 My boyfriend was using Pixelfed for months before he found out about the local/network timelines. He doesn't understand the point, and told me I should make it easier to discover accounts and content. Not everyone uses these platforms the same, and I wouldn't be surprised if most people never check local or network timelines. 12 comments
 @dansup hiding public timelines makes sense for pixelfed but not for mastodon imo. mastodon sites have more of a community niche because of being primarily text posts, whereas pixelfed is generalistic due to being more oriented to media sharing @dansup It's not a firehose on most Mastodon sites, is the point. We're on one of the few sites that is an exception to that ;)  @trwnh @dansup That’s not even true. There are plenty of large servers around. And the federated feed is garbage even on small ones. People don’t seem to understand it’s not even “bad moderation” problem sometimes but a middle aged person coming across a perfectly allowed hypersexual shitpost, or a perfectly allowed, CW’d nude.  @Gargron I would agree that the federate timeline is not great. I rarely look at it, and when I do it's by accident. I love my local timeline though, and I've been told many times that the local feed is one of the best things about the instance. I agree. We work really hard to keep our local timeline relevant and accessible.  @Gargron @trwnh @dansup The fed timeline might be a hot mess, but it's a real honest representation of the userbase. I could argue it's not only the ethical but cultural thing to show hypersexual shitposts to middle aged people. This is about expanding peoples perceptions. "Death to the filter bubble" as in giving us a unmoderated and pure feed is a matter of principle to me. Protecting the easily scared WASP isn't a good thing. If you want to focus on discoverability or relevancy. do that!  @dansup the usage pattern for masto is very impulsive by nature compared to pixelfed, both in creating and viewing posts...more thought is put into the pictures shared and followers linger a bit longer to admire the pictures they are interested in. But Pixelfed and Mastodon were also developed from opposite directions. You put tons of thoughtful effort into making a great picture sharing platform then added federation. Eugen started with federation and built up the platform from there @dansup it would be nice if the other timelines were kept even if they were tucked away in an "advanced" section of a hamburger menu to keep the UI simpler but still accessible. My instance is very small so my local timeline is obviously very boring but I check it daily because I'd miss what my locals are saying among all the stuff on home from all my follows. Conversely I check my federated timeline to see what interesting stuff my locals are following. The vibe here is very different! @dansup Not everyone on *large* timelines do Small instances thrive on the local TL. It's basically the only way you find new users on those instances Even on web, there's the "Discover users" and "See what's happening" links so the idea that they won't get used on apps is mistaken at best, misleading at worst But the missing audio port on smartphones, when prominent players do something, it has an influence on other players. Not always for the better  |
Gregory's Server
Anyways, its not really fair to compare Mastodon and Pixelfed since they are very different.
Wish all the best for the new app and the existing vibrant ecosystem of 3rd party apps!