Hi,

If you’re like me, your probably seeing a lot of stuff you’ve already seen in jerboa

On Reddit this didn’t happen because the site takes into account how many times a post was printed and the more you’ve seen it, the quicker it would disappear from your version of the front page.

Now of course jerboa could and should do this, But I think there’s two opportunities to make this better than Reddit. On one part, putting the squarely in control of the content discovery algorithm, next, solicit user input and ask him to lend a hand in the social sorting algorithm that is voting.

So, a user voting sounds be a way to tell jerboa that “I’ve seen this” and it shouldn’t show it anymore on my feed. To prevent bias, the neutral vote should be added.

Next is giving the user more explicit control of the algorithm. When you vote up or down, you’re sorting for the community but also for yourself. Jerboa should take into account user’s voting pattern and recommend current based on what the user likes.

These voting patterns should be publicly exchanged in “out of band” communication. Jerboa could then use these voting patterns to further help with content discovery in the following way.

“My user likes X,Y,Z, after consulting public voting patterns, we can see that most users who like X,Y,Z often also like A,B,C and dislike I,J,K”

This is how Netflix, YouTube and other algorithms find stuff you like.

The difference is now, this runs on your computer. You can see your algorithm weights and edit them. Place extra filters on them and most important, swap , export, import algorithm sorting weights and exchange them with others users, craft them for specific usage and etc.

Plus of course, basic function like chronological view that doesn’t cheat or insert ads.

Algorithmic content discovery under user control is going to be the biggest user benefit of switching to Lemmy versus a private commercial centralized platform. Our data will finally serve us !

  • MentalEdge
    6•1 year ago

    Lemmy already supports showing/not showing seen posts.

    All we need is a quick way to toggle it on or off.

    I’m here to get away from ALL interest based algorithms, I specifically want to live in a world where it isn’t considered normal to outsource your sense of taste to software, because the better they work, the more your development as a person stagnates.

    Change comes from seeing content outside of your preferences, to have your views and interests challenged. If a person is only ever shown stuff they already want to see, they stop finding new things and growing.

    The whole point of the community>subcommunity format and the voting system is the ability to enable HUMAN self-curation. Why the heck would anyone attracted to lemmy want what you are suggesting? Reddit was already lambasted for introducing their recommended posts into the feed, which was yet another reason I hated their official app and new web interface.

    Social media should be a real reflection of humanity, not an AI enforced echo chamber to comfort each person in their unique ways, driving individuals and groups apart, instead of together.

    Any algorithms involved should be the same for all, not personalized. The actual content can be customized by what you subscribe to or block. We already have the tools we need to make social media what it should be.

    Interest based machine customization is a tool of manipulation and profit. Not equality and freedom of thought. It’s most dangerous aspect, that it can skew reality for the whole of the human race, as a it is a filter through which we view ourselves.