The assumption is that centrally managed social media is bad because their algorithm is bad. But actually, they are bad because they are centrally managed and force one algorithm onto you. I’m not even advocating algorithm-by-choice. Even instance-specific algorithms would already work and would make the whole experience much more enjoyable and less boring. And if an instance’s algorithm(s) is too aggressive, it gets defederated. That would result in a much more exciting experience imo. And by the way: what’s the problem with getting old posts back in the timeline if it makes the overall conversation more interesting?
Every time a social media site has offered, pleaded, cajoled or forced me to take a non-chronological timeline, I’ve refused. And if that refusal eventually becomes impossible (no option, addons no longer work, etc), I take my eyeballs elsewhere.
You’re not an edge case. :)
No. Just no. I like being in control of my timeline. I don’t need a computer to decide what I’ll find interesting.
Exactly why I stopped using Facebook because it was damned near impossible to have a chronological timeline on the app.
I think I was trying to find out about a news event that had recently happened in our community (the community groups in Facebook are still a decent resource for local news) and getting the stupid app to show me a chronological timeline of the group was damned near impossible. I mean, I know it’s possible to do it, but it frustrated me to no end that it was turned into a more difficult process than it needed to be.
After that, I said ‘screw this place’. I know that we are all the product on Facebook, but I didn’t mind surrendering to ads and all that stuff until it became a product that stopped being useful to me.
But you aren’t anyway because the post that go into it depend on the people you follow. If you have an transparent algorithm that you like it doesn’t change anything about that. It might just be a more enyoable experience if you choose your algorithm right.
No idea why you’re getting downvoted when lemmy uses an algorithm by default.
Technically sort by top and some by new are algorithms. But that’s not what people talk about when they say algorithm with regards to social media it’s secret sauce engagement based algorithms used to show content.
The active and rising sort options are fairly simple and open source so we know exactly how it works
Probably because there exists a bit of a rift in the technical term ‘algorithm’ and how it’s commonly used in discourse. Technically it describes both:
- An open-source algorithm that assigns a simple score based on votes, score and age, where two users subscribing to the same communities will always have the same result.
- A hidden algorithm that’s based on an unknown amount of invisible variables, many of which are based on user-tracking, and tries to maximize time-spent at all costs.
While OP (hopefully) intended the former, most people immediately think of the latter when the term is used. Personally I’d like to see an implementation of the former as well, as a simple way to get up speed on the most important things that happened over night for example, before switching back to chronological timeline.
Also:
- A open, customizable algorithm that lets the user set their own priorities, and if it does any “learning” based on user actions, it’s geared toward the user’s priorities and easy for the user to see and correct what it’s learned.
Again, key factors being: open, customizable, correctable, and serving the user, not serving the platform.
Examples of this might include prioritizing mutual followers on Mastodon, or prioritizing low-traffic subscribed communities on Lemmy so that they don’t get lost in the 50 posts from the busier communities.
I just started using Mastodon. It’s been around 10 days or so. I am already having a lot of good engagement there. I guess “no algorithm” works best for me. I used to get bored of scrolling twitter or even reddit within 15 minutes or so. On Mastodon on certain days I can easily spend 45 minutes or more.
But actually, they’re bad for both reasons.
