This is so ridiculously petty if true.
I don't understand what's preventing these big media and journalism outlets from embracing the #fediverse. you have the resources to fork Mastodon and add QTs and better search or whatever you want. isn't independence a core requirement to do good work?
@wjmaggos@liberal.city @taylorlorenz@mastodon.social
They don't even need to do that, they can just simply choose to deploy an #Akkoma or #Firefish instance that already have those features... You don't need to modify #Mastodon to do something that already exists on the fediverse. If they don't want to deploy their own instance, they can join existing ones running these implementations.
Akkoma & Firefish include quote boosts/quote posts, rich text formatting, full text search and more. Firefish even has the option to import your own posts from other instances including from Mastodon as well.
Mastodon has the most "market share" but they're definitely not the only #ActivityPub microblogging implementation out there. Others exist and already have features that are missing on Mastodon. Unfortunately because of Mastodon's sheer size, people have equated it to the entire #fediverse, similar to how Kleenex is to facial tissues.
I think Big Media is mainly still not sold on the idea of decentralized social networking and they don't believe the audience is there. They seem to have hopped on to Threads pretty fast. I'm interested to see how BBC's experiment on the fediverse plays out, hopefully they have a permanent presence here.
@deltatux @taylorlorenz @volkris
all that's preventing mass adoption here is the lack of the big names in journalism. I think better search on Mastodon will help, but yes, there are lots of other options. I think the future, if we want to retain decentralization, is something like lots of locality based instances using something like Firefish ala Nextdoor. but for journalists, server software designed for them coordinated by somebody like Columbia Journalism Review.
I just really don’t think people are as focused on news here as you think they are. Just different people looking for different things.
Heck, sometimes it sounds like people want to use these platforms to ESCAPE the news.
true, so are we the right size for them? or are some people who want it to be something else not coming here for some reason that we can change? should we?
I want this place to be the grand public square so I both want everyone here and need the journalists here to make that happen. decentralization and no ads or algos make it perfect for this imo. attention is earned. cultural democracy.
I'd love it to be able to be all things to all people. IDK if that's possible.
Keep in mind that “show things in chronological order” is itself an algorithm.
But more importantly, I’d say if we want more people here, then the main thing we needs is exactly better algorithms that can empower users to have the experiences they want.
The people who want to see more news and the people who want to see less news are both better served by better algorithms that serve them those things.
Without better algorithms a lot of people are just not going to be interested in this platform because they’re not being served by it.
no algos has come to mean reverse chronological, but fine. give me a term for "no algos controlled by other people so that our attention can be hijacked outside of how it is when we freely choose to follow people etc etc". that is the problem imo. one could say that we live within an algo of modern capitalism based on where we live and how old we are that biases what media we choose to consume and when and for how long etc. the languages we think in are algos for sure.
Oh I would simply say chronological (or reverse chronological) if that’s what is being meant.
The point is that reverse chronological serves so many users really badly, and that drives off a lot of potential users.
To say “no algorithm” sets up this extra, unnecessary barrier to overcome to serve users better. At that point it becomes not enough to simply show a better algorithm, but you have to first convince a person to accept an algorithm at all even as they are already accepting one with reverse chronological.
It’s no minor detail. It’s a rhetorical block against making the platform better.
If you really like reverse chronological for your feed, great! It is such a simple algorithm that it shouldn’t be a problem to keep as an option universally.
But so many users would be better served if they were empowered to choose a different algorithm that better matched their usage.
but I don't mean reverse chronological. I mean that and the ability to display based on mute and block and filter NSFW etc. aren't you saying we need to include all that too, in order to be accurate?
I don't think we're losing people cause some people say "no algos" instead of being more precise. the problem here is the lack of users other users want to follow. the bad guys do the lock in cause it works for their shitty business model. they don't provide a choice of algos either.
We absolutely are losing people because the algorithm here doesn’t serve them well.
It’s not lack of users. People reasonably criticize the platform for not showing them content that is on the platform, just not put in front of their eyes. So they wander off.
And what the bad guys do has no bearing on what we should do if we want this place to be better for users.
