Skip to main content


Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to Chris Trottier

but what if I choose the wrong algorithm? It would be more difficult then moving to a new neighborhood to change! /s
in reply to Chris Trottier

If this is "choosing your own algorithm", #Calckey has actually had this feature long, long ago.

We call it "Antennas" -- and you can easily build an Antenna yourself.

Here's a screenshot for Antenna creation settings.
This entry was edited (1 year ago)

Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to Chris Trottier

Is there a way to filter by language?
I can't find anything in the settings and I can't think how to do it in the antennas.
in reply to Chris Trottier

great but buggy feature... Now working the most of the time...
in reply to Chris Trottier

Is it possible to somehow prevent Antennas from searching through unlisted posts? Or to put it another way: what posts do Antennas search and what posts remain invisible to them?
in reply to Jyn Erso Lives!

As I understand them, antennas filter the Global timeline, showing only what the filter allows. By definition, unlisted notes don't appear in the global timeline, so they also won't appear in antennas.
in reply to Not a Number

A friend of mine was "caught" in an Antenna although they had their post unlisted. That’s why I was asking.
in reply to Jyn Erso Lives!

If that’s the case, it’s worth investigating why. I’m curious why an unlisted post wound up in a global feed.

Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to oldfartjmb says eh?

Posts can have several levels of public visibility.

Global - everyone on every server will see it in all feeds (global, home, threads, etc.). This is usually the default visibility.

All other settings narrow the audience.

Unlisted - visible everywhere except in the Global timeline. People often set replies as unlisted to keep from cluttering the global timeline. They are visible when reading the thread.

Followers - only visible to people who follow you.

Direct - visible to people actually mentioned in the post.

This reply is marked as Unlisted.
in reply to Chris Trottier

So I'm thinking about this in more detail, and I think the "choose your own algorithm" feature with #Bluesky is really not hard to implement, and something very doable on the #Fediverse.

What do we exactly want from an algorithm? Topics.

And we want topics sorted according to the following:

1. Hot
2. New
3. Top
4. Rising

Some people would like a "controversial" feed, but we don't have to give it to them 😉
As for "Top", we can sort it according to time parameters.

Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to Chris Trottier

though not completely opposed I would be curious how we could mitigate bad actors manipulating the algorithms?

I would imagine that Fedi services could adopt them. For example, maybe Calckey would offer algorithm whereas Misskey didn't?

I can absolutely see a benefit in allowing for some computational assistance.
in reply to Alex

Well, the way you combat bad actors is to not allow black box algorithms. Make them transparent. Basically show everyone how the sandwich is made.

My objection to algorithms isn’t that the exist. Everything in computer science has algorithms.

My objection is that Big Social dictates relevancy, and I have no say in the matter.

That said, algorithms that focus on drama and outrage should absolutely be banned even if they’re transparent.

Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to Chris Trottier

I Want none of this on Mastodon. If I want someone to tell me what I should be paying attention to, or what I should be afraid of, I'll talk to my wife, or turn on CNN or FOX news (the latter for the lulz, of course).
I enjoy being able to determine what I see here, as opposed to the crap-crammed-down-my-throat algorithms of other social media outlets.
Why WHY WHY would anyone want to turn Mastodon into Twitter?

Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to Chris Trottier

My mistake. I didn't scroll back far enough in the thread to see that you weren't talking about Mastodon.
I won't delete my previous, comment, though, because I meant what I said, there... I made the wrong assumption as to where said algorithms would be applied.
Mea Culpa.
in reply to Seeker (tm) (AI8W) ✡︎ :ally:

@admin@mastodon.ai8w.ddns.net
I'm going to double down on the question: What do you imagine people mean when they say algorithm? I think it's important for everyone to be clear about this.

We've been abusing this term for a long time now. The word is loaded, and potentially means very different things to different people.

Like, "show me a list in reverse chronological order" utilizes an algorithm every bit as much as "show me a list based on an index built from a large dimensional table of generalized user engagement metrics" is.

A lot of what people are talking about right now with regards to "algorithmic feeds" is not only closer to the former than the latter, but also tunable at the user client level. And Mastodon already has some of that, e.g. "group boosts".
@atomicpoet@calckey.social
in reply to

@kichae
Is this the part where people assume lack of knowledge, then, when the assumee shows them they do know what they're talking about, they zing over to some only tangentially related thing in order to deride and discredit?

I'll answer the question - The "black box" "feed you only what we think you should see" "algorithm" is what I was talking about.

I write code in several languages - I know that the path the code follows is called an Algorithm. That's not what I'm (cont'd)
in reply to Seeker (tm) (AI8W) ✡︎ :ally:

@admin If you want to have some sort of algo / recommendation, then just make sure that it's not on the home timeline.

Do it like the explore page. An extra column for it.

Honestly I'd like to have top posts, but only for specified instances.

Because I'm getting bored seeing the same Americans doing the same routine "Wow Elon / conservatives / NYT are nazis" every day feigning surprises.

Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to sub_o

Well, this is why #Calckey’s antennas are such a godsend—because they allow you to build an algorithm focused on topics. And you can be specific about source, date, arguments, etc.
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Chris Trottier

The biggest problem I see with this idea is Europe - since it's app-based, there is no way for anyone to know their data is being used in such a way, and without notice or consent, the EU is going to have some very negative things to day about it.
If it's not 100% "opt-in" to use (for example) data I have created, then there are some significant privacy concerns here.
Utilizing someone's data without notice or consent... that's treading a fine line.
in reply to Seeker (tm) (AI8W) ✡︎ :ally:

@admin@mastodon.ai8w.ddns.net@sub_o@mastodon.social Calckey’s antennas are actually not app-based. They’re entirely keyword based with search arguments and parameters.
in reply to Chris Trottier

Per the announcement you re-tooted, there will be analytics, which means someone is going to be compiling that data somewhere, without the consent of anyone on Mastodon or the greater Fediverse,.
This is as much a search engine as Google is, from the description and from what I've read so far.
Mastodon users are about to be indexed, categorized, and their data stored without their consent
The current hashtag search works. We don't need an external database with metrics...
in reply to Seeker (tm) (AI8W) ✡︎ :ally:

@admin@mastodon.ai8w.ddns.net@sub_o@mastodon.social Are you really not aware that *key apps have had search capabilities for years, and that *key is older than Mastodon by two years?

Literally everyone who’s aware of the Fediverse beyond Mastodon knows that indexing has been here for ages.
in reply to Chris Trottier

I think #kbin magazines are also a good example of something similar to Bluesky's lists because they seem to work like subreddits but every user can create one choosing several hashtags to follow (and maybe other conditions? Not sure about that) and other people can subscribe so it's an interesting mix.
#kbin
in reply to Chris Trottier

How would you determine "Hot", "Top", "Rising"? Mastodon, and probably other implementations, don't federate likes. That may be true for reply counts too.
in reply to Steve Bate

@Steve Bate It doesn't?

If I like a Mastodon toot on Hubzilla, my like can be seen on Mastodon. Vice versa, if someone on Mastodon likes one of my Hubzilla posts or comments, I can see it. And I'm pretty sure that all this doesn't only happen on the side of Hubzilla where ActivityPub is an optional add-on.
in reply to Jupiter Rowland

For example, one of @atomicpoet recent posts currently has 19 likes and 9 boosts. It displays as 0/0 on my instance. I've read that Mastodon doesn't federate "likes" because it would be too easy to spoof and some users don't like exposing that data outside their local instance. I'll look for a reference.
in reply to eshep

IIRC they are sent one way from the one doing the like to the one receiving it. The one receiving it does not broadcast it out to everyone else. So you can see a pretty good count for likes on your own posts and you can see your own likes on others posts but everything else is miscounted.
in reply to Gustav Lindqvist 🇸🇪

That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification. My point is that this signal can't be reliably used for timeline ranking, at least in smaller instances. I'd personally like the ability to use custom ranking based on post data like content, author, instance, and so on (could include local likes too). I'm thinking of something like a Bayesian or ANN boost/filter trained with my own historical likes and/or boosts.
in reply to eshep

From what I've seen, if you and I are not on the same instance, and we both see a post from somebody on a third instance, and we both like that post, then the following happens:
OP sees both our likes. But I don't see your like, and you don't see mine, unless we use "View on original page"

Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to Allen Very Serious Versfeld

@Allen Versfeld, hmm, hadn't noticed that. Do you see any likes on this thread from my question to here? I see only the two I just made.

Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to eshep

Nope! The only like I see is one I made on Steve's "How would you determind..." post a bit further up the thread.

Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to Allen Very Serious Versfeld

Thanks, good information to know! I don't see any likes on that post. Now I'm curious how that ""feature"" works across other softwares. I wonder if it's just another case of Mastodon not playing well with others, or this is equally shit across the board. Anyone tested this thoroughly between different AP interfaces?

Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to eshep

I could be wrong, but I seem to recall this being a design feature of Mastodon itself - the idea being that "Going Viral" is everything bad about social media, because disinformation and chasing clout and so on, so the idea is to hide a post's popularity so that people are less likely to respond to a message because of it's popularity and more likely to engage based on the content of the post itself.

Personally I think that this is just a feature of how human brains evaluate the importance of information, it's a feature of how we communicate, and that it is how ideas naturally propagate through societies and cultures. I think that social media merely amplifies this process, and did not create it from nothing, and that trying to solve all those problems by amputating it completely is a mistake that ends up neutering conversation completely... but what do I know, I'm just some random guy on the Internet *shrug*

Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to Allen Very Serious Versfeld

Good point with the "viral" garbage. I don't dislike that likes wouldn't be seen by anyone other than the two parties directly involved. It makes sense when you translate it to real life conversations. Usually, people don't advertise how many people agreed with something they said, or how many nodded their head when a good point was made during conversation. But as you said, forcing people to not do things they would prefer to otherwise, never goes as expected.

Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to Chris Trottier

I want no algorithm at all. Always show me the latest posts and boosts from my followees, and nothing else, in reverse chronological order.

For me, this place is all about what's happening now among the people I'm interested in. When I open Mastodon in the morning, and glance at it occasionally during the day, I want it to feel like walking into a party, sitting down and listening to the currently ongoing conversations, inferring what they're talking about, and jumping in.

I'm not interested in anything any of my followees said 10 hours ago, no matter how popular it is. Nor am I interested in anything they Favourited/Liked.

The single biggest thing that drew me to Mastodon from Twitter was exactly that: it's pre-algorithm Twitter, and the fact that Twitter got an algorithm is the worst thing that ever happened, and I've resented them ever since.

The last thing I want is for Mastodon to force an algorithm on me. 🙁

Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to Chris Trottier

Fair enough. My comments stand for any #fediverse-compliant network/client, though. 😀

Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to Graham Downs

@GrahamDowns@c.im Too late. *key apps have had antennas forever, and people love them.

You can't push your preferences onto the rest of the Fediverse.
in reply to Chris Trottier

I'm not. I'm just asking for a setting that allows me to keep my own preferences, and doesn't force anyone else's onto me. 😀
in reply to Chris Trottier

Interesting question. I guess because I... might use it in the future?

Or because maybe someone who shares my preference discovers the fediverse through one of those apps (just like I did with Mastodon), gets dissillusioned because it doesn't have an option to remove all algorithms from the main timeline (before they've had time to learn that there's more to the fediverse than just that app), leaves and never comes back?
in reply to Graham Downs

@GrahamDowns@c.im *key apps have existed since 2014, two years before Mastodon arrived on the scene. And they haven't affected your use of Mastodon one bit.

Rather, the entire time you've been convinced that no "algorithms" exist on the Fediverse when this is simply not the case, and hasn't been for some time.

Stick to your preferences. There's no reason to inquire about someone else's.
in reply to Chris Trottier

That's fair enough. I shouldn't've actually replied on that thread and told you my preference without being asked and without really understanding the context.

Because I don't really know much (if anything) about calckey anyway.

I apologise.

In South African English, there's this saying when someone jumps into an ongoing conversation without really understand what it's about: we say they're "picking up stompies" (a stompie is a slang term for a cigarette butt).

Apologies for picking up stompies there. I really need to work on not doing that.
in reply to Chris Trottier

I totally agree. I don't like it if there is too much choice. But at the same time I think it would be great if there would be the minimum choice to activate or deactivate some kind of standard algorithm and then, if you want to, you can modify it as much as you want if you have the time to get into how to do that.
Maybe there is something like that already here that I don't know about.
Unknown parent

in reply to Chris Trottier

reshared this

in reply to

@matthieu_xyz@Gargron@mastodon.social@fediversenews@venera.social This is a good summary, and explains everything well. My takeaway is that we can do it better with less resources and with more transparency. Antennas really are a better option.

Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to Chris Trottier

@matthieu_xyz I wrote this thread about sorting algorithmn for Mastodon 3 years ago and it got a lot of interest and replies.

https://mstdn.fr/@narF/104887310401243826

It's sad that there isn't an implementation of it yet.
in reply to narF 🎲

@matthieu_xyz Can Antennas on Calckey do what I'm describing in that thread?
in reply to narF 🎲

This is what the antenna creation UI looks like. It’s nothing like a bluesky custom feed that can detect pictures of cat with AI. But it’s much stronger than just following a hashtag.

So strong that users are even afraid of people finding their post when they thought they were relatively hidden and hard to find.
in reply to

@matthieu_xyz@atomicpoet@Gargron@mastodon.social@fediversenews@venera.social good post, I agree.

I do like the feed that just got added today on bluesky, that shows the first post of new users signing up. That might be helpful for onboarding new people, and something that fedi can probably take some inspiration from.
in reply to Chris Trottier

When I get some time, I'll be looking into implementing an algorithm that I can apply to boosts where I can apply a positive, negative, or neutral rating to boosts from particular posters and have those surface (or sink) in my timeline based on the ranking score of the booster and boostee. I'm also looking into a "seen before" filter to skip the duplicate boosts as one goes viral.

Running a server for one, so I'm not looking to apply this to others' feeds.
Unknown parent

Jeff C
Offering a set of check boxes for the most commonly-used hashtags during onboarding could help with the confusion and "goodnight Fediverse" problems.

I like the idea of a catch-up stream, especially to address some of people's concerns about engagement. Currently people compensate by periodically reposting, which has obvious drawbacks.

@atomicpoet @matthieu_xyz @Gargron @fediversenews
Unknown parent

eshep
One thing that could help lessen that confusion is the way Friendica tells you why a post appeared in your feed. When I see a post I think doesn't belong, I simply look at the icon next to the timestamp and see that it was pulled in because some idiot put a "science" tag in their crypto howto video post or someone I follow commented on it. It's an excellent little piece of information that's sadly not seen on any other platform as far as I'm aware.

Fediverse News reshared this.

in reply to Chris Trottier

What it essentially does is give a Twitter-like service Reddit-like features.

I think I’ve been saying the fediverse needs this since I got here.

Once you take away a shadowy manipulative engagement driving algorithm, and rely entirely on reverse chron and your social network, there’s a lack of structure that is socially off putting and exclusive.

Fusing Reddit like structures with an algorithm free social network can add discoverability and engagement to a social connections first platform/ecosystem.

Topic based structures help you find people, and filtering/sorting features (which I think is a better name than algorithm which clearly now connotes manipulation) help you find what everyone is talking about so you don’t feel left out, while leaving you in control.

I hope federated groups become normal and take off as a major way of interacting in the fediverse, even to the point that instances become less significant.
in reply to Chris Trottier

It sounds like false variety of choice. If you choose mutual and your followers are in hot topic posting then you will fall back to hot topics anyhow. I’ve seen that people like to create their communities and circles were they are comfortable, heard and appreciated and stay there.