Huschke

Why does the frontpage of kbin.social work so much better than any other server?

When I visit kbin.social, I see new posts regularly. On other servers posts stay on the frontpage for multiple days. This is also true if I switch their sorting to "hot". So that is probably not the difference.... #kbin #frontpage #hot

https://kbin.social/m/[email protected]l/t/35053

Why does the frontpage of kbin.social work so much better than any other server? - asklemmy - kbin.social

When I visit kbin.social, I see new posts regularly. On other servers posts stay on the frontpage for multiple days. This is also true if I switch their sorting to "hot". So that is probably not the difference....

Jun 16, 2023 at 1:29pmWeb
Show threadlixus98Jun 16, 2023
Different sorting algorithm? But yeah I agree, the hot feed on kbin feels more active with posts as new as 30 mins.
Show threadRhaedasJun 16, 2023
I presume you're talking about Lemmy from any of the different instances. If you're looking at local it's only going to show local posts and not "everywhere". Be warned though, currently there's a bug where when you do select "All" it updates with a pull from outside the instance very often, so much so that it can make reading and browsing difficult. That should be updated soon.
Show threadHuschkeJun 16, 2023

I mainly tried lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, beehaw.org and a few others. I did try them with and without "all" and it was cumbersome regardless. Either I was served posts with zero or negative upvotes that to me do not classify as "hot" or my feed did not update at all.

What's weird to me is that kbin.social was the only one I tried that was not affect by any of this strangeness.

Show threadLollerCorleoneJun 16, 2023
Kbin and Lemmy are different frameworks and have been written using different languages. After some hiccups initially, kbin seem to be more stable than Lemmy right now, including when it comes to frontpage sorting. But both are pretty new and are actively being developed. You can expect these issues to be fixed soon as the devs push new updates.
Show threadsuokoJun 17, 2023

I could summarized it with this

Show threads4ifJun 16, 2023
I think default and timeline algorithm on kbin is better than on lemmy, but with little tweak and changing several settings, I can see more posts dinamically on my homepage.
Show threadj_erasmoJun 16, 2023
Any tips on what settings to change?
Show threadSickIcarusJun 16, 2023

What is kbin.social doing differently?

Unknown about kbin, but I’ve heard that Hot is currently broken for (most?) instances across the lemmyverse. (This might be related to the size of the instance - apparently for small (single-to-double-digit users) instances Hot works fine?)

Show threadBarbarianJun 16, 2023

I've seen like 5 different posts about this already, I guess I'll reply to this one too xD

Lemmy "Hot" ranking is currently kinda broken. There's an edge case that stops the hot_rank column from decreasing, meaning the post never goes off the front page. Will be fixed in 0.18.

Show threadmobiuscoffeeJun 16, 2023
Do you know when 0.18 will be out?
Show threadBarbarianJun 16, 2023

Trite answer: When it's done

More in-depth answer: Currently there's no set date. It depends on how quickly they can tear out all the WebSockets code and replace it with simple HTTP (that's the BIG change, will fix a lot of different things), and then test those changes. The hot_rank fix has already been merged, that's done, but they want a stable, cohesive release with all the good stuff.

Current estimations I've seen range from 1-2 weeks, but it all depends on how fast they can get it coded and tested.

Show threadđź”»Sleepless Oneđź”»Jun 16, 2023
I believe it's supposed to drop next week as long as there are no last minute problems.
Show threadAnonTwoJun 16, 2023

Have to agree that Kbin.social has more consistently given me content i'm interested in.

It's also nice that it doesn't do dynamic updates by default, so I can just look at what i'm interested in and refresh the page once I want to see new things.

Show threadSpacemanSpiffJun 16, 2023

It depends on what you mean by other servers…Lemmy instances? I haven’t seen any differences between kbin instances.

Kbin is entirely different software from Lemmy; it’s a completely different backend.

So that would be why it’s “better” in that regard than Lemmy instances. My understanding is that it’s a bug in Lemmy that will be fixed soon.

The “popping” of the feed in Lemmy is tied to their use of websockets instead of http. I believe the devs stated they’ll be moving off of websockets in the future.

Show threadHuschkeJun 16, 2023
Yeah Lemmy instances. I thought kbin is also a Lemmy instances. Thanks for clearing up my confusion.
Show threadSpacemanSpiffJun 16, 2023
You bet! The fediverse is definitely a confusing concept to wrap your head around the first time. And it doesn’t help that different software server instances don’t need to use a site name that specifies which software they are (like Beehaw, for example).
Show threadDr. Quadragon ❌Jun 16, 2023

@SpacemanSpiff The funny thing is, it's hard to wrap your head around by description, but really easy to understand once you actually see it. It requires an insight is all.

@Huschke

Show threadfreebrickJun 16, 2023

Kbin is entirely different software from Lemmy; it’s a completely different backend.

Wow did not know that. So how can it interact with the lemmy instances if it's not running lemmy software?

Show threadartillectJun 16, 2023
That's the magic of ActivityPub! It's the protocol that most of the fediverse is built on, and it lets users from completely different fediverse platforms share posts with each other. It's the special sauce that lets Mastodon, Lemmy, and kbin (and more!) work together
ActivityPub - Wikipedia

Show threadParsnipWitchJun 16, 2023

Because they use the same protocol: ActivityPub
For example, E-Mail gets send over the protocols pop3, smtp, imap. It doesn't matter if you use Outlook or Gmail for Android or whatever email program. They still send data to each other using these protocols. Therefor both know what to do with the information exchanged.

There is software that is completely different from Lemmy and Kbin which can still interact via the ActiviyPub protocol. For example Mastodon for Twitter-like mini blogs. Or PeerTube which is a video platform. Pixelfeed is an image sharing platform similar to Instagram and the like. But since they all use AcitvityPub you can interact, comment, vote etc. on these images and videos or mastodon posts here on Kbin or on Lemmy.

In theory this sounds great. But obviously the different software needs to have the backend and the UI to support these features.

To make it even more difficult to implement, all these different installations are spread over many different servers (= federation). Which all can have differences in their software again and different speed and rules about how often they synchronize their data, etc.

Show threadSpacemanSpiffJun 16, 2023

Via the ActivityPub protocol that fediverse software uses :)

Pretty cool stuff!

Kbin can also directly interact with Mastodon users and toots because of this. Kbin magazines can natively contain both “threads” from Kbin and Lemmy, and microblog “posts” from Kbin and Mastodon. (And other software depending how they map these features.)