I’ve been exploring how different platforms decide what reaches the front page, and I’m interested in which ranking algorithms you know and which you think work best. Here are a few examples with links to their explanations:
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Lemmy’s ranking – vote-based score with time decay https://join-lemmy.org/docs/users/03-votes-and-ranking.html#sorting-posts
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Weighted/outlier-based approach – normalizes performance by community size, highlights statistical outliers using z-scores, and applies time decay https://reddthat.com/post/52386265
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Menéame’s promotion system – dynamic karma thresholds, weighted votes (user-karma × vote; anonymous votes = 4), plus a minimum-vote requirement https://www.meneame.net/faq-es
My preference is for algorithms that give niche communities a fair chance, rather than allowing large communities to dominate. I’d also like to see a user setting that counts only votes from one’s home instance, so each instance develops a more distinct front page instead of everything looking the same across the network.
Another issue is that many ranking systems would benefit from clearer naming and more coherent category boundaries. For example, Lemmy’s New Comments sort is effectively a classic forum-style bumping model and would be more intuitive if labeled accordingly. Meanwhile, Top Comments is relatively weak in its current form and would be far more useful if it mirrored the “Top” family by offering consistent time-window variants (day, week, month, year, all-time). More broadly, overlapping sorts such as Active, Hot, and Scaled can blur together and confuse new users without delivering meaningfully different discovery experiences. Renaming them or supplementing them with brief tooltips could help clarify their purpose.
Which ranking algorithms are you familiar with, and which do you think work best?
Most recent first. Anything else is manipulation.
I mostly agree, but some small communities, many years ago, would go by oldest, continuing from where you left off last time. That was fantastic for the sort of place where you wanted to read everything for whatever reason. If that could be put in on a community basis, it would be great :)
Pff, I hate that. It’s the reason I’d never use Mastodon. It’s a waste of time sifting through so much trash. Also, if you display scores you’re a hypocrite, because they influence how you vote.
Then why not look only at the posters/communities you subscribe to, and within those, sort by newest?
Personally I prefer those to be the very end thing and would like ultimate ability to filter. Like we have three types of posts (I think) and I would like to be able to say I want to see or not see each type. I love being able to block urls for news sites I don’t find have good articles for links. Basically looking at the post blank I would like to be able to filter based on everything that is there. Algorithms to me are a last line and I would prefer to have things like vote or comment thresholds and such.
Reverse chronological of subscribed channels only is the best. I don’t want anything “trending” or “promoted”, ever. If it’s really trending, someone I’ve subscribed to will share it or link it or reference it.
If you also want to have some sort of “discovery” feed, curated or not, that’s fine, too, but don’t make it a default.
Whichever is the least abusable by fascists and corporate greed.
I think it should be simple: newest first.
This piece by G. Elliott Morris is the article that prompted me to think more seriously about these issues. In it, Morris argues that modern platforms have undergone an “algorithmic turn” that transformed them from social networks into attention-extraction engines optimized for engagement rather than human connection. He lays out empirical evidence on polarization, radicalization, mental-health harms, and productivity loss; explains how recommender systems distort reality by amplifying ideological extremes; and offers practical steps for reclaiming focus and reducing dependence on algorithmic feeds.
https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/you-should-quit-social-media-for
My preference is simple:
Minimalist Lemmy - ordered by new, chronological (used to be the same on reddit before I stopped) Mastodon - chronological
If I look at how the algorithms on YouTube or Instagram (don’t know which category they fall in) treat me, they always surface 80% irrelevant stuff and 20% that is okay but only in the rarest cases mindblowingly good. And that’s why on YouTube I tend to ignore the Home tab.
Especially in the short video algorithms, I fucking hate that if you didn’t respond within a microsecond you’ll now get fed sloth videos or car crashes until you die. I’m all algorithm’ed out.
