@dansup I've not used TikTok or YT Shorts, so I don't quite understand what is meant by an algorithm tailored to personality of the consumer.

How does the algorithm exhibit this behavior?

@dansup perhaps it's time to go back to simplicity - chronological feed of your friends, pure, simple and easy

@dansup It seems like the other side of the equation is what data is available on each video post?

There's the internal metadata (creator, creation time, duration, camera, filters, etc.) Then attached metadata (description, hashtags, etc). A lot of recent energy has gone into determining the content via AI (what is actually inside the video/audio channels). Classifiers can also tag for emotions/sentiment.

Then it goes one step up and connects the content attributes to user votes, moderation actions, and misinformation/reporting data, to generate some sort of score (heat, excitement, or outrage). Some of these could be pre-calced during submission stage so runtime selection is faster.

An algo would crunch all these attributes into a "this person will like this clip" score.

Could make the algo engine onion-layered and pluggable. Market of algos for different tastes. For example, one that makes people happy, angry, informed, stupider, kills time, etc.

May also want to pick @mmasnick brain.

@dansup Old socials before intense customization just pushed popular posts, which could be a feed you could subscribe to by election (positive consent.) Having the mode of engagement be optional - making an active selection of what I want to see (e.g. include posts liked by people you follow?) and being able to change that at any time, having access to a plain chronological feed, is what matters to me.

@dansup I believe that any kind of engagement with comments should not be a factor in the algorithm. Sometimes I comment because I like something, but sometimes I comment to express disagreement, and that should not contribute positively to the algorithm. Since there is no way to know the sentiment of that comment interaction, comments just shouldn't be a factor.

@dansup
Suggestion to frame the chronological timeline differently - it is, in fact, the fediverse's killer app. It's the reason most people land here, to escape the inscrutable manipulation of the capitalist services. You can't go anywhere else for a feed which is entirely of your own choosing, presented in an obvious and comprehensible way. Embrace the chronological feed

@dansup the best algorithmic sort is alphabetical, obviously.

@dansup Chronological, but don’t want to deny anyone else another option.