I understand the problem with Mastodon and not seeing things if you're not online when they post, but I missed WAY more things on twitter from people I was following, and that was with an algorithm.
I'm not against algorithmic feeds, but the reality is I can't see everything I want to see that's posted unless I'm on here 24 hours a day, and still probably not then.
Did you read the second part of the thread? Many are just seeing the first post because it is shared and not the second or any further explanation. 😉
I'm talking about user control of the existing Mastodon algorithm. Some seem surprised that there is one. Down in the replies you can see screenshots of what we admins can set and what I would like.
I thought I did, but no, I totally missed that you were talking about "Explore" there. That makes much more sense than the home feed.
Honestly I forget all about "Explore" and assume most it will show up in my home feed. I can see how it is useful for people who don't keep up much, but your idea sounds like it could be more useful for everyone.
2/ For what it is worth, I'm talking about changing or adding an option, for Mastodon's already built-in algorithm that give users control over what they see in Explore verses only admin control, as it is now.
Currently, admins like me decide what publishers, accounts, hashtags, etc show up under explore in the existing algorithm. Would be nice to be able to set that on a user by user basis.
@paul this is probably different from what you are envisioning, but the way I see it is that we need a more “offline-first” design, closer to that of email than that of the traditional social networks. This would allow each user to sort, group and highlight messages they received by whatever criteria they wish, at any time, and most importantly independently from instances and admins.
@accretionist I don't know how much you have looked under the hood, but here are the options admins currently have to influence the "Explore".
I would like a user curated timeline tab under Explore where users can add publishers, accounts they follow, and hashtags. Even if it is just 50 or 100 posts per day or changes twice per day.
@paul Hi Paul! 👋 As someone who wouldn't trade reverse chronological for anything, posts like yours always leave me a bit confused because I don't quite understand what they're asking for. If you have time to spare, maybe you can help me wrap my mind around it.
You say you're missing too much content, but if Mastodon had some kind of algorithm that arranged the posts in your feed differently, wouldn't you still be missing the same amount of content? How would an algorithm help with that issue?
@julian@paul It sounds like Paul wants - even basic - control over content organization. The question isn't "algorithm or no algorithm" - even reverse chronology is an algorithm.
An example that would resolve this issue for me (and maybe Paul) is: the ability to designate "see first" users whose posts are shown before others once, and then shown in the normal reverse-chronological ordering after being shown once.
@willbeason That sounds helpful if you feel like there are specific people you're always/often missing. But it also sounds like a list having those people would provide pretty much exactly what you're asking for (being able to see just those people's posts, and also the full feed), and @paul says lists aren't powerful enough for what he needs.
If posts you haven't seen yet were shown randomized instead of chronologically, that would solve the timezone favoritism. Would that be a useful option?
@julian@willbeason
We have algorithms on Mastodon. As admins, we control what shows up to users under Explore. Approve accts, publishers, hashtags, etc. Users should have minimum user by user-controlled, private algorithm for the same.
My wish wouldn't be randomized. One thought could be topics and accounts a user could select, maybe on a different tab in Explore, weighted from importance. This is only on the user side, like lists now.
The main timeline could remain the same, chronical.
@paul@willbeason How would posts be sorted into topics, would that happen based on hashtags? I've seen someone else ask for the ability to make a "list" of hashtags to get a combined feed for several different tags. That might be cool.
How would posts be weighed by importance? That's very tough to quantify. I think the Explore page uses a score based on existing like and boost counts, is that what you'd use as well?
@paul That's the great/terrible plus/minus when it comes to Mastodon. It's open-source so there's nothing stopping the creation of such a thing, but the barrier for entry is steep as you have to know Ruby and then get it added to whatever version of Mastodon your instance runs (or fork it and run your own).
I've never interacted with Eugen so I don't know how amenable to suggestions he is, but could always be worth pinging him to see if such a thing is on his development roadmap.
Eugen and the Mastodon team are testing more advanced algorithms on mastodon.online.
People freakout when they hear the word algorithm because of abuses by FB/Twitter/etc. Mastodon already has some. As an Admin, I can set some rules for the Explore trends.
I run something locally with python that makes a daily page summary of accounts I included but it would be nice not to have to open them, revert back to my instance, and then interact.
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