 While following a lot of people can populate your Home feed significantly, sometimes people (like me) end up boosting a lot and that can unexpectedly hinder your own experience. So if you like someone's specific posts and don't want to follow their boosts, you can go to their profile under the [...] button, and select the "Hide boosts from account" button. There is no algorithm on Mastodon. You have ownership and control over every filtering decision instead of some robot. 132 comments
@simon @GracelessHippo I agree, I don't know how to do that yet. Boosting this post for visibility, in case someone has an answer for it. I think you can mute any post by clicking on the eye (top right) on any opened toot.* *caveat - I've only been here 6 months, this could be horribly wrong @GracelessHippo @antimnguyen @simon actually, that eye button opens/closes all CWs on the opened thread @someonetellmetosleep @antimnguyen @simon Ah right, my mistake. Thanks for the clarification  @GracelessHippo @antimnguyen @simon Yes, you can mute an individual toot (post) from the web view. Tap the 3 dots and choose "filter this post". @antimnguyen @simon @GracelessHippo I don't have easy access to things at the moment so I can't pinpoint the answer, but I recall seeing a setting - likely set from desktop - that suppresses multiple retoots of the same thing. It's definitely an option. @antimnguyen @GracelessHippo @technursejon Thanks; I’ve got said setting set in the web interface but Metatext still seems to be repeating them (whether or not I’m syncing preferences from the server), so it may be a Metatext irritation @simon @antimnguyen @GracelessHippo @indri @simon @antimnguyen @GracelessHippo is this view on desktop or something ? @tsumami @indri @simon @antimnguyen It's in the Web user interface under the gear icon in the bottom right corner @GracelessHippo @indri @simon @antimnguyen thanks. Is that the only way to access boosts? Whatever boosts are lol @tsumami @indri @simon @antimnguyen I'm sorry, I don't know. I find the Web UI so easy to use and full of so many features that I never felt the need to switch to an app. (I mostly use an android phone) @simon @antimnguyen @indri @GracelessHippo I have this setting turned on but I definitely still encounter this problem 😕 @indri @simon @antimnguyen @GracelessHippo It's on by default for all users unless they change it, and sadly it's not super effective. @antimnguyen @simon @GracelessHippo there is an option in the settings that will prevent this very thing from happening, but I can’t remember the exact name of it yet. If you check that box, it will drastically diminish the multiple boosts of the same item @simon @antimnguyen @GracelessHippo Other replies have already mentioned the "Group boosts in timelines" setting in the web version; unfortunately, it only looks in a window of 40 statuses for grouping purposes, so it's not very effective. @simon @antimnguyen @GracelessHippo There is in my experience a delay before it works, just FYI for those who try it and don't see a difference. @antimnguyen thanks, this is helpful. At the moment I’m going to leave them up to discover new tooters but I’ll turn them off eventually @antimnguyen "unexpectedly" lol. a/ we all know how frustrating it is to have your feed full of nothing but posts from people you don't follow. b/ people who boost other people's toots know exactly what they're doing. @antimnguyen Hah! I even put it in my bio that I boost a lot and people should hide them if it gets annoying. Useful of you to share this, Ironic that I saw it boosted and boosted it myself in turn. @redsage @antimnguyen I was enjoying that same irony as I hit boost. It is very useful to know. @antimnguyen My god, this changes EVERYTHING. But seriously, I wish there were a way to selectively see what people boost. Sometimes I want to see it and sometimes I just want to see people's original posts and replies. @trishalynn @antimnguyen This! Muting or hiding is too blunt. What I really want to do is ”mod down” based on subject discussed/tooted/boosted. I guess that quickly leads to ”the algorithm” somehow but I see no other way to both find things I know I want to see and things I didn’t know of. The feed quickly becomes an endlessly scrolling list of ”meh” otherwise. @trishalynn @antimnguyen the little settings thing on the home feed lets you quickly toggle boosts off & on if you’re not in a boost reading mood @maco @antimnguyen Ah yeah! I had no idea it could do that. Thank you, both of you, for explaining those features. @antimnguyen thanks, that’s very helpful. Was wondering yesterday if that was possible. For the moment I’m fine with the prolific boosters because It helps me cast the net widely while looking for ideas about who to follow. @antimnguyen I mean, you can do the same on twitter. you can really disable a fair bit of "the algorithm" on twitter and a browser extension can take care of most of the rest.  @antimnguyen Yes! And if you're drowning in boosts generally you can turn off all of them (red circle) @antimnguyen would definitely like some way to resurface tweets from people that were posted recently, but not when I was looking. Like people I follow from other time zones. @antimnguyen Did you mean "There's no *evil black box* algorithm here"? I know it sounds pedantic but at least within tech spaces I feel we should not use the word "algorithm" like the most people use the word "system", i.e. as something nebulous, bad, and, in the case of the former word, as something that should be avoided or even eradicated. @gabri I don't think it is inaccurate to mirror Mastodon's statements that they don't use suggestion algorithms. But not having them means that users have to do more work to see the content they want. That is what I wanted to communicate. @thespoonless @antimnguyen I’m still not understanding why so many are opposed to algorithms. I’m starting to miss the twitter algorithm. I’m not trying to scroll through thousands of irrelevant posts I’m not interested in. Not sure how any one can stand that. @tsumami @antimnguyen The technique suggested has been effective for me. I would argue that the algorithms showed me LESS relevant content, on the other website, than I am seeing here. I would rather scroll past innocuous but irrelevant posts for hours, over being bombarded with tens of thousands of words devoted to hatred, vitriol, and disinformation.  @antimnguyen @TheConversationUS thanks, this is so helpful. I boost a lot. Figure people might like to know this, too. There can be other weird things: A nice person I follow had their posts show up as notifications unlike everyone else. Unfollowing and then refollowing seems to have corrected that @petrockette @antimnguyen I’ve noticed that what shows as “notification from X” in Metatext shows as “X edited their post” in the web, which I think is designed to solve for “I boosted a good thing, then they edited to a bad thing, and it looks like I boosted a bad thing” (ie the reason so many of us pushed back against the idea of asking the bird site for an edit button) @maco @antimnguyen Yes maco, that's understood. This was something different, this was mastodon being in a bad state, where for some reason the new posts from one user were showing up as notifications for me, without having had any interaction with those posts. Note that unfollowing them, and then following again eliminated this behavior. I mean, omg software can have bugs. Shocking, I know!  @antimnguyen @Aminorjourney I like to think of it as we are the algorithm. My choices, and the choices of those I follow or share an instance with, is the algorithm. I don’t mind getting more powerful tools to extend my algorithm with, as long as I am in charge. @antimnguyen That’s fantastic. Friends on the bird site would comment on people I did not like and they would appear on my timeline. This is a nice feature. @antimnguyen Awesome piece of advice. Thank you. One other thing that has greatly improved my experience is following hashtags I'm interested in and hashtagging more often. My feed now represents my interests more and I'm find people to follow who share more of my interests. @antimnguyen it would be a good app feature/option to put all (or user-selected) boosts in a separate stream.  @antimnguyen why is this not retroactive? If I do this, it just hides future boosts instead of past ones. This is a bit surprising because for example muting someone is retroactive (they are gone from my timeline instantly including their old posts). What am I missing? @22 @antimnguyen wasn't that basically the same problem with retweets? it certainly was for me  @antimnguyen that's useful, thanks. I still think "the robot" made smarter decisions than simply hiding all boosts though... And trying to curate my feed has honestly taken quite a bit of time at this point... I think many algorithms are evil (eg the ones on ad-based websites), but some are a great help to me :)  @antimnguyen The control is nice, but I don't think Mastodon offers enough? Like, I don't seem to be able to put someone on a list unless I also follow them. @rodneylives @antimnguyen Perhaps, but I know on Twitter you can make lists of people you don't follow, and I find it a valuable feature there. @antimnguyen in about 6 weeks I'm going to turn off all boosts, because they're pretty annoying really. I really wish we had QTs to play the discovery role though. I want to be able to hear my follows saying "read this because it's about that" and boosts do not give that context telling me why I should read. @Rivikah Quote toots were not implemented for anti-toxicity social design reasons, the developers expect us to simply write a regular post with the post/thread link pasted in it instead to serve the same purpose. @antimnguyen But what I really want is "Hide boosts from xxx containing the phrase nnn". Mastodon has filters you can create like this which act globally across all users. It shouldn't be too difficuly, surely, to add a users handle to this to make it even more flexible! I might very well be interested in tech info from, I dunno, Bill Gates. Not so much my nan. Right now it is all or nothing. @antimnguyen thanks for this. Im trying to get a feed going for more specific things and had to unfollow someone i wanted to follow who did a lot of boosting of things I wasn’t interested in. Hopefully my app supports this! @antimnguyen Thanks I wish I had a 'Throttle <person | hashtag | instance>'. I like the folks I follow, but itd be great to spread out the posts from everyone I love that we're in a place where someone who boosts a lot is telling others how to ignore their boosts x Note (not for OP), boosting *is* good - like there's no algorithm here, so if you like something and want others to see it, boost (liking is also nice but it just works to say 'hey, good stuff' to the poster and nothing else) @antimnguyen Thank you! I literally just posted wondering why I see so many replies to posts boosted that make no sense out of the context of the original post/conversation and wondering what I can do about that. Really appreciate finding your guidance on how to change that!  @antimnguyen Useful tip. Thanks! I don't feel the need to use it now, but I'm keeping it in my back pocket. @antimnguyen Thank you for the hint. Boosting is great, but some accounts do it so much, I barely get to see the owner's own thoughts. @antimnguyen In the web interface you can also deactivate boosts for the entire Home feed. Click on the settings icon at the top right of the Home column. @antimnguyen I actually found the opposite kind of poster to be a hindrance- someone who posts constantly their own content that ranges from news everyone is talking about to what they had for breakfast. I don’t mind reposts because it brings a diversity of voices to my feed, vs one person clogging up the whole thing with their voice. I unfollowed a couple people like that here.  @antimnguyen You know there was a choice to quit algorithm and hide Retweets on twitter? @antimnguyen Thanks for the tip!! This will be particularly helpful for a few folks I've followed who like to boost their own posts. @antimnguyen um, yes, this might be me! I'm intentionally boosting a lot at the moment to help arriving photographers find each other. I won't take it personally if people turn off boosts from me for a bit, see instructions above 🖕 @antimnguyen Hey thank you, I was wondering a while ago if there was a way to filter to just see people's original posts
@antimnguyen While I'm able to, I'd prefer not to mute a person's posts or boosts since that's kinda why I'm following them. I'm assuming this is not a recent issue. I was wondering if any sort of general Mastodon etiquette has developed over time to deal with this. Is there anything regarding a decent amount of posting / boosting per hour or per day?  @antimnguyen oh gosh yes the feeling of control over what's fed to me, when I select "hide boosts", like shutting the door on the world and continuing the party with my friends. Phew.  @antimnguyen Hiding boosts from a followed person seems to be an option of version 4 ? I do not have under the three dots such an option.... I only have what is shown below  @antimnguyen I'm certainly NOT boosting this advice! 😅 Even though I think my boosts don't really bother anyone if not interest more. @antimnguyen Column layout is another great way to keep you feed manageable. Go to Preferences and enable advanced web interface. Then create Lists, and in each list you can select 'Pin' in the settings dialog. You can also Pin a column for one or multiple hashtags! @antimnguyen can we all laugh at how a bunch of people boosted this, even that obvs makes sense @antimnguyen @antimnguyen @Raene @lookitmychicken @antimnguyen Looks like an issue was opened in Github for this very thing just 19 days ago. https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/20093 @Raene @antimnguyen Oh excellent! I just added an upvote & comment to the issue in github. @antimnguyen @zoskiacultus good tip. But be fair on Twitter. There you can also opt out of retweets per user you follow. 😋 @antimnguyen Retweets are almost useless and random and does nothing for me at all. No one looks at it or your post or help with visibility. Boosts here are vast entirely different and on whole other level and it works so very well. @antimnguyen I felt like I had more control when I could tell the algorithm "a lil less of this please" or "no more of that ever." Instead of just the latter. another reason not to worry about over-boosting! follows and boosts both grow your instances' federated timelines! |
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@antimnguyen @GracelessHippo I want to see people’s boosts, because people’s boosts are interesting; what’s a bit irritating for me is that I’m seeing posts many times as different people boost the same post, repeatedly. It would be nice for an update to know one has already seen a post so you don’t need to see it again,