Here's a thing that makes Mastodon instances work less well than they could...
when you visit an instance, all the front pages look the same.
"About this instance" is a TINY little link under the sign-up form. This is crazy.
Instances should LEAD with a community description, not bury it.
That's like a newsgroup leading with the OS it used to run the newsgroup rather than saying: "This is a Kenny G community"

So here is a weird thing that I just realized...

Mastodon does not show you a number with a post to indicate how much reach it has had.
I suppose with federation this would never be complete, but it is still strange.

I wrote this post that went a bit viral, but I have no clue how viral beyond like sitting and counting notifications...

Is that a feature? I am not 100 pct sure it feels like a feature to me.

Is this a confession? I loved hits on Twitter.

Maybe too much?

@BradyDale if you expand the post details, it will show you number of (local) favs/boosts. but I agree, it's a weird combo of low bar for engagement (bc there aren't many users) and limited ability to quantify engagement.