I wish that Mastodon had the "Starter Pack" functionality that Bluesky has built.
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@graue @adam I don't see why not!
Like I said, I haven't started on the implementation, and I have another project to finish before this one. But when/if I work on it it's going to be a @fedify project, so the frontend for mine will ideally be built with something compatible.You can also check in with @michael or @thisismissem and ask if they want/need frontend help for their project currently.
@stefan Are you continuing with your starter pack thingy or are you keeping it as a one-off demo?
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@graue Or maybe I should let your offer to help tempt me into prioritizing this project after all... I *would* like this to exist. Ah, time management! It never gets old.
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Jonreplied to Julian Fietkau last edited by [email protected]
Great to hear there's so much energy around this, it's certainly useful functionality. Unfortunately the existing Mastodon privacy settings aren't quite right for this:
- "Feature profile and posts in discovery algorithm" ... but is it an algorithm? The text here is okay though:
"Your public posts and profile may be featured or recommended in various areas of Mastodon and your profile may be suggested to other users."
- "Include profile page in search engines" ... a starter pack isn't a search engine, but what if a starter pack winds up in a search engine?
Messy. But probably solvable!
Another area for improvement on Bluesky is that you don't get notified if you're put in a starter pack -- and I'm not sure there's a way to see what starter packs you're in.
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] -
@jdp23 @graue @adam Starter packs are human-curated, which makes them something conceptually distinct from a recommendation algo as well as a possible abuse vector.
My current thinking is along these lines:
1. discovarable flag set, account does not manually approve followers: can be added to starter pack
2. something in between: ask before adding (Bridgy Fed style)
3. discoverable flag not set *and* manually approves followers *or* #nobot in bio: do not attempt to add to starter pack -
@jdp23 @graue @adam Of course gotta offer sensible ways to signal yes or no, e.g. since in my concept every starter pack is a bot actor, blocking that bot could remove yourself from that starter pack. (And block the domain to opt out of all starter packs forever.) That is in addition to a web form for opting out etc. Still hazy from there on, but I also think it's generally workable.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Julian Fietkau last edited by [email protected]
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Yeah, details TBD, but something does seem generally workable.
The analogy to Bridgy Fed is a good one. One of @[email protected]'s challenges is that he basically had to roll his own consent mechanism (while respecting existing signals), since there isn't any general framework to plug into. Here's another example that's going to require a consent mechanism. Is this a good opportunity to think about a general framework that can support these and other applicaations?
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] -
@jdp23 @graue @adam @snarfed.org Well, maybe! But that's too big for me, I'm not going to be spearheading protocol-level changes that need buy-in from platform implementers to even test, I prefer working with the tools I've got, warts and all.
If it turns out impossible to do well, that'll be the lesson. -
@thisismissem @julian @graue @adam @fedify @stefan @adonisframework Starter packs in the Fediverse are a great idea, done right. And it’s great there’s so much energy around them! We have a couple of ideas for them - one very close to Julian’s spec. Before we get to this we need to finish custom feeds, so watch this space! And let’s all stay in touch as things develop
