A lot of loops fanboys in the comments, but no thanks I don’t need a For You feed. Peertube has it right
Somewhere between being a hater and a fanboy, there’s basic respect. And it’s a one-person project for now, not a big company, so the words we choose should reflect that.
He has a really bad reputation in the fediverse already, I’m not why people are going to bat for him still
Hold on: isn’t it a smear to say someone has a bad reputation and not supply a reason? Because you’re basically giving me your interpretation and no substance.
He is hard working. It’s difficult to build and communicate and do open source but all of those things are happening with regards to Loops. Nobody is perfect and a label like “bad reputation” is very subjective.
Some of the comments on this and similar threads are wild. A dedicated major contributor to the fediverse as a whole, working almost entirely alone, who is solely responsible for bringing many of us to it that were looking to escape the social media capitalist hellscape via Pixelfed, creates another alternative with Loops and publishes some detail regarding how it works, and a bunch of keyboard-warrior nerds try to take it apart.
So many people contribute entirely fuck-all to fediverse platforms beyond the odd bit of content, myself included, and it always amazes me how quickly they want to tell him he’s doing it wrong. So many opinions for one person producing so much, from so many people producing nothing.
You’ve expressed my feelings about it exactly. It’s very easy to criticise things that aren’t custom made to our individual preferences. But every time we do that we short circuit our capacity for reflection and empathy. I wonder if developers are so often a target of harshness and abuse because software users are used to instant gratification.
It’s a monumental job he’s doing and open sourcing it is basically a gift to the entire internet. The new features keep coming and with video being so expensive to host, it’s a very different undertaking to non-video social media.
My main problem with Loops is that they develop webui-first. Cool, they have a “for you” feed now. But only on webui. The app is still on it’s release from start of November and doesn’t have this hugely announced feature.
Well. This is good news.
Isn’t loops open source?
Yes
So then this is just a shorter explanation, and not “publishing” the algorithm? Because before already anyone could read the code and understand how it works, it would have just taken longer.
Technically, yes the info would be available but not everyone is able to read code so this is a welcome additional bit of info and transparency. I also see it as an example of how future open source social media platforms can promote and demonstrate the way their algorithms work as opposed to the black boxes of proprietary web apps like Instagram etc (which, while not algorithmically transparent or open, have been pretty well established to have algorithms that prioritize maximizing time on platform and engagement over all else with some serious negative repercussions for that).
anyone could read the code and understand how it works
“Anyone” is doing some heavy lifting here.
Sorry for being pedantic since your comment is true anyway, but “could” is the one doing the heavy lifting.
Heck, the way people are being nowadays, it’s “read” that’s doing the heavy lifting.
I suppose that by using the word “publish”, I made it sound like the algorithm had been private until this point. I could probably have chosen a better phrasing like “published breakdown illustration”.
Edit: I’ve updated the title.
Personally, I would not be able to understand this, looking at the code (or any code). I appreciere that they shared a visualization of it. If you’re hung up on the word “publish” instead of “share”, “posts” or “shows”, then I think its redundant
The same way “anyone” could make an HTML5 compliant browser. The reality is you can’t do it unless Google lets you.
This is outstanding!
Not being based on “rengagement” or “monetization” means it’s purely interest-based, with a touch of serendipity.
One of BSKY’s distinctive features was to have “pluggable” algorithms. Fediverse would do well to support it so people who are not into the technical weeds could choose how their feed is curated.
Can you personalize your own ranking algo that can be shared with friends? That’s the breakthrough we’re all waiting for…
Not that I know of, but you could make a feature request if one doesn’t already exist https://github.com/joinLoops
That would be extremely groovy. Even just having a few flavours of algorithm that you can choose from would be really cool.
that’s kinda how bluesky works with the feeds and all
You knew w what? I am actually into this where the algorithm used sre published
I can’t even zoom into the picture on mobile on this website
this is from the post, that this post links to
latest app build showing invalid on my android
i guess loops is browser based now
Hoping for something like this for PeerTube and personal customisation of the algorithm.
Yeah after making an algorithm for peertube I’m gonna say this is too complicated to implement. That graphic might be the the plan and it’s something more simplistic.
Making a simple cosign vector for peertube was a pain
“I failed at making something, therefore someone else could certainly not make something more complex than the thing I failed at”
K
I didn’t fail, I actually succeeded. Plus judging by how hard it was to do a simple algorithm an algorithm like this would take way too much effort.
Given from the infographic they didn’t even think about an algorithm let alone worked on it
Seriously though, it’s literally already implemented. Might be too complex for you to implement, but apparently not for them.
How do you know it’s implemented as described in the picture?
How do you know it’s not?
I already explained how I know. So you can answer my question or just dodge?
Saying you tried something simpler and it was hard is not proof that this implementation is a fraud. If anything, it just makes you look less credible yourself. If you have specific aspects you can point to that are impractical, and the technical reasons they wouldn’t work, feel free, but it’s not a dodge to say that the diagram makes sense and this team had done a lot of impressive work already.
Because I wrote it, just look at the code
“Because I did something substantially simpler than this, and struggled to get it done, they must be lying.”
K
Lol you really don’t understand recommendation algorithms 🫵🤣
K
What’s too complicated exactly? They claim their program does precisely that. I believe you could review the code yourself.
oh lord your looking for a fight. i tell you this i kinda already won since your looking my input to criticize, but ill say this the personalized focus block alone. that’s an exact “thing” and if you want more well your gonna have to ask more specific questions and your gonna demand that i help you.
also I helped loops in the past. I can tell you that the GitHub code isn’t the code that’s used
I can tell you that the GitHub code isn’t the code that’s used
really? given that the license is AGPL and they do have some external contributors, they shouldn’t be running an unpublished branch of the code!
Yeap, turns out you can post junk code on GitHub and say it runs whatever. I never seen anyone independently verify that the GitHub code runs similar to loops or compiles the code for the app
Not trying to fight, just wanted to get some perspective of someone critical in a thread where everybody else is very positive. I didn’t read your username and didn’t notice I replied three times to the same guy.
Nice so you got my perspective then?
You’re*
Loops… Algorithm???
… yes?
That is surprising for those who have a long familiarity with Loops. The chronological timeline was a major selling point.
A calm chronological Following feed for the people you trust — and a For You feed that surfaces new creators from across Loops and compatible ActivityPub servers.
Cooool
