Mastodon and the Fediverse is too noisy. Why? journal.jatan.space

@manton This blog post wasn’t intended to be an endorsement of Micro.blog and yet that’s what it turned into. I guess that in itself is an endorsement! 🙂

@moonmehta Oh yeah, I didn’t read it as an endorsement exactly but my link does make it sound like that. Guess I’m always promoting. 🙂

@moonmehta I ... partially agree, having most of the (push) notifications disabled for my Friendica account except for comments. However, the other way 'round, also on micro.blog I more than just once notice short "comment" responses which have that "I-would-have-clicked-a-star-but-it-is-missing-here" mood written all over it. I personally admire seeing resposts by friends, commented or not, as they help discover interesting content in a way more decentralized than micro.blogs "discover" feed. And I both take (and use) "likes" as ... somewhere in between "agree", "seen that", "support your cause", ... in situations in which it wouldn't take more words meaningful than those. So from that perspective, even though I can understand, I still think there's a balance between noise and information in these interactions (and maybe Mastodon is a poor example because it doesn't very well support filtering out information from noise in this regards). In the end, guess it's all to some degree opinionated.🙂

@manton Just realized that you blogged about it. Checking the timestamps, I now see that my reply here was before I saw your post about mine! 😄

@z428 I see what you mean. Leaving a reply, even if a short one, does take some getting used to in the absence of likes and boosts. But it presents enough friction that I consider to be good long term. Between likes and boosts though, if I were to kill one, I’d do away with likes at least since boosts send a relatively stronger signal. In either case, if they are useful to know as a poster, why don’t social networks just make them private?

@moonmehta 🤯… ☕️

@moonmehta I feel that in this case again it's a matter of either "expectations" (virtually every network I remember, including Diaspora* or "old" ping/trackback based blogosphere, had similar concepts of signaling interactions with content). Private visibility of these information would be perfectly fine to me - then again, in example, Friendica also supports my timeline to show "posts my contacts interacted with", which includes "likes" too. Not sure whether other platforms do that too (haven't used Mastodon in quite a while), and depending on mood and time I turn this on and off but I do have to admit that, in some cases, it helps discovering people and topics that would have passed under the radar otherwise.

@moonmehta @z428 I feel exactly the same as @moonmehta does about the productive friction of replies---but if there are going to be likes and boosts, I'd prefer not to see them as a reader or a writer, and in any case should be given that choice. Even the "I-would-have-clicked-a-star-but-it-is-missing-here" replies mean far more to me than a like, which is just a too-easy and, for me, a mostly meaningless gesture, oriented more toward dopamine levers than interaction. Boosts are somewhat different, I suppose, as long as they aren't used algorithmically.

@moonmehta @z428 But, I hasten to add, this is purely my personal perspective. Other folks value things differently and I do not mean to slight them. I'm reminded of the lengths I've had to go through with some client-side browser scripting (with TamperMonkey) to hide metrics from the web interfaces of a few smaller platforms I use. At this point in life, for example, I am not interested in knowing how many times a newsletter was opened, how many subscribers I have, etc. I don't mind that all those things are there, but I wish it were conveniently optional to hide and/or remove those options and their display.

@z428 What if likes and boosts of people you follow are wholly separated out into distinct tabs, and likes you get made private? That seems like a better way to still have that interaction type but not at the cost of them affecting the main timeline and their profile views.

@clorgie Yes, that’s exactly what I’m trying to convey. Sure, we may miss some interactions here and there but it comes at its own costs of time spent on unwanted or meh gestures. If some people and discovery are really worth it, I’m certain they surface at some point organically via Replies or otherwise.

Cc @z428

@moonmehta I was about to throw in a similar thought: pixelfed, at some point, decided to introduce a feature of disabling comments on posts. This works reasonably well as long as looking at a post coming from a pixelfed instance as these know to honour that setting. As for any other platform (including Mastodon, Friendica and probably micro.blog) that don't know about this aspect, comments will be delivered as "private" comments to the original poster only but never show up publicly close to the post and, as far as I see, also won't be federated. I'm perfectly fine with this information being hidden from public view, separated from a public timeline, ... . But I feel that consistency matters. Consistency as in: Either I (as a "sender" of a "response") am able to see which kind of responses a particular post does (not) allow to receive - which would be a preferred solution - or an interaction I can do with a post yields a somewhat predictable result. So for that: Best would be if, talking "disabled" likes or boosts, ActivityPub would at some point introduce a feature like "disable likes on that post" which would subsequently cause clients to hide this interaction options for these posts. But I am unsure to see that coming.

@z428 (forgot to cc @clorgie here. 😔)

@z428 I would love for that to happen: disabling the favorite and boost buttons itself if I set it as such. Let’s federate that! I have no idea about its technical feasibility either though.

@moonmehta I think it generally would be doable in ActivityPub but I wonder whether it will see widespread adoption. I mean this would only work out, effectively, if Mastodon (as the biggest federated platform at the moment) decided to support that. They particularly do so for boosts (though depending on boost visibility by now), but that most likely seems a different beast. But yes, would be great to have that.

@moonmehta I am with you on 'no displaying any metrics' but the platform has to be designed that way. I like Micro.blog for that reason. Most people say, if you don't like it, you can hide it. But I think by then the damage is done. Simply having those engagement metrics changes peoples's behavior on those platforms.

Even people on Micro.blog that are mostly metrics-averse still ask for public likes, emoji reactions, etc. and the analytics services are popular among many bloggers here. My thought is simple - if you have a reaction, you will write a comment even if it's one word. Otherwise, it's fine if you read it, nodded along, and moved on. I shouldn't need to see every reaction.

BTW, I disagree about hashtags. It's a good discovery and aggregation tool (like tags). But as long as the platform doesn't display them in trends (ergo no associated popularity or engagement metrics) and limits the number you can include per post (to avoid the hashtag jungle below each Instagram post). Micro.blog doesn't have it due to harassment concerns but I think Quote Post/Tweet is more responsible.

@pratik

Simply having those engagement metrics changes peoples's behavior on those platforms.

I concur.

My thought is simple - if you have a reaction, you will write a comment even if it's one word. Otherwise, it's fine if you read it, nodded along, and moved on. I shouldn't need to see every reaction.

Yep, exactly. People often give the analogy of reading facial reactions when conversing in person but that doesn’t even scale well to a stage talk, much less to your whole list of followers and potential readers on the whole social network and the Web. It also doesn’t scale in time. Facial reactions are real-time whereas likes and boosts can continue to nag over time.

Hashtags: Yeah, I’m fine with, say, one tag. IIRC Threads has that feature of only allowing one tag per post?

It's a good discovery and aggregation tool

What if a social network exposed a search option for whatever words you select in a post? Similar to how browsers have it except in this case it will be for the network.

@moonmehta

What if a social network exposed a search option for whatever words you select in a post?

That works, but then, when discussing a topic, everyone must use it in their post in context. That can be limiting in micro-posts. Plus, hashtags can be used creatively. E.g., I once tweeted - Glad I checked the inside of my shoe before putting it on. #scorpion.

BTW, I forgot to mention that Glass shows who your followers are but doesn't list the count. Only someone who is really metrics-focused will try to count them. That level of friction achieves the purpose.

@pratik

BTW, I forgot to mention that Glass shows who your followers are but doesn't list the count. Only someone who is really metrics-focused will try to count them. That level of friction achieves the purpose.

That’s nice. It would work well for many Mastodon servers too, I presume. I’m surprised enough Mastodon servers have not been experimenting with having such stats as not being shown by default.

@moonmehta Guess you have people who migrate from Twitter and throw a fit until Mastodon or any other platform duplicates the entire Twitter UI. They aren't open to an alternate way.

@pratik I’ve been seeing the same thing happening on Bluesky. They recognize Twitter’s addictions and weaponizing of it to be problematic but still expect the same engagement that only an algorithm can sustainably provide.