A few weeks ago, we started noticing a number of applications on pixelfed.ca, where the user would say that they needed to register for a course. I don’t have full confirmation, but I’m fairly certain that this is a legitimate wave of signups from students at a Canadian university.

I’m sharing this post for a few reasons:

1. I thought it was neat

Personally, I’m excited that people are trying out Pixelfed and using it in coursework like this. If you are one of the students, now seeing this post, welcome! :) I hope that the project goes well, and that you have a pleasant experience on the platform. Feel free to share any and all feedback.

2. Some of the posts may look like spam at first

You might be seeing similar looking posts from different accounts on your feed. My guess is that the course has specific requirements and example templates. However, there’s also plenty of real content (ex. artwork, photography, etc.), so I don’t think it’s going to be disruptive

3. Please report anything that seems off

As always, you can report inappropriate content through the UI. For urgent issues, please email us at support@pixelfed.ca. You can also DM admin@lemmy.ca as there is overlap with our Pixelfed and Lemmy team members.

This is a common support question that we get. It’s great that our platforms let users customize their feed to the extent that they can, but all this customizability can lead to confusion. Content can be hidden based on

• domain blocks
• instance, community, or user blocks
• language settings
• "seen" post settings
• bot post settings
• hidden post settings

Instead of reducing the customizability, I think we can fix this by fixing visibility. A little optional UI counter, enabled by default, could let users see if some content is being filtered out and narrow down which filter is causing it.

What are the technical challenges to something like this? I imagine it would need updates to the APIs to expose that information