tags and interests

[frandroid]

I just had an epiphany. "interests" on DW profiles should not inhabit a semantic universe different than "tags". "interests" should be tags as well, as part of the tag system. So you could decide to search for messages about "anarchism", both about the topic, and also messages from people who have shown interest in anarchism. Well I guess you don't even need to merge the tag systems for that, you should be able to get a reading page of posts by people interested in anarchism, even if it's not explicitly about anarchism. It's a bit of mf'er of a database JOIN instruction, but still... :P

Comments

[sabotabby]

Do I want DW to be more discoverable tho?

[altamira16]

Both of you make really great points.

[frandroid]

I don't know, I have 4 active friends here, I would like to have more...

[sabotabby]

I hate to say it but the best way is to join one of those friend-zies.

[frandroid]

ugh. :)

[ioplokon]

ehhhhhhh, not sure I would want to have all my public posts pulled into some feed because I'm interested in "music" or "movies". Some of that's probably just because currently I don't use interests like tags because... they don't function that way (eg: some of my interests are things I like reading about, but don't post about that much).

Idk, I also think there's something valuable about having a distinction between finding people and finding topics. DW's one of the only places where I feel like I still make friends vs just gaining followers.

[frandroid]

I mean if you were pulled in on "music", you would be a drop in an ocean of posts...

[ioplokon]

Is dw that active? :p

But yeah, idk I'd still rather have people engage with me bc they want to talk to me specifically or bc they are interested in the specific topic of a post I made than randomly see a post because they are interested in an interest of mine (that I don't post about). Mostly, as I said, it would change how I used Interests in light of that new function.

Honestly I think the big thing we are feeling is the death of communities, where you could meet new people based on an interest + there was some off topic posting. But reviving that is a losing battle, so I don't think that's a viable solution either.

If you want something that works for you right now, I believe you can view other people's reading pages and public filters? So making a filter like anarchy or something would create an equivalent. You would just have to subscribe to all the people you wanted to include.

[frandroid]

We all have a network page of FOAFs, and I don't think many people are "exposed"...
https://ioplokon.dreamwidth.org/network
https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=234&q=network&lang=

But meh.

[ioplokon]

Right, but that's still person-centered vs object-of-interest centered? Idk maybe it's a silly objection. The main thing is I'd probably feel like I have to change my interests to reflect things I actually post about if your system were in place (vs rn where it's kind of a mix of that + things I'd like to read about/people I'd like to talk w/ - which actually works a bit better for discovery? Like I've had several people message me to add from interests)