My big issue with starter packs was that I'd follow them, and they'd have some random content creator in it that was tangentially related to the starter pack. Great, that's fine. I don't need the same 12 people giving me news and updates, etc.

The problem was that they would inevitably be on my feed, constantly talking about other stuff I am not interested in, and hardly ever discussing the starter pack subject. Which again, is fine. But I don't want that, I wanted the starter pack subject matter, and get unrelated content. So I just unfollowed all the starter packs.

[–] artyom@piefed.social 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, you don't want starter packs, you want the threadiverse (obvi). These are individually curated by the community and irrelevant topics are downvoted and/or (hopefully) removed.

[–] 956@piefed.social 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Eh. They have 2 different purposes in my mind. Here, I want to discuss things and learn specifics or engage in a topic. On Twitter/BlueSky/Mastodon type social media, I'd rather just scroll it and not engage. I want to see the "headlines", and then decide to delve deeper elsewhere if it warrants. Which is why the starter packs didn't work for me, because it consistently served me content I didn't care to see. Here, I'll check out /all just to see what is floating around in other circles.

[–] INeedMana@piefed.zip 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

With how microblog media works I think those packs should have been tags, not accounts

[–] 956@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

That was my thought. I think some of them work that way; I do have one that gets posted to the feed when someone responds ONLY with "overheard", so no extra stuff gets posted. It's pretty funny to scroll sometimes lol.

It just needs some better filtering somehow.

[–] realitista@lemmus.org 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I mean this is the problem with Twitter style media in general. You have to just like the people and everything they say. Which tends to lead to just trying to make clever quotes which don't really give much in terms of content.

[–] 956@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sure, I didn't necessarily think it was going to "solve" anything, it was more just a proposed solution that does not work in practice in its current form.

[–] realitista@lemmus.org 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah Ive never really been able to make a Twitter style feed work for me. I get the impression that Twitter is mostly just about everyone trying to be the cool kid that gets noticed, but actual discussion and content doesn't really happen much. Most people are too busy posting to read anything anyone else posts.

[–] 956@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago

True. I use it more for sports updates and such, which was the issue. I'd follow an NFL starter pack, and I'd get some journalists and insiders, and then just some random dudes with a podcast from 2 years ago and now they write about Anime and van life or something. Just doesn't work in its current format like that lol.

Aside from these forum style accounts, BlueSky is the only actual social media I have, and my engagement is pretty low. But it serves its purpose for me

[–] Brewchin@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I followed a science starter pack, thinking it'd be, well, wall-to-wall science with a bit of random everyday stuff mixed in. Right?

Nope. Turns out, thanks to American current affairs, almost all of its members post political content almost all of the time. Close to the last thing I want to see on social media. (I don't blame them, as they're being hit hard by it all.)

To make it worse, most Bluesky users don't "do" hashtags or content warnings (unless it's promoting something - remember to like and subscribe!), so it's incredibly difficult to filter out the clickbait and rage-sharing. 😟

[–] detren@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think you can block posts with certain words on Bluesky.

[–] Brewchin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

You can. But guessing all the variations of nicknames for Trump, for example, is a never-ending game.

God forbid anyone there use a 'politics' (or even 'uspol' in my example) hashtag...