatically. It literally is.
David Gerard
Unknown parent • • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@zimowski @Alexandra Lanes Presumably because nobody on your instance is following that account.
Why would your instance fetch random shit nobody has asked for, or tried to interact with?
Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •Aurochs
in reply to Anders Puck Nielsen • • •Anders Puck Nielsen
Unknown parent • • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •Aurochs
in reply to Anders Puck Nielsen • • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@zimowski @Alexandra Lanes Follow. The. Account.
It's like talking to a brick wall.
Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@zimowski @Alexandra Lanes It's entirely consistent and has been explained to you many, many times.
It fetches what it needs t fetch, and gets sent what it's asked for.
You want to see posts from an account? Follow it.
It's that simple.
Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@zimowski @Alexandra Lanes There was a post an hour ago. If you haven't seen it, it might be having issues keeping up.
You absolutely can interact with old posts. As you're on mastodon, you should see a box that says, "search or paste URL". Paste the URL of the post you want to respond to in there. It will fetch it.
And then you can reply.
Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@zimowski @Alexandra Lanes It is done automatically. Follow the account. The posts will show up in your feed, entirely automatically.
But if you want to comment on some random thing, then you need a URL for it, just like you do on any other site in existence.
Sarah Brown
in reply to Sarah Brown • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@zimowski @Alexandra Lanes That's because someone on your site follows me, so my posts federate there.
If nobody follows an account on your site, it won't get the posts until someone does.
This has been explained so many times, and you keep saying the same thing.
Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@zimowski @Alexandra Lanes Your server isn't polling for posts. The remote server sends them. It does this to all followers when someone makes the post.
What it's not going to do is go back and send every post that an account has made when you follow, because that would be spam.
Therefore, if you wish to comment on an old post, simply enter its URL in the search box. Your server will then go and get it, and you can reply or repost as you see fit.
This has been explained so very many times now that I'm starting to think what you're doing here is some sort of weird performance art.
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Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@zimowski @Alexandra Lanes The accounts you follow are sent to you.
There are only so many different ways of saying this.
Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •like this
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Kacey
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •I tried Mastodon a few years ago and hated it, probably because I don’t like the format of the bird site either.
However, I was persuaded to join a trial/testing Friendica instance and found the format much better for me.
One of the beauties of the Fediverse is the fact that instances of different types all interact with each other.
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Sarah Brown
in reply to Kacey • •like this
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Bethan M. Jenkins
in reply to Sarah Brown • • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •@zimowski There are problems with that one specific server.
Out of over twenty thousand.
If you want content in your timeline, follow people.
If you want to rant and complain, piss off back to Twitter.
Sarah Brown
Unknown parent • •Alexandra Lanes
Unknown parent • •Her_Doing
Unknown parent • • •@zimowski
Z, you've been rude to everyone in this entire thread. That is not welcome here, & on Twitter I would have blocked you in an instant. (And I will here, if you respond w rudeness to me.)
However, on the chance you are genuinely asking in good faith, the other way to find people is to put a hashtag in the search box - #Taiga, #Java, a favourite band, or whatever you are interested in. It will help you find people w common interests whom you may wish to follow.
Good luck.