this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2023
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Hello all,

Wanted to open a discussion on Lemmy's post sorting options right now. I don't have any experience with implementing this type of thing but right now the algorithm appears... Off? For example, 'Active' gives me a lot of posts over a day old but 'Hot' may as well be 'New' i.e. more recent posts with little engagement.

I don't know if it's due to Lemmy still picking up steam or a fundamental flaw with the algorithm. Like I said, I'm really curious to hear the opinions of those more knowledgeable.

(page 2) 26 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] rjc@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Hopefully the algorithm will improve over time - compared to the site which shall not be mentioned, I find that Hot or Active tend to show the same articles for days (despite there being plenty of newer content). Top Day works well the first time I log in for the day, but then that gets stale too. On the front page I feel like I need more like a "Top Hour" option ... so I can see what is new without the "drinking from the fire hose" that is "new".

These are the early days, Im not unhappy with where we are, I just hope this remains a work in progress and improves.

[–] New_account@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Agreed. Something like Top for the last 4 hours would be super easy to implement because Top for the last day already exists (just change 24 hours to 4 hours in the code that fetches comments). However, for those that are used to checking the site multiple times in a day, you don't want to ge served up the same content every time you check. Top for the past 4 hours would seemingly be a decent balance between giving posts that have some type of traction while not giving posts that are stale.

[–] matthieu_xyz@piaille.fr 3 points 2 years ago

@programming
@WatTyler
There is a demo of an algorithmic timeline thingy for mastodon at https://fedifeed.herokuapp.com/ and I really really like how it has a bunch of sliders for fine-tuning. The time penalty in particular is very important.

Would be absolutely awesome to have the same on lemmy.

Edit: Lemmy doesn’t show my picture...

https://static.piaille.fr/media_attachments/files/110/542/349/085/964/483/original/23daedec7cd17277.png

[–] Comrat@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

A lot of the discussion around sorting specifics makes me wonder if a plugin-like system for user created sorting algorithms would be useful.

It could allow you to curate your own feed in a way, based on age, activity, filters, basically any post metadata. The algorithms could be shared or maybe even federated through lemmy itself. I have a suspicion this would be closer to "neat" than "worth it" though. This is really just a brain dump of a random idea.

[–] S_H_K@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Yeah it would be the best thing. Hopefully the new blood brings someone knowledgeable that can implement good ideas. IDK as a refugee I feel like the fediverse has so much potential.

[–] Master@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Something feels wrong but I normally just browsed "best" on reddit and that was a curated list of top subs. So it's weird to me to sort Lemmy by "Hot" and get a ton of posts from random communities with no upvotes or replies. Which they are obviously not HOT as no one has engaged with them except the OP.

I feel like something is "off" with the way it is curating things.

[–] tom@lmmy.tvdl.dev 1 points 2 years ago

Running a personal selfhosted instance. Subscribed to a lot of communities, however Hot still shows me posts from a year ago? It’s weird to say the least. Personally I am switching Active, Hot, and Top Day to keep up with things

[–] WarlordSdocy@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

So far hot has worked pretty well for me. Haven't really ran into the issues you mentioned with posts not having that many interactions near the top of hot, unless it's from a smaller community. My main problem I've had is when opening Lemmy after a bit or refreshing I'll get the same posts over again even if they're marked as read which is annoying and usually means I end up sorting by new. Would be nice if there was an option to hide already read posts. (Or if there already is one I'd be very interested in knowing where it is, also I use Jerboa mainly on Android so not sure if that changes anything either.)

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[–] FreddyNO@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

Personally I usually sort by "hot", works good for /all, but mixed results on subscribed

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