!Friendica Support

Friendica has a LOT of feeds. Too many really. It's confusing. Overwhelming. Oh, and they're apparently called TIMELINES here. I've been trying to figure out which ones I should be using that are similar to the ones I used on Facebook.

Over on Facebook most people probably never go beyond the very awful "News Feed" which is full of algorithm-driven, AI-generated, and advertising garbage. And the only people, groups, or pages you see there are the ones you regularly interact with. Which is why for years I've been using the other feeds on Facebook, and they're the only thing that actually makes that platform usable IMO. But it's hard to try and figure out what Friendica "Timelines" are the closest corollary to the Facebook ones?

My best guesses are:

What's Hot = News Feed: It's a fire hose of posts from accounts you don't follow that are getting a lot of engagement. However, I have no clue what kinds of interactions or how many get something into this feed. There is also a "Discover" feed that says it's supposed to show "Posts from accounts that you don't follow but might like" and I have no clue how, without an algorithm, it would determine what I might like. Apparently it doesn't or can't because that feed is empty for me.

Latest Activity = All Feed: because it's based on people you're connected to and shows all their latest interactions (Posts, Likes, Shares, and Comments) including on posts by accounts you don't follow.

For You = Friends Feed: which I think is just posts from people listed as "Mutual Friendship" in your Contacts, meaning you are following them, they are following you.

Latest Activity + Circles/Account Types > Groups = Groups Feed: there doesn't appear to a separate Groups feed in Friendica.

Latest Activity + Circles > Interests = Pages Feed: at least I think "Interests" is referring to "Pages" but I'm not sure, and there doesn't appear to be a separate "Interests" feed.

It would be nice if you could filter the "Network" feeds by more than one thing at a time. There is no way to "stack" filters or save that view. Which is too bad because that would be a killer feature akin to Bluesky's custom algorithms!

As for the other "Timelines" in Friendica:

"Latest posts" and "Latest Creation" are obviously because stuff doesn't necessarily arrive on your server at the same time it was sent from another one. Though I'm not sure anything posted to social media is so time-sensitive you'd need these feeds since I assume the same stuff will show up under "Latest Activity."

"Personal" only shows posts that @ mention you. "Sharers of Sharers" sounds like a feed of what you would call "Friends of Friends" on Facebook. It's unclear what puts someone in "Quiet Sharers" though. It sounds like "Mutual Friendships" that just don't post much, but how often is often?

I'm guessing "Starred" means posts I've LIKED? Or does it only mean posts I've actually gone to the "More..." drop-down and selected "Add Star"? Or BOTH?

"Images," "Audio," and "Video" are pretty self-explanatory, I guess if you're here for the photos, podcasts, and TikTokish content. I've also seen on servers that have a lot of add-ons enabled people might have additional feeds for other platforms they are connected to, which are self-explanatory.

"Local Community" and "Global Community" appear to be the same feeds as under the "Community" button in the main navigation. Which is redundant, but okay.

Then I've also seen instructions for new users to go into Settings > Social Networks > General Social Media Settings and change the drop-down to "Any conversation my follows interact with, including likes" or your feeds will be pretty bare.

It's little wonder this confuses people coming from other platforms. It's...a lot.

#friendica