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   We Distribute (wedistribute@mastodon.social)'s status on Thursday, 30-Nov-2023 20:08:33 JST We Distribute

   #Mastodon, we wrote this because we love you and care about you. People have been saying a lot of things, and we need to get the facts right.

   https://wedistribute.org/2023/11/debunking-the-top-10-myths-about-mastodon/

   #ActivityPub #Fediverse

   • Embed this notice
     Erik Moeller (eloquence@social.coop)'s status on Saturday, 02-Dec-2023 01:05:56 JST Erik Moeller

     in reply to

     @wedistribute

     A seemingly simple tool like "posts a lot of people like right now" can easily lead to feedback loops where a small number of accounts accumulate a lot of followers, changing the distribution of the social graph significantly.

     The high level of engagement that many folks report on the fediverse is IMO a significant side effect of what could be termed "algorithmic conservatism". I would have liked to see the validity of precautionary principles acknowledged in this "myth".

   • Embed this notice
     Erik Moeller (eloquence@social.coop)'s status on Saturday, 02-Dec-2023 01:05:58 JST Erik Moeller

     in reply to

     @wedistribute

     Alongside the legitimate concerns echoed in your post, there has also been a fair bit of lecturing from techies joining the fediverse about how dumb Mastodon is for not having introduced Twitter-style discovery mechanisms early, and how that's the reason it's never going to amount to anything, etc.

     IMO those arguments are largely misplaced. Yes, discovery tools (including the ones Mastodon already has) can be powerful, but we also need to carefully reason about their effects.

     Mike McCue repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Erik Moeller (eloquence@social.coop)'s status on Saturday, 02-Dec-2023 01:05:59 JST Erik Moeller

     in reply to

     @wedistribute

     Thanks for writing this -- I agree in parts, disagree in parts, but it's good food for thought.

     Regarding algorithms, many people like the reverse chronological timeline precisely because it's an algorithm that you can reason about without knowing what the word "algorithm" means.

     It's a very powerful quality for a social network's primary ordering mechanism to be something everyone on the network can develop a shared intuition about.