Hello all,
Wanted to open a discussion on Lemmy’s post sorting options right now. I don’t have any experience with implementing this type of thing but right now the algorithm appears… Off? For example, ‘Active’ gives me a lot of posts over a day old but ‘Hot’ may as well be ‘New’ i.e. more recent posts with little engagement.
I don’t know if it’s due to Lemmy still picking up steam or a fundamental flaw with the algorithm. Like I said, I’m really curious to hear the opinions of those more knowledgeable.
So I think it’s just growing pains of the software still being at a pretty early stage; I agree it’s not ideal right now but I’m fairly confident it’ll get worked out. That said, there’s one option that I’d really like that may not be in the works: I’d like the ability for posts I’ve seen to get bumped way down in the ranks, so when I refresh the front page it’s mostly new stuff. Mostly the reason people go next -> next -> next is from wanting more stuff; it’d be nice if we could cut out the middleman and just show them new stuff.
The “Top Day” sorting option does this, but posts fall off a cliff rather than falling off gradually. My understanding is that they’ll remain on the page from hour 0 to hour 23, but then completely disappear starting in hour 24.
Instead of that, it would be ideal to implement a mathematical formula that pushes pages higher into the rankings with every upvote, comment, or view it gets, but pushes posts lower in the rankings with every additional hour passed. You have to tweak the specific parameters of that formula to get it right, but it essentially forces posts off the page after enough time has passed, while introducing new posts to replace the old. Unlike the “Top Day” sort where things are a step function, the idea with this is to make it gradual so that a popular post falls from #1 overall down to #2, then #3, etc. over the course of a day.