Interestingly, Meta has been implementing a "tune your algorithm" type of feature, which is surprisingly user-focused. You can select the topics you want to see more of and what you want to see less of, mute words, add your preferences... of course, Meta has their own agenda and wants you to get as hooked as possible so they can make money off you as a product, but I like the idea that it is not completely opaque.
I am building something similar in my Mastodon instance but truly without any monetary goal.
For algorithm haters out there, remember that reverse chronological order is an algorithm too. If you like getting video recommendations on YouTube, PeerTube, or music recommendations in a playlist, that is an algorithm too. I honestly do not understand all the algorithm hate when it is focused on the tech itself rather than commercialism.
The capitalist nature of algorithms is, of course, something to stan
Interestingly, Meta has been implementing a "tune your algorithm" type of feature, which is surprisingly user-focused. You can select the topics you want to see more of and what you want to see less of, mute words, add your preferences... of course, Meta has their own agenda and wants you to get as hooked as possible so they can make money off you as a product, but I like the idea that it is not completely opaque.
I am building something similar in my Mastodon instance but truly without any monetary goal.
For algorithm haters out there, remember that reverse chronological order is an algorithm too. If you like getting video recommendations on YouTube, PeerTube, or music recommendations in a playlist, that is an algorithm too. I honestly do not understand all the algorithm hate when it is focused on the tech itself rather than commercialism.
The capitalist nature of algorithms is, of course, something to stand against, since it works by exploiting users. But if it is for user benefit without any rotten backstory, algorithms in my world are great.
A tip for users of our experimental instance mementomori.social:
You can enable the algorithmic "For you" feed from the top right corner of the Home feed. When you turn it on, it will instantly switch to a ranked feed that prioritizes posts based on who you follow, who you comment on, and what you like or boost. If you also toggle on "Include posts from people you don't follow," you'll see trending content across the Fediverse based on your interests.
Unlike Trending tab, For you -feed is personal. The logic is similar to pre-Musk Twitter but user-focused and not corporate-owned.
The Trending tab remains unchanged, and /explore shows posts from roughly the past 6-12 hours, with a strong focus on the most recent ones. A post that gets massive engagement might stick around a bit longer, but most cycle out within half a day. Your own For you page changes every time you click the menu, refresh the page, or return.
Algorithmic home feed as an opt-in experiment. Same idea as Twitter's open sourced ranking pipeline (candidates, score, mix) but stripped to what a single instance actually needs. Chronological...
Nod, I too find it sad and ridiculous that the perfectly good and innocent computer science term has been abducted to mean some Evil Corp thing.
Without algorithms, there are no computers. It's that elemental. That the capitalist social media design the algorithms for selecting content to users to be abusive intentionally - to get you hooked, enraged, whatever - that needs a different word. Abuserithm? Leachorithm?
Although of course by now it's probably too late. I wonder what they teach new CS students nowadays.
But if you mean "make it configurable", the answer is intentionally not right now. It is too much work at the moment. People can choose not to use it - it is off and opt-in by default on our instance.
Algorithmic home feed as an opt-in experiment. Same idea as Twitter's open sourced ranking pipeline (candidates, score, mix) but stripped to what a single instance actually needs. Chronological...
I'm an algo hater. I do NOT like the recommendations in YouTube, Spotify etc either. Basically commercialism, but ultimately it's other people determining what we pay attention to, like an ad. That's bad individually but very bad at a societal level, letting others decide that for the masses. While the owners might disagree, this allows them to push their worldview on us.
User controlled algos are ok but will probably get corrupted. Reverse chrono is an algo like atheism is a religion.
@wjmaggos But that is not hating the algorithm. If you truly are an algorithm hater, you would hate all technology. All computing and computers are ultimately based on algorithms.
fine, I'm an attention algo hater. And I recognize that radio and TV stations are such an algo. In a sense, those institutions are algos too. It comes back to increasing how many people decide what we pay attention to. That's what early humans with a word of mouth experience had. We all collectively decided what info, ideas and art to pass on. Mass media, now also algo media, where fewer people decide for many, is the problem. Biases what can go viral in culture. Fedi can fix it.
@wjmaggos I dislike today's phenomenon where something online is valued only by the size of its audience, like influencer culture. Or a piece of music is considered worthless unless it has listeners. But as an entrepreneur, I also have another side to this, which is my livelihood. Of course I want profit and money, if it comes from marketing, fine; if it comes from being who I am, even better.
However, when these things get mixed up and distorted, and people no longer recognize what feels natural online anymore, that is what I have a problem with. I think we are talking about pretty much the same thing, but your frustration maybe runs deeper. For me, it is kind of a balance between the two.
Algorithms itself are not a problem or a solution. They have their shades of grey. When done right, they can be great. I noticed that I have become so accustomed to the "For you" feed that I wanted to build one for myself here. And it works beautifully. Nobody needs to suffer from it. You do you and I do me.
I think simply merging the PR to your fork and rebuilding should be enough. I think at least @troed, and maybe @cadusilva or @michael have implemented it. There's also a Docker image and source available from our instance in case you want to implement all the custom features we have, similar to how glitch-soc does it. help.mementomori.social/mement…
@ikkeT and @michael can help with Docker things. I'm more of a source code type of person.
Mementomori.social is not your yet another instance with defaults. It is packed with small, but groundbreaking modifications. This page lists all of them.
Mementomori.social runs BirdUI theme for mastodon. If you want to try out what it looks like in your environment, or develop or perhaps switch using it, there is containerized way to easily (?) do so. It is described in this doc.
I generally don't appreciate biased/skewed algoritms, where the algoritm is designed to promote a certain viewpoint that may not be in my interest - and I believe this is what most people mean when they say "I hate algoritms". In commercial media, practically all recommendation algoritms are biased - they are designed to serve you a certain worldview, promote some product, to control your mindspace - while algoritms where I decide the weighing are generally speaking fine.
I would even say that algorims are even necessary in a social media of any size, because without it, you get drowned in noise. One might think that yeah, I don't need algoritms to find what I need - and that's fine when you are looking for some certain thing. But if idly browsing, you'll soon get drowned in noise, where you can't find even the nuggets you might actually be interested in. It that the ideal algoritms would serve me, not the interests of whoever is running the service.
Johann z. Baag (ej af Puss-B.)
in reply to Rolle Laukkarinen • • •They’re like chemicals.
More algorithms and chemicals plz! (And better!)
Turre
in reply to Rolle Laukkarinen • • •Nod, I too find it sad and ridiculous that the perfectly good and innocent computer science term has been abducted to mean some Evil Corp thing.
Without algorithms, there are no computers. It's that elemental. That the capitalist social media design the algorithms for selecting content to users to be abusive intentionally - to get you hooked, enraged, whatever - that needs a different word. Abuserithm? Leachorithm?
Although of course by now it's probably too late. I wonder what they teach new CS students nowadays.
Rolle Laukkarinen reshared this.
Thar🇪🇺
in reply to Turre • • •Neurotransmitter
in reply to Rolle Laukkarinen • • •Rolle Laukkarinen
in reply to Neurotransmitter • • •@Neurotransmitter It is fully out in the open and completely visible: github.com/mementomori-social/…
But if you mean "make it configurable", the answer is intentionally not right now. It is too much work at the moment. People can choose not to use it - it is off and opt-in by default on our instance.
Feel free to send in a contribution 👍️
Add opt-in ranked home timeline (experimental) by rollecode · Pull Request #4 · mementomori-social/mastodon
GitHubwilliam ⁂ maggos
in reply to Rolle Laukkarinen • • •I'm an algo hater. I do NOT like the recommendations in YouTube, Spotify etc either. Basically commercialism, but ultimately it's other people determining what we pay attention to, like an ad. That's bad individually but very bad at a societal level, letting others decide that for the masses. While the owners might disagree, this allows them to push their worldview on us.
User controlled algos are ok but will probably get corrupted. Reverse chrono is an algo like atheism is a religion.
Rolle Laukkarinen
in reply to william ⁂ maggos • • •william ⁂ maggos
in reply to Rolle Laukkarinen • • •Rolle Laukkarinen
in reply to william ⁂ maggos • • •@wjmaggos I dislike today's phenomenon where something online is valued only by the size of its audience, like influencer culture. Or a piece of music is considered worthless unless it has listeners. But as an entrepreneur, I also have another side to this, which is my livelihood. Of course I want profit and money, if it comes from marketing, fine; if it comes from being who I am, even better.
However, when these things get mixed up and distorted, and people no longer recognize what feels natural online anymore, that is what I have a problem with. I think we are talking about pretty much the same thing, but your frustration maybe runs deeper. For me, it is kind of a balance between the two.
Algorithms itself are not a problem or a solution. They have their shades of grey. When done right, they can be great. I noticed that I have become so accustomed to the "For you" feed that I wanted to build one for myself here. And it works beautifully. Nobody needs to suffer from it. You do you and I do me.
Emil Jacobs - Collectifission
in reply to Rolle Laukkarinen • • •Rolle Laukkarinen
in reply to Emil Jacobs - Collectifission • • •I think simply merging the PR to your fork and rebuilding should be enough. I think at least @troed, and maybe @cadusilva or @michael have implemented it. There's also a Docker image and source available from our instance in case you want to implement all the custom features we have, similar to how glitch-soc does it. help.mementomori.social/mement…
@ikkeT and @michael can help with Docker things. I'm more of a source code type of person.
Instance features — Mementomori.social help
help.mementomori.socialIlkka Tengvall
in reply to Rolle Laukkarinen • • •#Podman way of running it in containers is shown as example in here: help.mementomori.social/try-bi…
Running it using docker should not differ from any mastodon docker guide, just use the birdui containers instead of the originals.
@rolle @collectifission @troed @cadusilva @michael
Running mastodon with BirdUI in containers — Mementomori.social help
help.mementomori.socialRolle Laukkarinen reshared this.
Otter Side
in reply to Rolle Laukkarinen • • •I generally don't appreciate biased/skewed algoritms, where the algoritm is designed to promote a certain viewpoint that may not be in my interest - and I believe this is what most people mean when they say "I hate algoritms". In commercial media, practically all recommendation algoritms are biased - they are designed to serve you a certain worldview, promote some product, to control your mindspace - while algoritms where I decide the weighing are generally speaking fine.
I would even say that algorims are even necessary in a social media of any size, because without it, you get drowned in noise. One might think that yeah, I don't need algoritms to find what I need - and that's fine when you are looking for some certain thing. But if idly browsing, you'll soon get drowned in noise, where you can't find even the nuggets you might actually be interested in. It that the ideal algoritms would serve me, not the interests of whoever is running the service.