@Angle The mere mention of "reverse-chron" informs me on where this thought came from, and unfortunately it isn't a good place. Feed algorithms were built for one and one goal only, to maximize engagement and make numbers go up. That's it.

And in this regard they've been wildly successful. Social media network designers saw the numbers go up, deduced that was what users wanted even though it also magically aligned with their business model, and doubled down.

Unfortunately you can't measure community, you can't measure interpersonal bond, you can't measure culture. As the engagement numbers went up, it also shaped how the people interacted with the platforms. Talking about yourself didn't get much engagement and so wasn't shown to many of your followers, but any witty sarcasm would do numbers. This favored celebrities, ideological provocateurs (mostly right-wing) and quirky jokesters (mostly left-wing).

As soon as people learn that some of their content may not be shown to their followers because of any algorithm, no matter how transparent it is for the users that can choose them, they will change the way they write from what felt natural to them. They will adapt to the platform like they've done for commercial platforms before.

Keeping a strict "reverse-chron" timeline order isn't about what's feasible, it's about what kind of community and culture you want on the #Fediverse, and that's why I'm fiercely defending it.

We had a great first week with lots of sarcasm and humor, and some absolutely amazing ideas from those who participated. Together, we learned a lot, and made some friends along the way.

On November 20th @ 5pm GMT, we will be purging most of our impersonator accounts, save for a few very brilliant ones worth keeping around (namely, @CocaCola and @goldenflake and one or two others ). Moving forward, Brands Town will be 99% fictional brands to better embrace the ARG elements we hope to develop. Don’t worry - the made-up brands will still stick around.

A few things we’re thinking about cooking up:

• Lore wiki
• Neocities pages
• Audio / Video stuff
• Brand Teams - multiple people running accounts
• Disasters and Lore Villains
• Brand Swaps - tired of doing a brand? Want to do a different one? Swap out.

In the course of a week, this project evolved from an anticapitalist culture-jamming initiative into something weirder and funnier and more creative. It’s satire. It’s performance art. It’s a game! But it’s also a community doing some insane creative work, while giving the corporate tech world a huge middle finger.

Join us! Keep the #fediverse weird!

for example random search dropped this free policy generator https://www.termsfeed.com/blog/sample-gdpr-privacy-policy-template/

[update] let me just point to the #EU templates instead:

https://gdpr.eu/privacy-notice/

#gdpr #mastodon #fediverse