** Things I would like to see in Fediverse and Mastodon:
- When Boosting a post, the option to add a note or comment at the top (like it's possible when retweeting)
- When people reply to a thread, that all people who posted on it so far got notified; sometimes threads branch off by posters removing attributions or replying only to one poster. It would be more productive if all saw it, imo.
- in a more distant future, the amount of content will be so large that it will be hard to follow on chronological timelines, all posts into one big humongous Feed. (think Facebook?)
Hashtags alone are not much of a separation, although they might helpf find something. Ideally, I would think something like the usenet newsgroups would tidy things up nicer.
- If people understood that hashtags are not Cutesy decorations and did not abuse them like is common in certain (insta) places, Searching with Useful hashes would be sped up.
All those words marked one by one with hashes are typically K Kardashian style, very gauche imo.
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By sheer serendipity it seems, I have come accross a boosted post that mentioned someone working on a project that might help solve or improve one of the problems mentioned in the post above.
We can't keep trowing all the posts into one big pipe forever (and then trying to find what we need or want). As the number of users grown, the amount of data will also, and it will become unmanageable soon enough.
Facebook is terrible, in general, but we have to acknowledge they do support an mind blowing number of users 24/7.
One of the things they do fairly well is to have Groups for people with any kind of common interest; I participated in some, and they do reduce the spread of these posts to only a smaller number of users, who are interested in them. It is also easy for them to get to the group they want, post and move on.
FB Groups are NOT as good in my opinion as Forums (where posts can be finely organized by topics, and you can find things much more easily once you understand the logic and how it works).
But it's better than the pulsating Federated feed we currently have, which is like to grab a fish swimming down the Niagara river just above the falls. Yikes, the volume!
The post I refer to is here:
https://qoto.org/web/statuses/103139269483844935
Specifically, the post by Will mentioning the GuppeGroups.
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If you open that link, you will land on a new tab and page, with some cryptic instructions (will explain then soon) and an input box.
What to do here?
- if you wanted to JOIN an EXISTING group, say QOTO's (which I created a few minutes ago), you would need to know the Group_name@Instance.name to enter it there. On my example, it would be : qoto@gup.pe
- Done that? It will redirect you to a page, where you will see the Group Bot profile. Click on the "FOLLOW"button, and you will be ADDED to this particular group.
- Any posts made anywhere in fediverse afterwards, and that include the @qoto attibution (username) will be Copied to the Bot there.
And the bot will Boost and send it out to ALL the people Following this particular list. 😄
Screenshot below shows this first entry point into Guppe. (I will describe How To Create a New Group on next post)
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@qoto I hope the previous post made sense? It was already in fact Boosted and distributed to that usergroup (which could contain any number of users), everyone following it will get notified and see it. Cool.
- Oh, I want a Private group! 😄 Maybe in the future extra features will be added. For now, want a sec group? CREATE IT and DON'T tell anyone other than the intended users. Keep it hush hush and you get some privacy,
(I think; it might show up on the local feed possibly? This is all new to me too, here trying to explain it to you)
How About Creating a NEW Group?
- reading that same screen above (again, it's located at : https://gup.pe/u/guppegroups )
we see a reference to :
"Create other groups by searching for or tagging @yourGroupName"
OK - so say we want a new qoto-bikers group. We are all cyclists, and plan some rides, or maybe it's a motorbike group. Let's make it happen!
- What group name? You decide. Keep it Simple. Short. Memorable. Obvious if you can!
ok, how about qoto-bikers? 😄
Sure!
- This will be done from inside you own Home -- your own instance, in my case, this is qoto.org.
- We enter the new Group name we decided on into the SEARCH box, on the top Left corner of the web page (or in the search box in your mobile app)
On the screen below you can see the NEW @group_name@instance_name already typed in. Hit enter and it goes to work!
Will show the result in the next post.
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@qoto OK!
Now that we searched for this New group we wanted to creat, pushed the button, Magic Happens. 😃
- a search is started, it will find the group we wanted, and now exists!
- and it shows a FOLLOW button for us to click on...
Push the button, and now the Group exists. Tell your friends to Search for the same group (show them this post) and they will see the group, and follow it too.
Done. 😄
- The Group now Exists, and anytime you tag it into a post, it will go to the bot;
- The bot then gets it Boosted, and Feeds it to everyone on it's group Followers list.
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@qoto Now let's send a message to our buddies.
- I enter a new toot message in the box. Include the Group name at the top, so the bot gets it.
- I am trying something here, remember we talked about PRIVATE group messages?
I think that changing the privacy selection to UNLISTED (open padlock icon), it will NOT show on our server's Local feed.
- So we selected Unlisted, type the message, hit Send Toot, and voila, it will go out to everyone.
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Finally, here is the Notification screen -- Notice the origin of the post, clearly marked as Boosted, and by the Group name!
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@qoto A CORRECTION is needed here -- as I have just learned and understand better the Privacy settings to messages.
On one of the posts above, I took as snapshot and described setting the Privacy choice to use for a group message.
In it I selected the "UNLISTED" mode, thinking it was the best, not showing on the public feeds - Local or Federated.
BUT --- it DOES allow the message to be sent to ALL of your followers (blowing away any privacy intention, and maybe annoying people). It ALSO shows the post in your Profile, to anyone curious enough to look there.
That's NOT good;
And upon reading a Guide by Mastodon's lead developer, I now think we should use the "DIRECT" message choice.
- it will have only ONE attribution, the group name we chose. In my example, "@qoto-bikers"
- it will send a message to Guppe, and the bot will process and send a DIRECT message to each person already subscribed to the group.
- Your message will NOT show on public feeds. It will NOT show on your profile either.
*This is Better * -- what we would need.
** Privacy details in the screenshot are from: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/07/cage-the-mastodon/
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@qoto Pretty much instantly, I receive the message.
- Note that it will NOT show on the Local feed area, since I wanted it private.
- But it DOES show on your HOME feed, as well as in a Notification.
Yes!