Kind of surprised this is the take. Algorithms in general, just sorting by highest to lowest or whatever common problem that needs to be solved, aren’t bad. “Algorithm” has become a dirty word mostly because of the stuff pushing short-form content over long-form content, outrage that generates engagement over something you would enjoy that doesn’t enrage you enough to make you type fifty paragraphs and keep coming back to fight in the comments, etc. So I agree with the literal statement that algorithms aren’t always bad.

But as for what you meant, I’m super surprised at all the people who want an algorithm to feed them content and aren’t satisfied. I looked for the stuff I was interested in, subscribed, and am happy. When I run out of content I either log off and do something else or go seek out stuff I’m kind of interested in. In my most charitable possible assumption, people who want algorithms are probably a lot less suspectible to getting pulled in by outrage and scrolling all day, and just want to be able to discover cool stuff fast, and the algorithms somehow worked to show them the cool stuff. In my experience I had to strictly stick to my Home feed with just stuff I subscribed to on Reddit to not see outrage porn, could never poke my head into Popular or anything without seeing some outrage sub like r/noahgettheboat or /iamatotalpieceofshit. And then they started forcibly sorting my Home feed by Controversial… yep. Stopped regularly browsing there really fast.

I am just really wary of asking for algorithms back because I really don’t want the Fediverse to become another place catered towards outrage porn for max engagement. I really want users to have options if this is implemented, so as not to force this algorithm on users like myself who like the “chronological order of stuff you purposely followed only” algorithm. And for that option to not be taken away from me in an effort to “drive growth!” and all that.

I don’t want to refuse others a good thing just because it’s not for me, but I also have been burned by social media algorithms that were once nice chronological, and later became catered towards outrage and showing you content you never signed up to see without having an option to switch back to chronological and opt out of having RandomInfluencerYouDontFollow in your feed. Looking at you, Instagram. I signed up with my elementary school classmates, liked chronological feed, liked having Explore just be friends of friends… I still only follow people I know in real life but now Explore is a bunch of controversial memes, people selling stuff, and influencers who want me to form a parasocial relationship with them. This is also what my regular feed, which used to just show me chronological order posts only from people I follow, turns to once I scroll past maybe 7 posts my friends made. Have not fully deleted but also haven’t touched the app in months now.

I guess the real solution is giving people options and not taking them away because you decided to go public and need maximum eye-on-advertisement time. Hopefully Lemmy stays open source and different instances stay popular, so in case someone does try to take it public we can all flee to different servers and keep talking.

deleted by creator

Pleased that [email protected] has attracted posters who aren’t me in its first few days of existence! Thanks to it I played some automation games again. Mindustry may not be for me… I’ll give it an honest shot but I just hit the tower defense tutorial and am feeling a bit leery. I’m not a “violence in video games is bad” type so not sure why I am getting like this.

Waiting for the day the Fediverse gets more users. I mod 3 communities now and I am letting it go because small platform, someone has to provide content, and although I am fully capable of posting without being a mod the things I’d like to post about don’t always have preexisting communities (or have a dead one, so precedent to recreate—the “hey that’s too specific, just post in a big general community” hurdle tends to be presented less often when the community already existed on the Fediverse). But in a normal situation this feels too powermoddy.

I’ve come off seeing a lot of people express dissent in a rather acidic manner, so I just appreciate that you have stated an opposing view in a way that is informative, and a lot less “anyone who disagrees is [bad thing]”, “I will say that anyone who approves of [thing I don’t] masturbates to it as a way to be hurtful and insulting”, “you disagree? I will position you as overly emotional and myself as the realist by saying ‘Cope’”, etc.

You’ve made me curious about various programming languages’ efficiency, specifically in how choice of language might affect resource consumption. Not just CPU cycles but carbon and electricity. And I’m actually going to look into it instead of feeling put off enough by vitriol that I just wash my hands of the entire disagreement and walk away. +1, this is how you disagree online.

Yes, I may be venting my feelings about seeing too many people being mean online.

I still have not tried PieFed yet but I always find myself cheering it on whenever I see it.

Worth crossposting to [email protected]

Very Into magic in fiction, life simulation games, good pixel art. Almost certainly going to play.

For people like me wondering WTF VGC is: https://www.smogon.com/smog/issue7/vgc

I’ll follow this project with mild curiosity, no specific asks from me. Best wishes! Also, if you have not already, I suggest asking [email protected]

deleted by creator

I can usually read anything without having issues, but I just read the tropes page for this and this depressing game lived rent-free in my head for too long. And some of the themes are things I can usually read about no problem but actually seeing? Not sure if the game would show it on-screen, but if it did I know I would handle it poorly. Finally, I usually do not want to engage with fiction that depressing, and I am already familiar with some of the themes in real life so I don’t need a good art game to teach me about it or make some commentary. Dark things are usually not cathartic for me, just another painful reminder about the bad things in the world. So I am going to avoid this series and I think others might have the same reasoning. Of course, I’m aware others can like it and that’s totally fine! For others, it can be a good story or help them work through their own traumas. I understand how this series probably has lots of value. It’s just extremely not for me.

At least according to Wikipedia, the “f” at the end is indeed part of the intended game name.

I wish you the best of luck with your instance, sounds like a solid smaller instance!

I felt disheartened a bit ago because I posted discussion questions sometimes on [email protected] and did not get any bites besides my own starter comment answering my own question (not in the post body so as not to elevate my own opinion above the others, and posted also to encourage people to post: 1 comment is easier to speak up with than 0, I think, because that 1 comment might give you something to engage with if the post itself did not). I posted discussion questions in several communities today, including [email protected], got bites, and I’m delighted reading all the responses.

(in [email protected], [email protected], and one in [email protected] that I crossposted to [email protected])

I wonder how much of this is network effects? I cannot describe how many times I have fired up Minecraft all over again after not touching it for awhile because oh, a friend made a server and my other friends are playing too! At least in my experience, it seems to just be a thing that if a social circle contains mostly people who happen to enjoy video games, even if we formed around liking to sing or something and not our love of video games, it will try to make a Minecraft server.

Players will be able to toggle between the new and previously existing visuals of Minecraft with the simple press of a button, meaning a classic look can be maintained by those who desire it.

thank goodness, shaders are pretty but I am massively suspect to nostalgia bias and I do not want to dedicate performance to shaders if my computer cannot handle it

to be honest if this isn’t a pinned post or linked in the sidebar i feel like it should be, great writeup

Please crosspost to [email protected]

Well, we all would like more engagement on the Fediverse, but most of us do not want it in exchange for engagement algorithm hell. There leads the path to even more politics than is already posted but now with an extra serving of vitriol, “hey let’s look at this video of a stranger being an asshole, get enraged, and insult them,” and controversial takes on someone’s “am I the asshole?” post drowning out actual cool stuff that appeals to most, but that also doesn’t make them type out 7 paragraphs online. And what cool stuff does make it up to some kind of Popular/Trending is frequently extremely short-form content, which a lot of people believe is lowering their attention span and frequently (though not always) just lower-quality than long-form content.

At least, that is what you get with an algorithm that tries to maximize engagement above all else. We’d have to balance engagement encouragement with quality, and try to avoid outrage porn getting pushed up so high at the expense of other things just because it tends to generate the most engagement.

I think a lot of us also like that we can read the unread posts and click off, instead of forever being encouraged to scroll more, so adding an addiction component on purpose would probably be unpopular.

About the artist thing specifically—I see artists more often on Mastodon and BlueSky. I think it is because Twitter was their home platform, so naturally they flee towards other microblogging platforms.

Yep, this happens to me and it’s kind of frustrating.

When I see a discussion-based post or question I do try to answer because I know the Fediverse needs engagement and I know what it is like being on the other side. But sometimes I truly just have nothing to offer and the fact I don’t have a good answer isn’t interesting enough to be worth posting (for example, “What is your favorite football team and why?” in some general ask community. I do not have one so I can’t participate in the intended discussion, but that it isn’t special or unique to not have a favorite football team either, so talking about that wouldn’t add a fresh perspective to the discussion. I’d just feel like a party pooper typing that I don’t have one as a response to that hypothetical post). So I say nothing. Or people are arguing and getting hostile over it, and I am not interested in getting in a fight myself. Or what I do have to offer feels very very spammy and generic (“picture looks good!”).

I was one of a bunch of people who got Instagram because my friends did and used it basically as “in real life social media”—use it to see what’s going on in the lives of people you know in real life, as a method of contacting some of them if you do not have their phone numbers, etc. Is there anyone using Pixelfed for that? I’d love to help support another Fediverse platform, but outside of just posting my personal stuff (and of course I would have to check privacy settings too) I’m not a photographer or influencer and feel I have no real reason to be using Pixelfed.

Although come to think of it, I wonder if Instagram was made for photographers first and then all the people trying to use it as just regular social media took it over. If it is private enough I might just put my personal stuff there anyways even with 0 followers, a Monthly Active User is a Monthly Active User, and eventually I’ll probably meet someone who uses Pixelfed in real life.