@markstoneman I stopped checking the Discovery feed months ago as it is so limited as to be non-functional. I hopped over to look just now and see that it's not been updated since November 15. Twelve days. But agreed with you 100% on the limited topics and repetition of the same people's posts. It makes the social aspect of Micro.blog nearly useless for me. I'm still checking the timeline for a handful of people but have moved my blog back to my server and when I've finally gotten around to migrating all my posts over I'll probably discontinue my paid account here.
While I appreciate all the work @Manton is putting in to making sure micro.blog works with Bluesky and ActivityPub the experience here feels half-baked with features/options left out by design. I'm just one user but I shifted my discovery process to Mastodon, blogs and RSS. And while I'm still sometimes commenting here I expect most of my commenting/interactions will move to Mastodon.
@Denny That’s my set up – most discovery comes from Mastodon/RSS and people linking to things. 90% of the time I syndicate to Mastodon and micro.blog. Occasionally I’ll post to my protected Mastodon account as that’s protected.
There is still some discussion on micro.blog though.
@Denny @markstoneman Yeah, if Mastodon is a better fit for some people, that's not a problem. Personally, I don't enjoy Mastodon, and I know there are other people like me. We absolutely need to improve Discover, though, and we will.
@manton BTW, I understand the lack of thumbnails here, but the way people post linked titles, without any context, makes following them a real hit or miss experience on here. Better awareness of everyone posting would help, but perhaps there's a technical solution?
@manton Like @Denny I struggle to find a reason to renew my subscription. So much of Micro.blog seems to be broken it can feel like you have abandoned the whole idea. I do not use Bluesky/Threads/Mastodon, the integration of which has no value to me, but with each step forward with some shiny new API it seems to be two steps backward for us Micro.blog users.
@manton @Dunk @Denny Being a new user of three weeks' standing, I am grateful for the quieter experience at Micro.blog. At my stage of life I am not looking for heavy interactions or social engagement. Micro.blog fits my current search for a place on the internet to express my thoughts without getting caught up in the cesspool. To each their own, I guess.
@manton Obviously I can't speak for @Dunk. But it's not a great look to see the Discovery feed go 12 days between updates and that's not the first time it's been neglected. What set's Micro.blog apart from other blog hosts is the social aspect of it. In the past there has been much discussion about the limitations of the Discovery timeline, emoji categories, etc. I've seen lots of others offer the same feedback to you but no changes. You've acknowledged that it needs improvement several times in the past as well as just yesterday but it seems nothing changes.
Add to that the list of things that fall through the cracks. Just one I came upon yesterday as I'm about to delete my Instagram account and thought I'd import photos here but the import doesn't work. There was a thread on the help forum from months ago about it not working which you acknowledged and said you'd take a look. I thought about reviving the thread but decided to just skip the import and migrate directly to my self-hosted site.
It's your business to do with as you please but I also see you sometimes complain publicly that you don't think Micro.blog get's the credit it deserves. I agree it's an excellent service and a bargain, I still recommend to folks! But, at the same time, you can't have it both ways. You can stick to your strongly held opinions (that, no doubt, some of your users agree with @apoorplayer just posted his appreciation for the slower, calmer timeline) but the result is that you'll loose some people.
From a outside perspective it very much feels like you are stretched thin. For example, time you spend supporting POSSE features or building additional apps/features (Notes, etc) means the fundamentals like the social/Discovery feed get neglected.
@manton I cosign @apoorplayer (also someone brand new here). I didnt even realize you can get mastodon and bsky replies until I started posting and that’s about all want. If I want to chase a dopamine drip of algorithmic engagement I can go elsewhere, which is precisely why I'm here. Like a newly sober person looking for a sober-friendly establishment.
@manton I would like to see a drop down for the discovery emojis. I always forget to paste them in. I understand that you are a small business, and I'm willing to put up with the challenges as micro.blog offers me clean blogging, direct access to the owner (who strives to act ethically), and super easy quick podcasting.
@manton @apoorplayer @denny I suppose my opinions on discovery could change as I use the site more, but so far my experience with it has been that discovery functions best with “power users” meaning that I discover good content here NOT because of the discovery feed, but because I follow an interesting person and then I check who they follow and sometimes find other interesting stuff in their follower list. In that sense it makes individual users really powerful nodes of access to other good stuff, and perhaps thats how it should be: like the non-digital world, my discovery of new people/topics/communities should be gatekept by my ability to network and connect with real human beings—their interests and insight slowly bleeding into my field of attention instead of some community manger or dev arbitrarily deciding what I think I should find interesting and engaging.
@Denny @Dunk @apoorplayer I think part of this is a mismatch in what we consider "the fundamentals". You said the social aspects is what sets it apart. Other people will say some other feature! We've put a lot of work into cross-posting lately because that is a major aspect of the platform that people are very interested in right now. We'll get to Discover features again soon. Thanks for the feedback everyone!
@thebigbabooski @apoorplayer @Denny This is a really good point. It's why we built the blogroll recommendations feature (a little hidden, it's under Design → Edit Recommendations) and the new experiment with directly supporting Bluesky starter parks. If we could integrate both of those into Discover, it would be really interesting.
@manton Had an idea reading this thread… What if there were a “Random” feed that grabbed 200 random posts from the last 72 hours each time a Micro.blog user refreshed the page? Or, make it a platform refresh every six hours to not consume too many resources? This would be in addition to the human-curated Discover feed. Just a thought…
@thebigbabooski Have to agree. Like the web was before the advent of likes, shares, social media, etc.
@manton 🤷♂️ I see a weekly growth in problems. Specifically, for example, (ignoring variations/inconsistencies across apps/browser) in the Mac app the New Posts bar across the Timeline will initially give some high, seemingly random, number but if you leave it for a minute it refreshes to a correct value. Following conversations seems to be broken - I jumped in here from the reply from Denny to someone else seemingly somewhere else. The editor in the iPad app will scroll your text off the top of the panel if you leave the editor. Words fail - see video. Clicking the link to "subcategories in Discover" from here gives me an "Oops! That page doesn’t exist or is private." but opening the link in a new tab/window will get you to the correct page. I started this reply in the browser but it kept mangling/deleting my text (too long?) so I am now in the Mac app. Etc. Etc.
The whole Community/Discovery aspect fell apart when Jean moved on and has never recovered. An occasional dump of recent posts to Discovery is not the same curated experience. Perhaps a channel for newcomers to introduce themselves could enhance a sense of community here.
@apoorplayer I agree with @apoorplayer. I spent years on Blogger, and Wordpress, and Substack, and I like the control and simplicity of Micro.blog. I'm still figuring it out, and trying to up my markdpwn game, but all-in-all, I'm glad to have found this place.
