cellhead

Erin

@cellhead

  • she/her

(Help, idk how to use this site and I'm too scared to ask)

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cellhead
@cellhead
bethposting
@bethposting
nex3
@nex3

"How can I build an audience on Cohost without an algorithm" feels like saying "how can I feed my family without capitalism". The overwhelming net effect of an algorithmic feed is to reduce visibility for the average poster and concentrate attention on a relatively small number of people who are good at gaming the system. It's actively bad for small creators who want to know that the people who have chosen to follow them will consistently see their posts.

Cohost could probably use a bit more discoverability than just the tag system, and @staff have already indicated they're thinking carefully about that. But their principled anti-algorithmic stance is absolutely the right choice.

bethposting
@bethposting

i've honestly gotten way more exposure on cohost than any algorithm-driven sites cuz rather than just rewarding engagement bait, humans will see a funnee post and share and riff on it and i think that's nice

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in reply to @nex3's post:

graham
@graham

The real trick is finding a balance between tagging stuff so that it's maximally discoverable by people who are interested, while also tagging stuff so that it's maximally able to be hidden by people who aren't.

I ended up going back recently and adding #graham's hxh fanart tags when I realized I was potentially clogging up real fans of that series' bookmarked tags timelines with stuff that they didn't necessarily want to see. Without that, their only option would have been to block me or block a major tag interest, both of which are bad for my discoverability! Giving a bespoke tag to mute/block means they can still see other stuff I do or other stuff about their interests even if that specific thing isn't for them

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Jama
@Jama

After I ran my last Shadowrun game, I realized I was probably just bein' a pain in those tags, so I've adopted the Bespoke Tag In Addition To The General Ones tactic, which should be great for those who want general stuff about a game but not my dumb nonsense!

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AtteroBro
@AtteroBro

best way to get the most out of tags imo would be to start synonymizing certain tags the way AO3 does, but moderating that would be a nightmare for a team of their size lol. other than that, the only ideas i have for improving discoverability nonalgorithmically would be to bend the knee to metrics. hoping hear more creative, non-metric ideas though

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nex3
@nex3

Yeah I know they're aware of AO3-style tag moderation, but they're also morally opposed to relying on volunteer labor for a for-profit site which makes the logistics troublesome.

Some ideas I've heard floated for discoverability include:

  • Some kind of paid promotion (@staff originally said "we'll never do advertising" but users have actually been pretty strongly supportive of the idea of low-key banner ads or some sort of dedicated "open for comissions" page)
  • A separate "stuff you missed" feed (this doesn't directly contribute to discoverability but it does help ensure that reblogs etc don't get lost which does expose people to more posts)
  • A separate "discovery" feed that's gently algorithmic (you could imagine a pretty transparent algorithm like "people who post in tags you have bookmarked + get reblogged by people you follow" that doesn't have most of the engagement-optimization issues of major social media algos)
  • A more hand-holding onboarding process that encourages users to start bookmarking tags and follow people they like from those tags
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