If that’s what we take that phrase for, then anything goes - both mildly irritated comments and aimless rambling pieces. Moderation too.
Long-form articles rarely do that.
If you're reading an established author that you know to be interesting, maybe. For a random internet article, I want to know what it's about. I don't know why more people don't include abstracts or summaries at the start
But A/B testing proves that sort of content has the highest engagement stats! /s
(Maybe they should be measuring how often someone comes back afterwards instead)
This can be an example of how social media incentive structure can be iterated on.
The main problem is that social media gets very few iterations on the fundamental stuff because you have to build a new audience for each attempt, or risk loosing the one that has already bought into your existing algorithm.
What if a social media platform could be built where "the algorithms" were user created plug-ins that users could subscribe to? Each "subreddit" with their own set of algorithms.
With that, single-issue voters, preferably in a form of gangs, get the most power.
I like the idea of iterating on algorithms within small social media niches / segments, like subreddits. The key is that it can be opt-in this way.
But who is going to work on implementing all that, and why? Developer time costs a lot :(
If I upvote what you upvoted then your votes get more weight for me.
This incentivizes each user to upvote what they truly found useful for themselves as opposed to the current incentives of social media which makes you upvote/like the stuff you want others to see.
Details of the algorithm: https://linklonk.com/item/3292763817660940288
I think this goes too broad, like asking "what if we there was one tool that could be turned into any tool?" Well, it wouldn't really be good at any of them.
We have enough data now to understand how different social media designs affect behavior, we should be able to propose changes to disincentivize certain ones. For example, reputation systems tilt towards well-mannered behavior. It's not perfect, but it's about nudges and pokes to subtly shape culture.
One of the most egregious offenders is still Facebook, whose comment and reply system actively boosts toxic content since the platform is only capable of measuring "engagement." Tons of angry reacts? Straight to the top! And the lack of proper comment threading means that everyone just kind of yells in each other's general direction, with no way to follow anyone's conversation.
That's called Slashdot.
I think you get it. The nature of the medium itself changes people, not just the sort of content that is being delivered through that medium. TV puts people into couch potato trances. Karma-oriented commenting systems have people alter their beliefs to align with the popular majority. Anonymous commenting systems have people act bolder and ruder, etc.
Social media and a real public square are completely different. A social media post is never going to be the same as public speaking in front of large groups of people. The latter acts as a huge filter on who is going to speak. The village idiot would be filtered out from tending to not want to be shown to be the village idiot in front of the crowd.
That to me is why social media is exactly doomed to fail. It is exactly giving voice to the village idiot who would be filtered out otherwise. To have large scale intelligent discussion most people need to be on mute.
To me, it is a very strange conflation between everyone's vote counting in elections and everyone's opinion about basically everything mattering. The latter is obviously ridiculous.
SEO has worked this way for years. It helps nobody.