Bad idea of the day:
A "mastodon recommended follower" back-end that picks at random a recent-poster from the same node that has no network overlap at all (or, if that's not possible, one with as little network overlap as possible).
In other words, rather than optimizing for best match, optimize for worst match & see what happens to social interaction.
@enkiv2 I'd hate this on Twitter but if this was an opt-in on Masto with only well-moderated instances I'd actually be interested
@enkiv2 but yeah, this could be a fun "I want to follow a new person!" bot
@noiob
One way to make the bot opt-in is to have the set of suggestions be equal to the set of people following the bot. Then, it could take requests for people to follow, but also (for instance) post #ff messages on fridays.
This would be pretty straightforward but it also means that the pool of potential suggestions is both small and already listed in one place.
@noiob
Hmm...
In that case it couldn't really be a bot because everyone who knew how to opt in would have at least some social connections in common. Sort of defeats the purpose of such a bot. (Unless someone like gargamel promotes it.)
@enkiv2 I mean if it's done right, one could totally get people to promote it
@noiob
Oh, yeah. Like #nobot. I dig.
Come to think of it, this doesn't need to be a feature. A bot could do this on request.