@aldersprig Really? I thought they'd be more stealthy than that. A lot to learn, obviously.-)

@aldersprig @arjaybe

The followbots are simply a mean to help federation. The are not evil... Except if they are called Suna Snatas!

@Katharsisdrill @aldersprig Do they help federation by just increasing followers?

@arjaybe A good bot is like RSS subscriber to public profiles tooting goodness
from admins pov, a small instance can't build wout:
1—no direct link to users across the Fediverse that POST bc the federated timeline would be empty
2—users posting publicly to fill the local timeline
3—confluence of 1 & 2 + @s, likes, boosts fill home & the Fediverse

like email inbox, an instance would be empty if no one knows your @, @ you or replies with a like/boost.

@aldersprig

@arjaybe They seem to be very straightforward. Here’s a selection from my block list.
https://tootplanet.space/media/8veoB6Kbem_QchWKyRk

@aldersprig Are they meant to randomly follow people?

@arjaybe They follow people to increase an instances’ federated list, as I understand it.

@aldersprig Okay, this is my first real experience with social media. I guess it's considered a good thing to "pad" the numbers? Or, there must be some benign reason for it.

@arjaybe I think @Katharsisdrill probably knows more about this than I do, but it’s something like, because o… there we go. Thanks, @Katharsisdrill

@arjaybe @aldersprig

:) Took me five years on Diaspora to understand.

@Katharsisdrill @aldersprig I've been on diaspora for a while too, and I still don't understand it.-)

@arjaybe I was on diaspora for a bit, but I found that I didn’t like the culture there.

@aldersprig I never found anything distasteful about the culture on diaspora. Or did you mean just not interesting?

@arjaybe I found the strangers that talked to me were .. if not rude, immensely condescending. Not really the culture I want to immerse myself in. Here, at least, almost everyone in our instance was already my friend. :-D

@arjaybe (It’s a small planet but i like it)

@aldersprig I guess I worked so hard at making sure I didn't have too much to read on diaspora that I avoided too many rude people.

There's a lot to be said for small parties.

@arjaybe @aldersprig

Your posts (Toots) are only visible on another instance if someone on that instance follows you.

So some of the admins have bots to follow users on other instances to have more profiles available in the federated feed. You don't have to follow them, and you can block them, but all they do is making you visible on other instances.

@Katharsisdrill @aldersprig To recap: follow bots are there to increase cross-instance communication. (?)

@aldersprig @arjaybe - Yes, they simply make contacts between instances. How they choose to follow depends on the program behind and is only known to the maker.

@Katharsisdrill @aldersprig Gotcha.

@arjaybe @aldersprig

I moved my family to Diaspora, so it is like a closed forum. But I also have other profiles. One for my art and one for talking to anonymised strangers :)

I found both Facebook and Diaspora hard in the beginning (I left Facebook and opened an account on Diaspora).. But I have gotten used to, and somehow know people whose names are YA or Zonked or Gargamello. Strange really that I don't need more than an imaginary name and an esoteric icon.

@Katharsisdrill @aldersprig Hey, that's an idea: using diaspora as a communication medium for a select group of people. My mental image of social media has always been wider and more open-ended.

@aldersprig @arjaybe

I use it as both. Just connect with a small group of people and never post public - then you can have your discussions, family photos etc. in peace.