Comment by ProblemFactory | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ProblemFactory | Hacker News Reader

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> If you have a page, Facebook wants to milk you, so they've got this weird algorithm that pushes your posts to only a small fraction of the page's followers, expecting you to start "promoting" them.

While this does enable Facebook to force brands to buy advertising, it is also an user-friendly change.

Nobody who I have spoken to about this thinks that "like/follow" = "I want to see everything they post" on Facebook. People like restaurants they had a nice dinner at and want to publish their support, it doesn't mean they want to see the daily special every day. Even if they "follow" you, it doesn't mean it should show up before a friend's holiday pictures today, and tomorrow there is already new content.

The reality is that most facebook users do not care about the posts from pages they like/follow, even if they pressed the button some time ago. An automated filter that keeps these posts from showing up is good for the user experience.

It's the same as "facebook friends" - they aren't real friends, just people you met once at a party in college. It might be interesting to see a post from them once in 10 years when they get married or move to a new country, but not their daily life. The same applies for brand pages - a like should give you once in 10 years access to their feed, but not more.

I wasn't aware that facebook does partial publishing/pushing from Pages.

I'm co-admin for an org's official Page (and Group). Our bylaws require advance announcement of various things, like meetings and resolutions. We've been using our official Page just like our mail listserv, assuming all our subscribers are getting all of our announcements.

Frankly, this sucks. Minimally, it violates the UX design principle of least astonishment.

> We've been using our official Page just like our mail listserv, assuming all our subscribers are getting all of our announcements.

They will get it if they access your page directly, or subscribe to notifications from your page. It's the same with a personal profile, I believe — not everyone will receive your posts on their news feed unless you've interacted with them a fair bit.

I'm afraid you need to use email for that, unless people have starred your page they will not be getting all your announcements.

I would be pretty annoyed if I was part of an organization that required me to be keeping up to date on Facebook posts, that used it as the only way to know what's going on. You should definitely have a mailing list people can sign up to. Facebook is not really an appropriate medium for that kind of thing.

I know better than The Algorithm whether I want to see every post or not. But I'm not allowed to decide that because The Algorithm isn't there to serve me it's there to serve Facebook.

You can decide that whenever you want, just change your follow settings for the page to 'See First' from 'Following'.

I followed specifically to be informed of events. It was quite infuriating when they changed algorithm and I missed them. If I get notices from pages/groups I dont care about anymore, I either unfollow or mute the next time their post annoys me.

Quite a few friends were following pages for the same reason.

> If I get notices from pages/groups I dont care about anymore, I either unfollow or mute the next time their post annoys me.

I do that as well, but I think it's extremely rare among Facebook users. Everyone else I know either:

* Puts up grudgingly with "spam" they no longer want to see, or eventually

* Complains "Facebook is full of crap these days, I'm deleting my account".

A filter algorithm is a much better experience than manual unsubscribe for most users. With how easy it is to "like" anything you see on Facebook and the rest of the web, it is almost necessary to assume that subscriptions should "expire" unless the user keeps actively interacting with the page.

What I want to read is stuff my friends have taken the trouble to type in, all of it whatever the topic. I don't want to read whatever random crap on the web they are reading or what ever. Original user generated content made Facebook and the inability to find my friends' generated content is what makes it not worth reading. I have about 1B ways to get hot memes and trending internet topics. I have relatively few ways to see how all the people in the various corners of my life are doing.

Pretty much this. I see what a couple of people liked on facebook constantly,but I do not see things people I care about wrote nor get information about events I follow groups for.

Current version od algorithm is not working.

A few years ago I had to manually add a few specific people to my "close friends" list because Facebook decided to stop showing me their posts completely. One of the people was the best man at my wedding, another was my wife. You know, just the two people I care about most in the world. Just completely stopped showing me their posts, but I would see a ton of stuff from my wife's cousin that I'd never liked or commented on. So now I get a notification every time they post something so I can have a chance to see it.

I like Facebook's utility but man their algorithm sucks.

Well "like" and "follow" should be different things. I follow users on instagram/strava because I want to see what they do. I like the content they post when... well, when it pleases me, or I want it to get some more attention. I deleted my facebook account after nearly 10 years with the service, but I hated the decision they made to show content from pages you've liked (often inadvertently when you meant to like a post rather than the page). I fought against facebook for the last few months as I kept "unliking" every page/profile I had ever liked, but it was hard to keep that clean.

They have changed this recently with respect to pages, so you can follow a page without liking it and vice-versa. However, the default still seems to be that like = follow. It takes additional action to decouple them.

I did this thinking that I don't want to share semi-private pictures of family with strangers, or to spam my family and friends with programming stuff.

Do you know there are friend groups you can use to eliminate that problem? "Family and school," "Programmery Peeps," if you post using either of those groups for visibility then it seems like the issue is moot.

Most people don't use them. It is too hard (10 extra seconds is too hard). Facebook is good at figuring out from the pattern of likes who else will be interested in seeing something. It is only when you have an important announcement that they screw up.

That's the thing: other people don't have to use them, but if you do, then you can segregate your posts the same way you would with an alt account.

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