this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2025
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I wouldn’t call reverse chronological order with blocks accounted for an algorithm.
Twitter didn’t always have an algorithm.
Mastodon does not have an algorithm. Or am I not being inclusive enough in my definition?
Even trivial sorting algorithms are still called algorithms.
to not piss off computer scientists and mathematicians with their dear word "algorithm", you may want to narrow it down with the expression recommendation algorithms.
3 spaces is the ideal indentation width.
There, that should keep them busy for a couple hours.
An important thing to consider: Mastodon doesn't have an "algorithm" for presenting posts in your subscription feed.
That doesn't mean it "does not have an algorithm" entirely, though. There's a couple of non-trivial ones being used to recommend friends and calculate the trending posts and tags that show up on the front page, and they do actually consider likes/shares as part of scoring.
https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/blob/54e20301462b381f27c50ed305abeedde1ace878/app/models/trends/statuses.rb#L98
Yeah an algorithm is a series of mathematic instructions so from my armchair I'd say sort by date is not an algorithm. But to complicate things further there seems to be a sticking point with some that social media uses heuristics and not algorithms. I don't really understand the difference nor do I really care as this is all too much about semantics - /u/grue's final point is still spot on IMO. Why mess with letting a billionaire toy with the minds of your citizens? Let the USA have twitter and all that chaos to themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorting_algorithm
Ah well glad to learn something
You should take your armchair to be reupholstered or something, because sorting things is like the primary type of algorithm. Even if it's as straightforward as "sort by date", since objects in the database are not stored by date, they have to be sorted to get them displayed by date.
Huh, I stand corrected!
I wouldn't say primary type, they just happen to be the primary example that theory (complexity analysis etc) is taught with. Hence also the veritable zoo of very very bad sorting algorithms that still have proper names. There's no quantum bogosort for string search.
Fair enough.
The algorithm part is a sticky point for me, because it’s always been my contention that you could directly map most of the systemic issues of social media with the rise of engagement algorithms.
In other words, reverse chronological order is the only way to do healthy social media in my opinion. (Or maybe I should say, healthiest). Algorithms introduce too many pernicious incentives. They optimize everything around the worst things.
Most people love algorithms though. And it seems most people don’t want to trade algorithms away. A reason that many fall off mastodon is the lack of an algorithm.
Absolutely agreed. I'd love to say that I left Facebook and then Twitter for heroic reasons but both of them pushed me out when there was no longer a way to just get the reverse chronological. Facebook when the algos took over and then Twitter when they started forcing people to pay for Tweetdeck.