I've been on a chronological timeline both here and on Twitter for a few years. Here is how I manage it:
I don't follow lightly. Following means I want to see all your posts. I read each post.
I filter. When ppl fill up my whole timeline with streams of posts too often, I either filter boosts or unfollow. It's nothing personal.
What about trending? Easy to tell what's trending because people w/ shared interests who I follow post/boost about the topic. If not, I follow someone new who does.
@kyle I totally get this. This is a really important message to get out about just how different things are on Mastodon.
I made a couple of stumbles in my first few days, following a hashtag that basically buried my timeline, and I'm still pondering what to do about my other stumble.
I have followed Cory Doctorow for years now. His Linkblog account here will basically firehose your timeline when he posts, because he posts BIG. Like 13-14 consecutive posts in a row.
I appreciate your words.
@timmgleason If someone posts an *infrequent* firehose I suppose it just depends on how disruptive that is to the rest of your reading.
I have unfollowed people I like very much because their *constant* firehose overwhelmed the rest of my timeline. I still see highlights boosted by others though so I don't miss out completely.
One sign is when I find myself skimming/skipping a lot of posts/boosts from the same person. When I find I'm doing it a lot, I question whether it's time to prune.
@kyle Well the Doctorow one specifically states right in the About that this is a 'firehose' account. And gives options, like the RSS feed.
I have yet to encounter the random account that this happens on. I'm sure it is only a matter of time. One of the zuckland features I did find useful when I still hung around there was the 30-day pause button. Kinda miss that.
@timmgleason I suspect (or at least hope) that people that are new here will grow to understand and respect what it means to post into someone's chronological timeline. The incentives are different here, and attention is finite. I think people who demand *too* much daily attention from their followers will find their audience shrink over time.
