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Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

Still not recommendation system instead of just chronological posts which makes it really impractical to browse when you follow more than 10 people. This is really where Mastodon could shine with open algorithms an end user could choose from instead of proprietary ones like Twitter and al.

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Chronological home feed is our selling point. You can also opt-in to notifications when specific accounts post if you don't want to miss them (bell button on profiles). Finally, you can also split your home feed into lists. However, nothing precludes someone from developing a client that reorganizes your home feed somehow.

> Chronological home feed is our selling point.

It does not have to be "this and nothing else". The main complaint people have with Twitter is censorship and algorithmic curation without transparency. Mastodon solves the first problem with decentralization, and it could just as well fix the second problem with a market for algorithms to apply to your own feeds. And you could still keep the default chronological timeline for those who wish to keep using it this way. Adding more features does not kill your product, it just makes it more flexible for more use cases.

I don't think I've ever seen a good recommendation system in practice (that is, having the properties of not accidentally hiding content I'd like to see AND maintaining the same level of reliability over time as my interests change), and I would imagine at least some segment of Mastodon's users would be escaping from platforms like Facebook that use them in part due to "curation exhaustion" - I would think that no recommendations is actually a very strong selling point.

People say Bytedance (Tiktok) has an excellent recommendation system, better at adjusting to interest changes than the other platforms.

Personally I always go out of my way to get the chronological view on twitter, but I have to say I am curious what an open algorithm could mean in practice...

As far as I know the experts say this is because the medium. Twitter has no idea what tweet you're eyeballing because there are 3-20 tweets on your view screen. Tiktok is very aware of what you stopped caring about, because it's no longer being viewed.

> I am curious what an open algorithm could mean in practice...

Could be a series of different algorithms to choose from, such as:

- a feed about the people you follow, ordered by the popularity of their posts among their own followers - a feed about the people you follow, focusing on people who post least often and tend to be under-represented on a typical chronological timeline. - an algorithm to suggest topics or other people to follow, based on other similar profiles to yours. - a feed to focus on newer accounts instead of established accounts...

etc. the sky is the limit. You can then imagine a UI that goes with it to switch from one algorithm to the next so that you don't waste your time scrolling down.

No. I don't want curated shit or suggestions. I want my friends, as in the people I know, and the shit they say unweighted by a partial judge that i've never (and can never) meet. That's it. I don't want what an algo decides what their best of is, I just want to keep in touch with people I know. Most people I know would say the same.

I think maybe the idea is you can choose your experience based on what's best for you, if the system is built that way.

And certainly people are capable of implementing algo-based clients. Heck, have them scrape your personal web and email and whatever activity, keeping it all local.

you dont get my point at all. if you follow lots of people you will end up being drown in whoever posts the most instead of stuff that you actually want to see. if you follow 2 people sure this would never be a problem for you.

I understand you, I just disagree. Maybe a conscious selection by user for post activity would be appropriate, but the current algorithmic solutions we see on mainstream platforms are trash. The default view of your 'friend feed' should be flat and unbiased.

Personally, that's a feature.

Or a lack of features.

> chronological posts

Chronological timeline is one of the biggest advantages compared to Twitter.

And yes I do follow a number of people on there. Algorithmic timelines are the worst.

> Algorithmic timelines are the worst.

It's not because you were never exposed to a good one that good ones don't exist. And the point I was making is that you could have several algorithms to choose from every time you are logged in - to focus on specific strengths of each sorting algorithm. Instead, following the chronology favors over-representation of the ones that post the most, which sucks completely.

Sure, if a PoC for a decent and transparent approach is released I will adapt this statement. Never did I claim that it can't be done. Until then, not so much.

I'm not a big fan of the common "it could work nicely if its just done well" in a world where nobody really does it well.

If the algorithm is open, then it's easier for spammers to abuse it.

> If the algorithm is open, then it's easier for spammers to abuse it.

What are talking about? The algorithm(s) would be on user side, not the server side, and there's nothing to game if you switch algorithms as you wish.

Agreed, this will just make the abusers-vs-algorithm arms race iterate faster, while commercial social media giants watch from distance and take notes, receiving valuable research for free. :)

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