Bluesky pioneered a brilliant solution to this “empty feed problem” in 2024, with the introduction of “Starter Packs”, a feature that allows users to curate and share their own collections of recommended accounts.
Bluesky pioneered, eh? I distinctly remember using a feature called “circles” on Google+ back in 2011. It allowed people to create arbitrary “circles” of people, share them and have others bulk-follow/unfollow the people from a circle. It worked incredibly well and Google+ became a lively social network even with its small userbase at the time.
Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Seems like a good idea, although a simple, configurable algorithm would be nice.
You select one or several topics, and it shows you popular posts in that category.
cabbage@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
I guess in a way that’s what it offers, just that instead of an algorithm it’s human curated. Mastodon is a lot about boosts, so following someone doesn’t mean just following them, but also being subjected to whatever they boost (unless you silence their boosts of course). So if you’re interested in pottery and you follow a pottery starter pack, chances are that feed will end up a curated channel of pottery content.
The great thing is that it has quality control and cannot be abused the same way algorithmic feeds always end up being. The funky thing is, of course, that you also end up being exposed to everything else those people are interested in. But I think that’s part of what makes Mastodon feels so nice.
Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I see what you mean, but it’s never worked as well for me as a simple, well designed algorithm or even bsluesky feeds, or, incidentally, lemmy communities.
vermaterc@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I wish there was something like this for tags. So: display only posts that contain tag X, but sort them with some algorithm. Ideally: steered by number of likes and date of adding. May be even the same that is used by Lemmy.
Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
That’s what I want, it could be implemented like bluesky feeds, where you choose the tags and words you want included, and then choose what kind of ordering you want!