lofty

lofty

@lofty

  • she/they/any

software engineer | blaseball tool maintainer

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occasionally 18+

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lofty
@lofty
LemmaEOF
@LemmaEOF
eniko
@eniko

I think a lot about how much of my life is subject to algorithms. Like, I can make a great game but if the game doesn't please Steam's algorithms I'll be lucky to get 10 Steam reviews and make $2,000 off it. When I make a YT video, I have to tailor it so it has enough algorithmic viability that it can blow up, because the alternative is it'll get buried. To compensate for curators using shitty algorithms I build a following on social media, so I can hopefully continue to eat. But then the social media sites also use algorithms which seem, to the best of my ability to discern such things, entirely random and which will never pick up anything I actually need them to. Even for tv shows I wanna watch I'm dependent on an algorithm because if the streaming service's algorithm doesn't vibe with the show they'll just fucking cancel it and I'll never get more.

Anyhow, when I think about this I almost feel thankful for what Musk did to Twitter. At least on cohost and mastodon there's no fucking algorithm. When I post something big and important it gets more pickup than when I make an unimportant shitpost. I no longer feel gaslit by algorithms and I can build a community that I can reliably reach.

So when people on these sites start asking for an algorithm it makes me want to fucking scream. My whole life, including whether I get to eat or keep a roof over my head is ruled by shitty fucking algorithms. If you want those, they're fucking everywhere, so go somewhere else and leave my fucking sanctuary alone, thanks.

eniko
@eniko

a few people seemed to misunderstand my post above so i'll clarify: it's not that i don't want to have an algorithmic feed myself, it's that i don't want anyone to have an algorithmic feed, because as soon as algorithms get involved the whole platform goes to shit whether i personally use it or not

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hikari-no-yume
@hikari-no-yume

i understand the spirit of this, but sorting by post date is also an algorithm, with all that entails. its advantage is just that it's transparent and very simple, so it's predictable. an obvious disadvantage is that if you don't have time to read all the posts in your feed, you'll only see ones that are posted by people in a similar time zone. a potentially fairer, but also simple and predictable algorithm: show all posts from the last 24h in random order.

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RippleField2
@RippleField2

This is exactly what turns me off about cohost currently, it's very kneejerky, false binary, doesn't show a full understanding of what's exactly bad about most algorithmic feeds, being they're totally opaque. I thought this place was full of computery sciency nerds? don't we love algorithms, granted we can read or control them? Same thing with "no numbers!", I get the reasoning, but can't we at least have access to the data behind posts if we want it?

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modulusshift
@modulusshift

This is the Anti-Software Software Club's website, with an entire merch line that says "Fuck Computers". This is the technoskeptic's haven, because one must understand the enemy to truly loathe it, or something. I'll be honest, I don't even feel like I fit in to all of that, I'm still cautiously optimistic about a lot of tech, but I still get it. I see the ways computers tend to entrench power. How they're used to deny people in the name of "improving access". Fuck computers. Give us one place the algorithms don't have sway, even the ones in your own mind that run on numbers the site might provide.

Math is neutral, algorithms are blameless, except that you only see the equations you think of, the designer has bias in what he thinks the algorithm should value. The only thing non-negotiable is the steady advance of time. Usually.

and now, with cohost Plus!, you can opt into internet time (also known as beat time) and disrupt that for yourself as well! Experience time as if you were a Frenchman during the Revolution struggling with Decimal Time, or a very misguided traditional watch company employee attempting to reinvent time for the Information Age! Live in dread of the next time change completely shifting your two clocks' relation! Become unstuck in time!

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slimerybear666
@slimerybear666

Algorthim stuff is why I cringe a bit when people say hey why are you making your content so generic and full of algorthim pleasing stuff?

Its like half the reason that happens is because you never find or watch vontent that isn't algorthim driven you spanner lol.

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Renpona
@Renpona

if anything, there's far more non-generic content out there than there used to be

making interesting media used to be a constant struggle against the old white men with ties, who completely controlled most creators' access to any platform larger than the bulletin board at the local community center, and who constantly pushed to sand down the edges and make things more generic to appeal to their own milquetoast tastes (which they assumed represented broad mass appeal)

now anyone with an idea and a bit of time can throw what they make on a platform the whole world can see. but that doesn't mean people are going to get interested in it

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R-E-X
@R-E-X

nonsense. those same people still own every platform, and they have the algorithms designed to their specifications. the only thing that's changed is now creators are expected to do the work of broadening and genericising their content completely on their own

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rito
@rito

The "bookmarked tags" feed is nice, but I would simply like to see things outside my network that have had a lot of people react please and thank. Cohost has nothing for that and it feels lacking for not having it. "Most likes in the last 24h/week/month" as an optional filter for either following/bookmarked/global. That's all. Would never want that as default, but there for when I want to see what's good lately, rather than what's happening now

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Osmose
@Osmose

That's a reasonable thing to want, but the problem is that having a feed like that leads to an inevitable progression:

  1. The popularity feed becomes the fastest way to see quality posts and most everyone on the site starts using it.
  2. Now virality is possible: the popularity feed will show popular posts to a lot of people, causing them to become even more popular and accelerated its rise in visibility.
  3. Note that popularity is not being measured by quality but by views or interactions. Bad, harmful posts get as many or more views and interactions as good ones. Humans are drawn to drama or fighting or controversy. Thus, harmful content now has an accelerator built in to the site.
  4. Harmful content is much easier to make, thus anyone who is trying to get lots of visibility (either for their own need for views and big numbers even if they can't see the numbers directly, or for converting those views/follows to profit) will simply generate call-out posts or unreasonable hot takes or other content that attracts lots of discourse. They will do this as often as they can.

So, like, yeah, wanting to see good content outside your network is a nice thing to want, but no one anywhere has come up with an algorithm that isn't gameable in a way that generates bad incentives.

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Crabbit-Slater
@Crabbit-Slater

I'm glad cohost doesn't have an algorithm- it means that I'm only seeing what I've chosen to see- which is cool!

The obvious downside is that I guess it's harder to build a community from scratch- as one's shitposts aren't thrust in front of unwilling audiences.

I say this as someone who has zero following and has built zero communities

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jcolag
@jcolag

It really is amazing how...broken people have become. When the pandemic kept everybody home, people complained about how "humans need schedules," instead of realizing that no, some of us have just gotten addicted to them. Now that cable TV is finally falling apart and you have a chance of supporting and seeing niche programming, people complain about how it's just too complicated to subscribe to decide which services warrant subscriptions. And as social media restructures, people complain that the new services don't literally shovel already-mainstream garbage down their throats.

Admittedly, I understand the use of algorithms for "getting a taste" of a network. But if you can't control what the algorithm sends you and it it isn't optional after your first visit, then you don't really have a social service...

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Taraiph
@Taraiph

Oh heavens no, I was suggesting what @wantonviolins said; algorithm addiction and constant pushing for clout. I'm a bit of a sucker and a clout-chaser myself, mostly because I got exposed to Reddit at far too young an age. It's a pattern that's hard to break out of. That being said, if you WANT me to accuse you of histrionics, I'd be glad to.

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vectorpoem
@vectorpoem

i want to ask everyone who asks for a non-chronological + follows-only feed whether they agree with the big tech companies' premise that the point of those algorithms is to keep you looking at a site for longer. if they don't agree then i suppose there's a more interesting discussion of what alternate algos might be for, but if they do agree with it then i want to know why and how they've internalized the idea that spending more time of a website is good. i love cohost but i don't need any mechanisms that artificially inflate (as opposed to organically inflate, ie people posting more good stuff) my attention for it.

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eniko
@eniko

i just don't understand why people need algorithmic in the first place. like, aren't they following people who post cool stuff? if they are, you'd imagine those people would boost cool stuff from other people who the reader can then simply follow

i mean, i do understand why. that process takes a more intentional approach than just having a computer present a bunch of posts that you're highly likely to respond to (whether favorably or otherwise)

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vectorpoem
@vectorpoem

i think the usual argument is discoverability - users new to the service who maybe don't know anyone there yet, and haven't built a network.

i think how it's presented matters a lot, though. i think keeping "here's what you asked us to show you" and "here's our imperfect best guess at stuff you might like, based on what you've told us about yourself (follows and what you've engaged with)" separate establishes a certain contract with users that is more respectful and honest than dumping you into the ad-celebrity-slurry vat like facebook/insta (the worst but far from only offenders) do.

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Renpona
@Renpona

it's a bootstrapping issue. the answer to "how do I find people who post cool stuff?" can't be "just get recommendations from people who post cool stuff"

in order to follow people who post cool stuff, you have to find people who post cool stuff in the first place

this can be very difficult! the hashtag system leaves a lot to be desired, and cohost doesn't have its own fulltext search system

i loaded up my list of cool people to follow by looking through the profiles of people i was already following on other sites and seeing if any of them had cohost accounts. but in the long-term, cohost needs a better discovery system than "use Twitter's search and algorithm to find cool posts, and then check to see if the people who made those posts have a Cohost account too"

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azuchang
@azuchang

On Twitter I follow ~5000 people (the limit for people who don't have a lot of follows themselves) who post cool stuff. Cool stuff takes a while to make though, so the chronological timeline is flooded with quick low effort posts that aren't very interesting. "I'm hungy", a meme, a picture of someone's dinner. The drawing someone worked on for two weeks and posted while I was asleep is buried deep and I will never see it. Maybe I'll see their next one in another two weeks if they happen to post it at the exact right time. On the algorithmic timeline, it's front and centre. Maybe. But no matter how bad the algorithmic timeline gets (and it did get bad enough with the advent of blue checkmarks to make me stop using the site), at least it's not chronological.

I think all people want is a way to see more of the stuff they want to see and less of the stuff they don't want to see. On many other sites this comes in the form of "the algorithm", so that's what they ask for. Personally I'd be content with being able to turn on notifications for an account so I will definitely see all of their posts, being able to hide repeated shares somehow, and being able to hide shares of text only posts. Though I guess I am responding to this text only share. The chronological algorithm got me.

edit: I forgot about hiding text posts when viewing someone's profile

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eniko
@eniko

except on twitter whenever a tweet of mine got a lot of visibility it was always some stupid joke or meme or political comment and never the game announcements, which got buried by the algorithm basically every time, even though most of the people who followed me there were there for the game development

meanwhile here and on mastodon when i post "i finished the cool thing! here it is" people actually see it, it gets rechosted or boosted, and when i post lame nothings they languish, like they should. so i'd argue that the algorithm is showing you what you see more often than not

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