It was asked a couple of months ago, but given the AI enshittification, it seems a good time to ask again.
I looked around and found:
- Pinetta is/was in development but seems dead with only an alpha release. I am chasing this up on Matrix. edit: Apparently still, technically, active although progress has been slow
- Pinry is a FOSS alternative, but not federated, that seems dormant. However, it works and is in Python, so someone could bolt an AP server to it, he says airily.
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How does one use Pinterest? I never got it
You look for a images
You get recomanded other similar images (thus engaging to a pleasant, but dangerous endless scrolling)
You can pin you images on “boards” (for instance I have one for fashion, illustration, etc)
There’s probably a workaround to make something similar available online, but I didn’t look info it do far
Similar? No no no. That’s a shit algorithm.
Let me give you an example. I search for leftist content. I somehow get served a British guy who does floor refinishing. It’s fantastic. I also get people doing skits about working in a restaurant.
A good algorithm follows patterns in people’s preferences, not patterns in the content.
You simply don’t get the usecase. I don’t want Pinterest to show me stuff that I’m into. I want it to show me similar pictures to build coherant yet creative moodboards.
I use(d) Pinterest to collect fan-dom stuff and wallpapers. Each board for a movie, series, anime or game.
Nowadays I just search for a wallpaper and hope it isn’t AI, download it and leave the platform again. There’s no use on actually using the platform for what its intended (pinning, saving and sharing). Almost anything you do gets flagged by their AI bot for “inappropriate, adult or violence”.
I mean, they flagged a plant as “adult” content and smiling Luffy face as “violence”. Oh I forgot, their platform is just one giant advertisement crap now. 3/4 of the screen will be taken up by a video/gif of an advertisement.
Well Luffy is against corrupt government so anyone, even a fictional character would be violence to the corrupt government.
I use it heavily for images for TTRPGs. As a GM, I grab images of Monsters, NPC’s, background images, maps. For the Star Wars RPGs, ships, NPCs, deckplans. I use TokenStamp to create the map tokens of those NPCs I found… It is a great resource fot that kind of thing. I think I have “saved” over 2000 images for use in games.
So it’s like image storage? Or bookmark storage? What happens on the website you’ve pinned changes?
I’ve used mostly for Art references when I’m drawing because the image search is mostly accurate for my needs, but now it is filled with Ai slop without a clear way to filter content, so it has became unusable for the past 3 years or so.
I use it to find inspiration for projects where I only have a rough idea of what I would like to build/make. Usually it’s enough to create a new board, enter a vague search term, add some things that seem fitting to your vague idea and then Pinterest does a really good job in suggesting things similar to the results you already added. It narrows down the search results by what you save.
Ahhh, it a good image recommendation algorithm? That might be why I never got what to do with it. I just saved things I found, I didn’t search for new.
RIGHT?!?! It just looks like another Imgur to me
If you find one, keep up updated! It’s one of the things where you really need a critical mass already for it to be useful so it’s hard to kick off.
Apparently, Pinetta is still active. There is an alpha release but it seems like the devs were struggling with time limitations and getting the AP protocol right. It is in Python if anyone wants to take a look.
If it integrates with the fediverse, it can be promoted on other platforms and doesn’t need critical mass.
That’s the advantage. All the platforms are trying to synergize, not steal from each other like the corporate apps.
Idk about you but I use pinterest to find inspo for all kinds of things. For that to work, the posts need extensive hashtagging/indexing that goes beyond the occasional hashtag on Mastodon I think. In Pinterest, I really want their Algorithm to find the stuff I don’t know yet I’m looking for. If that kind of search existed, we wouldn’t need a specific Pinterest clone I guess - maybe a topic-board thing on Pixelfed would be enough if the indexing would be sufficient.
Open source serving algorithms exist. They have the benefit of being customizable, not purely engagement driven.
As for tagging, I think Ao3’s system is exemplary: https://fanlore.org/wiki/AO3_Tagging_System
That sounds good! If Pixelfed or similar implemented that, it could be sufficient. A new fedi service starting from scratch would lack the existing pool of resources since federation only happens when a post gets posted/boosted but after some time it could actually be useful.
What exactly are the significant features of Pinterest? I am not very familiar with it.
I never understood pinterest. I think a different interface for https://mastodon.art/ should get you most of the way there. Maybe @curator@mastodon.art has a suggestion.
Yes, there may be existing options - PieFed has an image view and I suspect the *key forks could be made to do something similar.
I have been searching for one, for a year or two. Ever since they keep removing pins for the most mundane things or literal no actual reason.
Still what makes you think that an alternative isn’t going to get flooded with AI too? That ship has sank already.
