Complete this sentence:

@Netraven I would not express it like that, but I know what you mean.

Mastodon.social can be compared to a large metropole, and it becomes not much different than Twitter platform's megapole in terms of social dynamics and culture. It's a New York that has its charms, but also many unsafe back alleys and ghetto's that are best avoided at night

@smallcircles everything you said can still be achieved with a customisable algo or litterally two tabs in the app : one with the chronological algorithm (still an algo btw) and one with the customized feed with your interests.

Without the second one the app is dead unless you build your feed yourself, that's really bad and explains why people got into bluesky instead of mastodon.
Also if you want to have mass appeal you don't expect people to have a boring app and understand the "new paradigm"

@RolloTreadway thank you.

That poses the question if that is just at the town where you are at, or all across the fediverse countryside.

The analogy with towns, villages and cities breaks down here. On the fediverse we have this social fabric we weave ourselves that determines the city or village we want to live in. By carefully curating our own following and followers. I call this Personal social networking..

https://coding.social/blog/reimagine-social/#personal-social-networking

It would be an interesting experiment if by doing some curation and turning it into habit to garden your connections, you can arrive again in the village or city that is to your preferences.

@fwtl

What is mass appeal though? In our little analogy we might call it Urbanization. And to the extent that that applies, it does not have only positve effects, on the contrary.

Algorithms are railways and highways, and while they may bring what we call 'modern life', there's a cost to that. Urban life, the rat race, not knowing your neighbor, pursuit of vain things and status, following the latest trend just to feel you still belong, are a player.

Algorithmic support to our new and diferent social networking landscape will come, but it may be good if that happens by slow growth and gradual evolution, so the culture can catch up and not deteriorate rapidly by inrush of city dwellers all over the country side and littering it beauty with trash, so to speak.

@smallcircles I'm sorry. I was making a joke reference to the Specials song Ghost Town. My brain mostly thinks in songs.

@RolloTreadway ah, nice. I did not know that song, ha ha.

@smallcircles i recommend this video explaining my point. (search on peertube even in the app is still so bad when it's such a good platform it's a shame) https://video.fedihost.co/w/a1522517-704e-44a3-aa0e-5c4e7d49e7d1

@fwtl thank you!

@fwtl

Note btw, that for the most part algorithms are not causing the issue of bad integrations between apps. These are due to the pragmatic nature in which our current app-centric fediverse evolves, i.e. by means of post-facto interoperability. Here app developers focus on getting app features on the wire, and whomever first succeeds in making their new custom protocol extension to become popular, becomes the de-facto standard for that feature. And everyone else should "follow the leader" or push themselves out of mainstream fediverse adoption, into their own app niche.

This is not a sustainable path, and I am among years-long advocates that we should do better in how we collectively evolve the fedi, so that it can truly become the social networking of the future. See also my posts from last week, like:

https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116109447243110037

#SX #SocialCoding #ActivityPub

@fwtl @smallcircles there’s a third path to avoid empty timelines vs ‘build your own’ and ‘algorithm’ - packs, which is what the Mastodon team are focussing on .. https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/10/our-ideas-about-packs/.

Because I saw your post and thought ‘oh but my timeline isn’t quiet’.. but rather than you having to find those 100s of accounts to follow to make it interesting, a pack supports different lists of accounts based on different interests. If they get it right (as they’ve got quotes right imho) then it could be really nice, and still no algo.

@smallcircles

For me, it is bustling! Loads of interesting people, with lots of clever, funny, curious etc. things to say.

Best of all, the lack of content promotion / selection algorithms, and instead a simple, chronological, algorithm coupled with filters, means I mainly see stuff of interest to me.

Genuinely, the best social media experience that I've had in a long, long time!

@smallcircles @fwtl

> I'm quite positively surprised at all the good social experiences people have.

Really?! This surprises me, but then perhaps I am biased precisely because I am one of those people.

@smallcircles

If anyone's Fediverse timeline is too empty, I've tried to do a list of all the ways to discover accounts and posts here: https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-find-accounts-to-follow-on-mastodon-and-the-fediverse-how-do-i-find-my-friends

I've also done a list of all the ways to make your own account and posts more discoverable here: https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-get-more-followers-on-mastodon-and-the-fediverse

@smallcircles a quaint town

@smallcircles cozy village when I interact with my server or closer servers, more or less a small group of people, bustling city when I explore all the rest

@smallcircles "I experience the Fediverse as the original promise of the internet" : genuine human connections without the interference of corporate interests (or algorithmic manipulation)

@smallcircles
city, but quiet weekend city time

@smallcircles A big village with highly motivated and sometimes obsessive communities with specialist interests but plenty of shared fun.

@neil @fwtl

Don't get me wrong. I am one of those people too. My social experience is a cozy village, and I love to be on the microblogs, roam the timelines.

But there is also an ugly underbelly to our onlline cultures that is not properly acknowledged and discussed, let alone deep reflection on how to bring improvements. The fediverse is first of all a technosphere. Tech is created, rolled out, and culture must adapt accordingly. Externalities and unwanted side-effects are to be dealt with later, which is not easy in an app-centric fediverse where individual devs are in the lead of making feature decisions.

As an aside see this toot: https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116109447243110037

Just below the warm and fluffy surface of the cozy fedi culture there are parasocial tendencies and behavioral anti-patterns that make fedi a de-facto unsafe environment. If you don't know the mine fields and eggshells to walk on in certain areas, you may face harsh unexpected consequences, fedidrama.

We can do much better.

@smallcircles it's a manageable distraction