So, micro.blog's "Discover" feed... 50 posts. 2 women. 2 reviews of this month's coffee subscription. At least 9 users with more than one post in the Discover feed (all dudes). Probably about a third of posts are travel/street/landscape photos. Many posts from well-known users who have been highly visible on the site for years. This is a hand-curated feed, and one of the only mechanisms to "discover" new people to follow.
@sam_c lol, yeah, it really does and yeah, it does blow my mind a bit though now I just expect it. I stopped using it for this reason. I've looked in a few times recently and every time it feels like a safe space for privileged middle class white dudes. I think it's been made clear that this is what it is and there won't be a change.
A shame really because it has the makings for a very cool service. But, no, no thanks.
@sam_c Or perhaps there aren't that many new users, plus the curating is an afterthought now that they don't have a community manager.
@markstoneman @sam_c Still a lot of work to do here. But what’s with the complaints on Mastodon from people who don’t even use it? A lot of people really like Micro.blog, we’re growing, and new people join every day. And some people use the blogging more than the social side, which is fine too!
@markstoneman @sam_c Still a lot of work to do here. But what’s with the complaints on Mastodon from people who don’t even use it? A lot of people really like Micro.blog, we’re growing, and new people join every day. And some people use the blogging more than the social side, which is fine too!
@markstoneman @sam_c Still a lot of work to do here. But what’s with the complaints on Mastodon from people who don’t even use it? A lot of people really like Micro.blog, we’re growing, and new people join every day. And some people use the blogging more than the social side, which is fine too!
@manton @markstoneman @sam_c I’ve been on Micro.blog for about 20 months and have no intention of leaving, but I hope the discover feed experience improves. I rarely check it these days because a few months back it would go days without being updated. I also concur that it has a little too much of that “cool kids” clique feel at times.
@amerpie @manton Valid concerns from @sam_c. Discover isn’t a feature that draws me to or keeps me on Micro.blog, but I’m sure it is for others and should get better. Even though I prefer my personally curated Timeline, I do follow the Discover feed via RSS and it’s fun to scroll through every few days.
@amerpie @manton Valid concerns from @sam_c. Discover isn’t a feature that draws me to or keeps me on Micro.blog, but I’m sure it is for others and should get better. Even though I prefer my personally curated Timeline, I do follow the Discover feed via RSS and it’s fun to scroll through every few days.
@amerpie @manton Valid concerns from @sam_c. Discover isn’t a feature that draws me to or keeps me on Micro.blog, but I’m sure it is for others and should get better. Even though I prefer my personally curated Timeline, I do follow the Discover feed via RSS and it’s fun to scroll through every few days.
@sam_c an English white guy complaining about the discover feed for a service he doesn't use on a service that is full of white guys (and likely majority white guys) is so fully Mastodon it's hilarious. To top it off there is one non-white dude who replied here. Almost rolling on the floor laughing. 🤣
@manton I'm definitely there for the blogging, but it seems a shame that discovery is so limited, whether by the discovery feed or the limited topical feeds. The latter are kinda weird too because they require a different kind of tagging than the places I crosspost to.
@manton @markstoneman @jasonekratz I'm grateful to mb for getting me into blogging. Used to use it, used to recommend it, even made a neovim plugin for it. Also think the offer for teachers and nurses is very generous and cool. But the disappointing social features, the difficulty of discovery, and the tendency to brush aside concerns about the "apolitical" social features leading to the situation I've described (low diversity of voices and subject matter) are among the main reasons I left.
@sam_c I loved your shots of Llandudno. In that arcade I played my first ever computer game (Pong). Glad it’s going strong still. In that pub I heard a passionate diatribe against the demise of the theatre - in the middle of a pantomime performance. Looks like Buttons got that right.
@writingslowly completely agree! I just don't like this particular "view from somewhere"
Love your blog btw, one of the mb blogs where I still never miss a post
@sam_c I don’t expect it to change anytime soon. It got a bit better in the past few weeks. But not comparison to when there still was a community manager. I would like to have more non English representation in the feed (or separate feeds). And perhaps a user upvote system for posts to add. // @manton
@adam @manton @markstoneman I still have an account, I just don't pay for the hosting, which explains why I can see it
@jarrod I love feedback, but there are some people who clearly want me to fail, or they want to complain to score points from followers. It’s pretty obvious reading this Mastodon thread. I’d rather focus on customers who actually want Micro.blog to get better.
@jasonekratz Agreed. In theory I don’t want to “hide” it, but we know it falls short of our standards, so it’s not helping anything.
@adam while it might be looking back with rose-tinted glasses, I feel like Jean did a good job of showcasing a diverse set of users when she was curating the feed. It’s something that requires a fair amount of commitment, I suspect.
@adam @sam_c @manton @markstoneman "Trump style deflection"?? Why do Americans feel like they have to credit Trump with everything? 😆
@adam @manton @jarrod Did you see his other reply in the thread? He wants it to get better, it won't until he hires. I get that there's a complicated history here. I've never looked at Discovery but seems like given the various categories and options is attempting to be diverse?
I don't know either of you but from way on the outside it really feels like a phone call, coffee, or some sort of conversation would be better than this back and forth every month or so.
https://micro.blog/manton/72166396
@adam @manton @jarrod I'm really not trying to be some sort of Manton apologist. And as a user of Microblog (mainly because I like a desktop app for cross-posting), I appreciate the ways you and others are trying to suggest improvements for the platform from the outside for everyone who might be using it today or potentially down the road.
I dunno. It's complicated obviously. I know you're all adults (I think? 😆) but my heart breaks a little when I see these fights flare up every month or so.
@ichris Yeah, as you noted there’s a history there going back to January. I tried really hard to reconcile things.
@adam I just assumed the discovery + flag thing is based on a way for people to use the equivalent of hashtags to label their content. An automated way that works in the interim before hiring someone to help do more human + humane curation of it.
I've been thinking about hiring someone to help me in my solo business for 10 years so I'm very sympathetic to the difficulty of hiring. 😆 I can't speak to Manton's issues of why hiring is taking longer than you think it should.
@adam Yep. As the head of the local chapter of "starting projects without any real idea of how sustainable it is", maybe that's why I err on the side of trying stuff and seeing how it works in the long run. But solo podcasts are obviously very different than social networks and apps.
It does feel very low effort for both sides though: writing a post and including an emoji to be included (if you want) or don't. And then improved with human curation later.
@manton I can't speak to how well that went.
I know that if people came after me and my work the way people go after yours, even if 100% justified sometimes, I'd likely crumble in response because of my own struggles with confidence and self esteem. Which is not to excuse your own mistakes made at times. But it feels like these things take such a toll on everyone in ways that go far beyond words on a web page.
@adam since you’ve said you don’t know, I’ll explain exactly how the emoji lists work:
Manton wanted a way to filter posts topically that did not need curation. He thought hashtags created too much surface for abuse in terms of post content, but also brigading and the kind of virality that concerns him and feels like it can’t be moderated. So he came up with an idea called “tagmoji” where basically rather than using hashtags, you could include an emoji in your post. And he built feeds and labeled them for a number of emoji, some of which were added on community request, as a mechanism for discovery that didn’t rely on the hand curation of Discover (and also didn’t require that people agree on things like category metadata on their blogs).
Does this work? Meh, I don’t care for it that much. But I also use Mastodon/Threads/Bluesky and blogs themselves for finding new accounts largely and haven’t been looking for a way to bootstrap a topical community.
