This is a pretty meta share, but as this community is using the lemmy software I think it helps fight the possibility of misinformation or disinformation by sharing a direct link to how the ranking algorithm works with the lemmy software.
There is a loss of precision here when we talk about algorithms that I think is actually pretty dangerous so it helps to be precise and know what we are talking about on the platform we are using!
Crucially, because everybody can always access a view of the full feed, these types of algorithms become simple quality of life tools, not arbiters of invisible censorship, it is fine to have as part of a social media's documentation an explanation like this about algorithms that can attempt to apply general filters to the feed to balance things, if we lump this in with what we mean when we talk about "social media algorithms" it damages the conversation and distracts from what we mean we talk about genuinely problematic manipulation and predatory design in corporate social media algorithms...
...or being caught specifically censoring specific types of political communities as a default for the software and not making that obvious like piefed and the piefed app did....see links below
Anyways this is a good read and will probably clarify a couple of things about how the hot and active feeds work and how comments are integrated into the algorithm based on whether they are very early comments vs. comments that come much later.
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/68952255
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/68749741
10 Comments
LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 1d
I would like to see more alternative algorithms. Maybe through frontends? Not sure. But I think Lemmy's algo is pretty bad still. I regularly see posts with tons of downvotes. Why show these? It must be something to do with how it boosts new posts.
supersquirrel@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 1d
Yes and this is a big reason for me making this post, it feels like the conversation about "algorithms" gets obliterated into this extremist conversation about whether communities should inherently be authoritarian or not to some degree when there is a much more pertinent, practical and interesting question.... "What are simple, transparent OPTIONAL algorithms we can apply to feeds to make them in some qualitative subjective way better?"
::: spoiler longer thought
Why not have a "Newness Slider" where you can adjust your feed to emphasize new content over content you have already seen, so that you can organically tweak your feed progressively towards just being a feed of All sorted by New once you have gone through all of your recent subscribed and local feed posts.
I am also fascinated by questions about how the really cool histories of posts over time housing conversations about things people cared about can be interacted with at a much later date, this isn't corporate social media, newness really isn't that important.
What about a feed of the most perennial posts/threads that emphasizes posts/conversations people have routinely returned to? In web forum culture it was always bad to "necro" a dead post, but why do we have to assume that same limitation of vision here especially if we are talking about OPTIONAL and TRANSPARENT algorithms?
What are ways we can make digital expressions of ourselves be in a little way.. more timeless? or perhaps to make it less flowery, make digital expressions of us more spontaneous with respect to future users of those digital spaces?
I want to emphasize again that I am suggesting simple, transparent and as "unbiased" as possible sorting algorithms and features.
In a way the simplest implementation of the kind of algorithm I am talking about would just be a button at the bottom of your feed next to "next page" that said "skip to random date" which would skip to a feed of posts from a random time within some default window say ~3 weeks.
Another type of algorithm I would be interested in would be an algorithm that attempts to help you "hear from all of your subscriptions" while being minimally distorting. It could take a list of your subscriptions and present a filtered view of your subscriptions feed where you see a normal All view of posts from Subscribed Communities but the algorithm only allows any single Community to put ~20 posts in your feed before it begins to artificially elevate posts from Communities you haven't seen yet within a viewing session. Think of it as the algorithm forcing your feed to show posts from every Community/account you follow while still attempting to present a chronological feed of everything when possible...so that you go through a feed of all the accounts you follow like a "ring".
:::
alapakala@quokk.au · 2 pts · 1d
Well, for one thing, actual literacy.
Folks to this very day, abuse the rank system to say “I do [not] like this” instead of “[un]worth reading.” If the majority comprehended this, they would write posts appropriately. Lemmy doesn't have writing ranks, so lemmy still get spam posts, kindergarten prose, and outright gibberish.
Social problems aren't solved technologically.
This is why in my profile, I have a 21+years of age DNI, because I do not want to deal with minors that have no ounce of separation of artist from writing. I can write extremely satirical to issues I hate. That doesn't mean I endorse what I satirize. 2nd grade readers need to mature their concepts of irony in order to learn to separate writing something online doesn't necessarily mean an author agrees.
Considering threadiverse software has no read+writing level filtering, and you have a skewed ranking algorithm. Generation alpha joining our gen X in dialects so far distant they cannot comprehend their edgy proses, with boomers being the majority of rankers, at whatever literacy + writing they found this network.
This is mostly a feed network. So it should behave in interests to favorability, not sycophancy/demagoguery algos.
supersquirrel@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 17h
You are talking past me responding to something I didn't really say and if anything it underlines my point.
alapakala@quokk.au · 1 pts · 16h
How do you program for interests and favorability, that dissuades sycophancy & demagoguery?
supersquirrel@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 16h
I am literally talking about extremely simple algorithms, like an algorithm that makes sure you see posts from all your subscribed communities...
I am not talking about some kind of complex opaque algorithm here.
alapakala@quokk.au · 0 pts · 16h
I personally «Sort by New» on my «Subscribed» communities. I am unsure if you mean more aggregation of content your communities do not provide, or if lemmy ranking should even be a variable.
I am saying, lemmy ranking is sycophantic & demagoguery. It doesn't
Literacy does, not technology.
supersquirrel@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 16h
Literacy is itself, among other things, a set of technologies?