Mastodon, a decentralized and open social platform with more than 8 million registered users and close to 700,000 people active each month, is preparing to launch a new feature called “Packs.” This addition is intended to help newcomers more easily find curated groups of users to follow.
This concept is reminiscent of a feature that Bluesky, another open social network, rolled out last year.
Starter packs are meant to solve the challenge of joining a new social network, where new users often don’t know whom to follow or where to find content that interests them.
Bluesky addressed this issue by introducing Starter Packs, which allow regular users to assemble lists of recommended accounts. At present, you can discover Starter Packs that focus on almost any subject, as well as those highlighting leading users or providing other types of suggestions.
The feature proved so successful that Meta added a similar option to Instagram Threads, its alternative to X, late last year.
Mastodon has now announced plans to implement a comparable feature, but with some notable distinctions.
Mastodon emphasizes that individuals should have the choice to decide whether they appear in Packs. The platform proposes to make Packs an extension of its current account discovery tools. To opt out of Packs, users would simply turn off the “Feature profile and posts in discoverability algorithms” setting.
Additionally, users will receive notifications when they are added to a Pack. On Bluesky, users who want to be excluded from a Starter Pack must either report the pack or block its creator. Mastodon intends to provide a more straightforward way for users to remove themselves from Packs, similar to the process for removing posts from the new Quote Posts feature.
Mastodon gGmbH, the nonprofit behind the Mastodon platform, is working together with other developers in the fediverse on a Fediverse Enhancement Proposal (FEP), which is now available on GitHub. The first version of Packs and other onboarding updates are expected to be included in Mastodon version 4.6. (The current version is 4.4.5.)
