Proposal: call reverse chronological algorithms "spew machines" since they reward whoever is most extremely online and posts the most.
I think that might counteract some of the weird nostalgia that leads so many to somehow think it's some kind of pure symbol of a simpler, safer, better Internet.
@natematias it'd be nice to have a chronological timeline view where posts made within a certain range of time by the same user are grouped together and collapsed into a single item. That way, frequent posters wouldn't take up as much additional screen real estate, and you'd be more likely to see posts from the less frequent ones.
In my co-op, we have a wonderful common house with a dining room. Every meal, the room gets louder, and louder, and louder until it's a serious problem for people with sensitive hearing.
As more people talk, people choose to talk louder to be heard, which increases the volume, causing others to get louder. It's a feedback loop that only incentivizes increases in volume. So it becomes unbearable.
Reverse chronological algorithms work exactly the same way- they have no countervailing force.
@natematias
I live in an intentional community of 35 people. We only have a single common meal each month, although smaller groups of people tend to eat meals together throughout the week. Maybe it's the acoustic tiles on the ceiling and large plants in the windows, but we don't seem to have such issues. We also tend to have community wise discussions at these meals, so only one person at a time is speaking.
Unrelated to the algorithm, can you do sound treatments in the dining room?
@natematias Not disagreeing here because I don't have data either way, but isn't the countervailing force here that we only see posts from folks we actively choose to follow? There are ways around this - abusive use of lots of irrelevant but popular hashtags can leverage a post into lots of users' feeds despite them not following you - but you can also just immediately block those spammy accounts.
You can also temporarily mute accounts you *do* follow if they're on a posting marathon!
@ApostateEnglishman @natematias vs having an algorithm that auto-boosts infrequent posters to the top of your feed, like Fred who only posts once a month and we haven't shown your client a post from him in a while?
@risottobias @ApostateEnglishman @natematias Bluesky has a feed like this called "Quiet Posters" which is quite useful.
>> isn't the countervailing force here that we only see posts from folks we actively choose to follow?
Great question! That might be true if reposts weren't a feature, and if cumulative advantage weren't a structural characteristic of sharing networks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale-free_network
@natematias Okay, I see your point now. Thanks for explaining it to me. 馃檹馃徏
Digital mansplainers *love* reverse chronological algorithms since they offer a simple way to spray themselves & their words all over your feed - post more to occupy more space.
It's a transparent algorithm, and if you are posting things people feel obligated to read, they'll feel bad about unfollowing.
@natematias why would you follow someone who behaves like that?
@SamUpstate hello, and thanks for the note!
When I was a gradstudent studying gender disparities in journalism and among journalists on social media, I wondered that too- why was it that people reinforced social hierarchies on a platform that gave them so much choice? There are many reasons people choose to listen or feel they have no choice. Those decisions accumulate in a reverse chronological feed.
@natematias While everyone experiences social media differently (and I've seen that the experience can vary greatly depending on the size of one's following and follower sets), I personally haven't felt bad at all about unfollowing folks who take up more of my feed's space than I like.
That's still holds for me even for someone who has really compelling posts once in a while. Generally, I've found that if it's something I'd really want to read, I'll see someone I still follow boost it.
