New news blog post: "Why Metadata Enrichment Matters for the Public Knowledge Project" by PKP Scientific Director and Collaborative Metadata Enrichment Taskforce (COMET) Co-Organizer Juan Pablo Alperin @juancommander
Learn how and why PKP is deeply involved in efforts, such as COMET, to improve the completeness and accuracy of metadata:
https://pkp.sfu.ca/2025/07/11/metadata-enrichment-initiative/
I like this idea for a #LettersToTheEditor #preprint server.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12109-025-10022-y
"Such a preprint server would offer three major benefits…: format-free ease of swift communication, increased author visibility and accountability, and avoiding the homelessness of unpublished [letters]."
PS: I've sent letters to journals that had policies not to publish them, but without saying so anywhere. Once I sent a letter to a new journal that had never received or published one and needed time to think about it. Right now #SocialMedia takes up this slack and does a pretty good job. But posting letters as preprints would give authors more space, prevent even published letters from languishing behind #paywalls, and offer better opportunities for #PIDs, #metadata, and #discoverability.
Easier community discovery - PieFed knows all the communities already
Under `Settings > Public Profile > Privacy and reach` there are a few opt-in settings that determine whether your account is discoverable (first option under "Reach") and whether your posts show up in search results (first option under "Search").
Mastodon search is pretty weak most of the time, and I'm wondering if that's because most people have search indexing.
Do you have yours turned on?
Please #boost for reach!
As the OGC API - Records Candidate Standard enters the voting period, you can learn more about this flexible specification at: https://records.developer.ogc.org/ #OGCAPI #standards #catalog #metadata #discoverability #stac
Update. Also see:
* NIH Plan to Increase Findability and Transparency of Research Results Through the Use of Metadata and Persistent Identifiers
https://osp.od.nih.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Metadata_PIDs.12.16.2024_PDF.pdf
* NIH Issues New Policy to Speed Access to Agency-Funded Research Results
https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/nih-issues-new-policy-speed-access-agency-funded-research-results
* Introducing the New NIH Public Access Policy
https://osp.od.nih.gov/introducing-the-new-nih-public-access-policy/
h/t #GaryPrice
You may consider hosting your social data out of the USA or Canada.
Here is a search tool of Mastodon instances that filters on country:
https://mastodon.fediverse.observer/list 
How to find conversations here?
- choose a keyword that stands for an area of interest - for example "joy" or "emissions" or "whiteness"
- look for it from the top box or click: #joy #emissions #whiteness
Happy #OpenAccessWeek 2024! 
As an #openscience #journal, we wish to remind #scientists that their work is much more than what goes into traditional #research #papers; deserves immediate visibility, #discoverability & shall be recognised for its #societal valued & #impact!
More about the background of our rationale and background on the #Pensoft blog: https://blog.pensoft.net/2021/05/18/rio-journal-5-years-on-over-300-published-outcomes-from-all-around-the-research-cycle/
you know what mastodon desperately needs? LISTS. there should be a system where you can make lists of people and then follow/block a whole list at a time.
right now there's a problem where I want to be in a bunch of cool local feeds but I don't want to make a ton of duplicate accounts. if those worked like lists instead this would be a non-issue.
Something I would love to see on the #fediverse: That people could curate lists of hashtags and people to #follow that you could browse and follow people through without having to switch instance, copy addresses and put that in your search bar back at your own instance. Surfing the fediverse is not really like surfing, it's more like going to catch fish on the sea, but the kind of fish you need to bring home before you can eat them (yeah super bad metaphor, you get the point) #discoverability
Several rounds of updates later over the past few days (also in part thanks to some of the feedback received — thank you!), a new version of the thi.ng browser tool is up:
https://demo.thi.ng/umbrella/thing-browser/
New features include:
- additional per-project/example links to API docs, live demos, source code
- for each tag only the top 10 related tags are shown now to avoid (well, minimize) cognitive overload
- dozens of tags have been pruned/merged/replaced (across dozens of package.json files, an ongoing process for the near future...)
- glossary/reference link additions
- CSS updates
Since this entire tool is also entirely made with https://thi.ng/umbrella packages, some of these features (e.g. the related tag ranking/sorting) has been implemented & simplified via new additions to the https://thi.ng/transducers package (e.g. the new `sortedFrequencies()` reducer function, just released). Please see the main repo readme (section: "Latest updates") for more...
This past week I've been doing _a lot_ of work on a new "thi.ng browser" tool (and the associated metadata) to help people exploring the thi.ng universe via a tree-based user interface of tags/keywords (current selection is 750 tags with only ~375 of 500+ projects in total).
https://demo.thi.ng/umbrella/thing-browser/
Each tag shown is a potential entry route. By unfolding nested levels of the tag tree, each branch is creating increasingly narrower tag intersections to filter the list of available packages & examples. At each level, a list of related tags will be shown. Some tags/acronyms have associated glossary entries for further reading (incl. on Wikipedia). Nested tags can be promoted as new main search term (via "open as root"), which might increase the result set again. You can use the fuzzy search input to pre-filter the initial list of tags you're interested in... or use the list of initials as a kinda book index.
All this is work in progress! There're no easy or linear ways to consolidate and update the metadata of all these projects, manually assign screenshots/thumbnails, deduplicate language/tags etc. I've already been doing dozens of passes semi-automating keyword updates, but I'm guessing I'm only 1/3rd done... But, I'm already _very_ happy about how this is turning out and hope it will be useful to others as well! For any ideas/feedback[1], please reply here or use the GH discussions...
Eventually, I want to include additional levels & information both on the topic/tagging side (e.g. start with a smaller number of use case "macro"-tags) and on the project end (i.e. to unfold projects and their resources/assets)..
New or existing users might also find the source code of this tool interesting. No docs/comments added yet, but hoping to address these over the next week!
[1] ...as always, highly appreciated!
What's your preferred way of discovering new accounts or hashtags to follow in the #fediverse? I struggle a bit with this for two reasons. I'm looking at an interesting account and am curious who they're following. I can't see that from my own server. I have to click into their server, look through those accounts and then copy/paste their handle into (in a different window) my search bar back at my own server. Are there any other ways with less friction? #discoverability
"Why publishers are preparing to federate their sites"
https://digiday.com/media/why-publishers-are-preparing-to-federate-their-sites/
PS: When will #AcademicPublishers start to do this? For them, it would be all gain, no loss, whether or not their works were #OpenAccess.
I might not follow a #publisher, since too many of its works would fall outside my areas of interest. But I would definitely follow #journals and #book series. I'd also follow #tags.
I think https://streetpass.social/ mastodon extension is a must have for all users of Mastodon. Such a nice way to know about all the amazing folks who create content that you are reading. Thanks @tvler for creating it
Hey I've just realised there's a thing I do that others might benefit from.
If I see a post from someone on a server that sounds cool - I fire up a web browser and go to [cool.server]/public/local to see if there are other cool people on that server that I might want to follow.
Doing #this with your #hashtags does not #aid in #discoverability because #nobody is #looking for a #hashtag about "#looking". It simply #makes your #post look #ugly as #shit for #nogoodreason. Put your #tags at the #end of the #post. They will be #condensed by most #fedi software worth its #salt and will be #outoftheway and #unobtrusive. It also doesn't #look #like you're trying to #drum up #fakeengagement.
For those new to #Mastodon / the #Fediverse or those looking to get more out of this awesome network, here are some tips for getting started, general advice, and links to a ton of related resources. This “Starter Pack" also features a ton of awesome #infosec / #cybersecurity follow recommendations.
https://shellsharks.com/notes/2023/10/20/infosec-mastodon-starter-pack
Let me know your own tips/tricks and please share out / boost if you find these useful!
As I scroll through my feed seeing the same old faces (love y'all) I've come to the realisation that my subscribed hashtags are doing very little.
Guess that's a "running my own" instance thing. 
I've got relays, but those seem to be mostly made up of other small instances. relay.fedi.buzz could have helped but doesn't seem to add anything new.
#Discoverability seems hard work if you're not on a big instance. My posts feed up, others don't feed down all that much.
