Not Just Bikes 🇳🇱
I'm getting fed up with Mastodon. It needs a better algorithm.
I keep seeing people claiming that algorithms are evil, but that's not true. Algorithms can be evil, but they can also be really useful.
My Mastodon feed is overwhelmed with post from the same people, because they post most often. So good content becomes a needle in a haystack.
This chronological timeline is not a good social media experience and I find myself checking Mastodon less and less.
Is there any hope of this changing?
Adrian Cochrane
@mynotaurus @notjustbikes This is my approach to.
Though it does make sense to me that there should be clients which offer different hueristics!
(as a dev I'm not a fan of this use of the word "algorithm", but the horse seems to have left the barn)
Myno 🐍
@notjustbikes i just follow people with a somewhat medium post rate, and follow *lots* of them so it all balances out
twitter had non-chronological timelines??? i always assumed you saw stuff in order
Adrian Cochrane
@TechConnectify @cprovias I just try to shout down those insisting everyone wants to tinker... And enjoy my tinker-free elementary OS desktop!
(Unless you count my browserdev drive as tinkering...)
Technology Connections
@cprovias People who like to tinker with things have a really hard time understanding that that's not "normal"
Average users do not want to deal with the peculiarities of Linux, but Linux tinkerers don't want the boring world of a distro everyone uses.
So I don't see that getting fixed, honestly.
Colton Provias
@TechConnectify @notjustbikes The view of all problems as being personal is quite prevalent in some open source communities and often slows adoption. It's one of the largest blockers to widespread adoption of Linux, for example.
Technology Connections
@notjustbikes I see you've already gotten several "this isn't actually a problem, just..." responses.
Personally, I don't want an algorithmic timeline - I only ever used the chronological timeline on Twitter and hated whenever it switched on me.
However, Twitter did some things much better, like auto-collapsing threads.
Mastodon folks would be better off working to understand this than simply frame all problems as personal and thus the duty to solve them is entirely your own.
Technology Connections
@alcinnz Oh sure, it's not everyone who wants to, but there's too many out there who are dismissive of "normie" problems.
I don't use Linux mainly because I use commercial software which doesn't work on Linux, and usually when I bring this up I get told to stop using the commercial software I use and embrace open source everything which... no. You ain't winning many hearts and minds with that argument, I'm afraid.
Adrian Cochrane
@TechConnectify Agreed!
Longterm I might prefer if you could ask for any source code you're running, but short term I'll do my small part to make the opensource options as attractive as I can. Whilst acknowledging the needs proprietary software is filling for others, and if it's working for them why switch?
P.S. While they usually overlap due to perceived business needs, I'm by no means opposed to selling software commercially.
Colton Provias
@TechConnectify @alcinnz As somebody who has an entire ecosystem of software and tooling built around Logic Pro X and macOS, agreed.
Yes, Linux is free. However, rebuilding an entire workflow and all of the tooling to get to the same throughput and quality is not. And being on a platform that notoriously breaks after many updates (ALSA, nVidia drivers, etc.) adds on considerably to the cost and risk.
Adrian Cochrane
@polezaivsani Even then, it is valid for different to have different priorities. @TechConnectify 's is to educate about (mostly non-digital) technology, & I love that work!
I suspect he'd sympathize with my drive to open the hood on my software to see how it works...
polezaivsani
@TechConnectify That's a bit narrow of a perspective. If availability of polished tools is a hard requirement for you then calls for free software alternatives might be impractical indeed. In the long run though, rooting for free software gives you more agency, so being able to have the tools you want aligns better with free software. @alcinnz
Technology Connections
@alcinnz I do! In fact I'm envious of folks like yourself who are comfortable with code. I barely know anything in that regard - and I'm working to attain a low-level understanding of computers that I currently don't have.
But I stay realistic about who wants to know this stuff. It's... not a lot in the grand scheme.
When it comes to software, I'm more like the homeowner who can't troubleshoot anything in their home and happily hires professionals to fix stuff. Those people can still own homes
Technology Connections
@alcinnz I /wish/ they bothered to tinker with stuff, learn how it works, and empower themselves to tackle more than they do. But many people don't see gathering that knowledgebase as worth their time, and I don't blame them.
(and actually, that's another angle here - those who already have the expertise tend to not realize that's what it is: expertise)
I'm like those people with computers. I know my way around them quite well, but I am happily hiring professionals to manage my needs.
Adrian Cochrane
@TechConnectify Along this line, I'm also pleased by Ben Eater's work. It's rare to find computing explained to that low of a level let alone so well!
Then again there's other levels at which to explore computing...
Adrian Cochrane
@polezaivsani Glad to hear! There are a couple fuzzy lines it's worth being wary of...
Here I'm wary of given any suggestion that I'm demanding someone who has already dealt with people who have demanded this to try the opensource solutions.
polezaivsani
@alcinnz If you'd ever see me arguing for some universal solution, please, do pinch real tight so I'd wake up from misguided dreaming :).
LisPi
@alcinnz It quite singularly grates on me really how simple sorting algorithms based on heuristics get misunderstood in such a way and catch so much unnecessary flak.
Particularly when the problem is really just that users aren't in control, not that there's sorting involved.
Complaining about algorithms when chronological sort is an algorithm itself just feels silly.
Adrian Cochrane
@lispi314 Well, non-devs frequently seem unable to wrap their heads around how general our jargon is...
There's real issues to discuss, but I wish it didn't get wrapped up in anti-intellectual misappropriation of jargon! Incidentally, Al Jazeera's "All Hail The Algorithm" covers these issues very well...
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