mlinksva on Nostr: OTOH anecdotes in ...
OTOH anecdotes in
Twitter-style social media (all of the above are basically that) is kind of undifferentiated and general purpose, which means people don't necessarily get the experience they wanted without significant work including self-restraint. But for other styles of website/service, you pretty much know what you're there for and will get (eg reddit or particular subs; not that those experiences couldn't be improved, but at least there's some level of agreement among participants about what they're doing).
I wonder if some kind of signaling of intent about what kind of interaction one is looking for, and use of that by clients, would be helpful. This is kinda accomplished on Mastodon-and-adjacent through instances, and on specific posts by some people with reply guidelines. But could same or better be accomplished without instances, and guide not only people who see posts, but guide people who want a style of interaction toward posts where the author signaled a compatible intent? There's a vast amount of people posting on any given topic (say NZ visit suggestions: aside if that's really what one wanted, as opposed to random convo, wouldn't they ask a search engine, chatbot, or Wikivoyage? but anyway...) and is there really any reason for people desiring trolling to not get that, for people who want affirmation to get that, for people who want literal-minded helpful responses to get that, etc? Anything else is wasting people's time. Well, except that figuring out what you want and taking time to signal it, may well be a bad use of time?
sound toxic. It seems people have different experiences on different services/protocols, I guess in part based on some path dependent thing of who they are following, conceivably even what bucket they are placed in if it's an algorithmic system. Lots of people report that twitter is a cesspool, and much more so recently. I've never experienced that, but then I don't look at big accounts or the "for you" feed much. On Mastodon I see almost no garbage, probably in part because I turn of retoots. Here I see almost no garbage, because I follow almost nobody. But if I look for garbage, it's in massive abundance on all of these (as well as BlueSky and Threads, just haven't looked in awhile).quoting note1qlz…5tqhHI've noticed on Threads, Bluesky, and even some apps here on Nostr that I’m shown a lot more content from people I’m not following. This is often due to reposts, quote posts, or just the algorithms at work. While this content can be engaging and spark conversations, it’s often not healthy.
I see people posting obviously or maybe obliviously wrong things, which then get corrected and boosted, creating a vicious cycle. For example, someone mentioned considering a hyphenated name for their kids. I shared how my hyphenated name caused issues with computers, especially with international travel. This led to many calling me a bigot because the original poster was a queer woman. It’s odd because I’m queer myself, but it seems they felt an amab queer shouldn’t share personal experiences directly related to the topic.
I also saw clickbait articles about triathletes vomiting at the end of an Olympic triathlon, blaming it on a polluted river. Yes, the river is polluted, but triathletes often throw up at the end of races, and the swim was two hours before the nausea hit.
These issues occurred on Twitter too, but I didn’t experience it the same way there. I used Twitter daily from the moment Jack invited me and our coworkers onto the service, and for me, the conversations were healthier. I understand that many others had negative experiences, though.
On Nostr, I see zaps often rewarding hot takes and posts that signal membership in one group or another. This seems to exacerbate the issue, as people are incentivized to make posts that cater to specific in-groups rather than fostering genuine dialogue.
My worry is that maybe we’re actually doing worse with the new platforms. Is this something other people are seeing? How do we navigate this and foster healthier online conversations?
Twitter-style social media (all of the above are basically that) is kind of undifferentiated and general purpose, which means people don't necessarily get the experience they wanted without significant work including self-restraint. But for other styles of website/service, you pretty much know what you're there for and will get (eg reddit or particular subs; not that those experiences couldn't be improved, but at least there's some level of agreement among participants about what they're doing).
I wonder if some kind of signaling of intent about what kind of interaction one is looking for, and use of that by clients, would be helpful. This is kinda accomplished on Mastodon-and-adjacent through instances, and on specific posts by some people with reply guidelines. But could same or better be accomplished without instances, and guide not only people who see posts, but guide people who want a style of interaction toward posts where the author signaled a compatible intent? There's a vast amount of people posting on any given topic (say NZ visit suggestions: aside if that's really what one wanted, as opposed to random convo, wouldn't they ask a search engine, chatbot, or Wikivoyage? but anyway...) and is there really any reason for people desiring trolling to not get that, for people who want affirmation to get that, for people who want literal-minded helpful responses to get that, etc? Anything else is wasting people's time. Well, except that figuring out what you want and taking time to signal it, may well be a bad use of time?