Algorithms aren't the enemy. Chronological feeds don't scale and the signal-to-noise ratio will plummet if this ever gets popular. The real problems with today's algorithmic feeds are non-transparency, lack of choice, and optimizing for engagement instead of healthy discourse.
Open-source is a perfect opportunity to fix all this. Have there been any efforts to create a Mastodon instance with a (community governed) ranking algorithm? Is that technically feasible? Or is the idea simply anathema?
@randomwalker Good question. On Twitter, I tended to follow a LOT, gave up on seeing everything in the timeline, relied on the algorithmic timeline, and aggressively used filters.
I'm not sure how to adapt that approach here, or even if I should.
@randomwalker I'm imaging an alt-timeline view that amounts to "show me toots from my home timeline (or local server or other?) over the last $TIME_INTERVAL, ranked by $CRITERIA, which may be evaluated over local context (boosts, keyword/hashtag-assigned bonuses or penalties, etc.)
Unsure if I would need deeper context (e.g. level of prior engagement with authors of those toots).
Arvind Narayanan
Sean Blakey
Denny Vrandečić