2y ago

Does Lemmy have an “algorithm”? Like if I engage with one community a lot, will that show up more in my feed?

40 comments

There are only feeds for Subscribed, Local and All. Things can only show up there is they fall under one of those categories. Then the secondary filter determines the order. New is going to be chronological, Hot is some formula of votes per hour, active is some formula of comments per hour, old is probably reverse chronologically. etc..
It won't ever factor in what you visit and engage with on its own.
- Thanks that makes sense. I get why some people are against it, but ranking on your engagement can be super useful imo. Like if I comment on a couple niche communities a lot, I don’t want those to be drowned out by the much larger communities.
  
  So check on those couple niche communities more often. All and Local feeds are not meant to deliver you custom content, Home is a curated list that you create, and if there’s anything you want to see more of, visit it directly as often as you like.
  
  There are people who sort by new posts, or new comments, it's not as common but some people do sort by it so in a way you're helping to spread
  Edit: oh, you asked if it would show up more in your feed, not others'
  
  I thoroughly enjoy being able to design my own feed, and not have some corporation shove stuff down my throat in order to keep my engagement up. The past couple times I've checked facebook (primarily to check events) I've left again almost immediately, because I'm so put off by the way they shove stuff in my face just to find out what I'm interested in. I've even noticed that if I spend more time looking at a post from some source (no clicks/interaction, just reading text on an image) they start funnelling more of that into my feed.
- I think active has got something to do with some formula of comments per hour.
- I've been using "Subscribed" and "Top Day" for a while. Works well for me. If I used "All" there would be a large number of communities I'd need to block. Easier to just join the ones you want to see.
- To add to this, hot seems to be local, top day seems to be lemmy-wide

There is currently no engagement-based individual curation on Lemmy. The two most commonly used ranking algorithms (Hot & Top) are based strictly on votes. Top sorts by the total number of votes from within a given time window while Hot considers all votes against a steep time-based curve.
Not coincidentally, this is the same algorithm methodology used by Reddit. Two Reddit users subscribed to the exact same communities will see the exact same Hot/Top feeds, regardless of how much or little they individually engage with specific posts. Lemmy intentionally copied this community-based engagement methodology, presumably because it's part of the secret sauce that makes Reddit-like platforms special.
- That was true at one point, but reddit has had personalized rankings for a while now. See: https://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/7hkvjn/what_we_think_about_when_we_think_about_ranking
  But your point stands; reddit's earlier ranking methodology was obviously pretty good since it made the site so popular.
- I don't want to have any sort of curated content. Is not subscribing to anything the best way to achieve that?
  
  Go on the All tab with the setting New to see all posts that can be read by your instance. This still allows you to subscribe to some stuff on the Subscribed tab without having any curation in the All tab.
  
  Subscribing to a community does not curate content. All subscribing does is add it to your list of subscribed communities, so it’s one of the ones that shows up when you look into your Subscribed feed (sometimes called the Home feed). Subscribing to a community will not impact the Local feed or the All feed.
  Lemmy does not have “curated content” outside of your subscriptions adding to the Subscribed feed, and your blocks taking away from all feeds.
  
  There will always be some form of algorithm that decides which posts go to the top of your feed, but lemmy gives you lots of options to control how you want it to work, and none of them are curated by anyone specifically. There'll never be no algorithm though, you'll always need to pick something

No, if you want to see a community more, subscribe to it so it shows up in your subscribe feed. The "Hot" ranking is only based on the age of a post and the score, "Active" is similar but using the time of the last comment instead.
The feeds are "All", including every post on Lemmy, "Local", including only posts to your instance's communities, and "Subscribed" showing subscribed (joined) communities.
- I do see some clumping of communities in /all. Sometimes every other post will be from a certain community. I notice it most of its something nsfw.
  I do not know what it is that the sorting algorithm decides that I'm into short haired ladies this one day and into furry the other, but somehow it does.
  
  I think what you are seeing is a small number of users making a large number of posts to certain communities in a short time. Lemmy isn’t large enough to have an organic flow of content from different people, given that most users are lurkers.
  
  I do see some clumping of communities in /all. Sometimes every other post will be from a certain community
  I had to block Star Wars Memes.
- Doesn't "All" show all posts from communities on your own, and other instances when someone on your instance has joined them? Or is that no longer the case and did I miss that?
  
  Yes, but thats because your instance doesn't start federating with another instance until someone subscribes to a community from the other instance, your instance just won't have any posts to display

It uses a ranking algorithm. You can read more about it here but I don't think it's done at an individual level like Reddit.

God I hope not
- I don't think this is inherently a bad thing. It helps you find things you may be interested in by using statistical analysis. I think the problem is when it's designed to maximize your engagement or to cater you towards specific content they are trying to push
  Of course it can lead to echo chambers, but I think as long as its transparent and not the only option then I don't see the harm in it
- Some hashtags "algorithm" like Mastodon does would be nice, but I think it is very similar to your subscribed feed already, but it could work for something like "powering up" your interests.

Not that I'm aware of. Someone could look at the source code to find out for sure, though.

I think lemmy is still new enough that there isn't a personalised "algorithm" yet, for good or bad.
- It's good. I don't want posts to be catered to my own biases. I want to see the same content everyone else is seeing. Keeps me in touch with reality.
  It's one of the reasons why I miss pre-Google YouTube. In the past, likes, views, and subscriptions were what drove videos to the front page. Now the algorithm just feeds you what it thinks you want to see. For people with extremist views, that is a very dangerous thing to be exposed to.
  
  that's just what All view is for tho. I don't think there's anything wrong with personalized algorithm for your subs
- I definitely think it needs something. Right now most of the posts are entirely irrelevant to my interests and my friends that have switched have said the same. A "simple" shared interests algorithm (show posts that people with similar interests engaged with) or something would be great and not inherently predatory
  
  just curious - does subscribing to communities you're interested in (and unsubscribing from those you aren't) not help?

Im glad it doesnt by default but it would be nice if people could create and share custom algorithms like Bluesky/atProtocol allows

40 comments