I found this link aggregator that someone made for a personal project and they had an exciting idea for a sorting algorithm whose basic principle is the following:

Upvotes show you more links from other people who have upvoted that content
Downvotes show you fewer links from other people who have upvoted that content

I thought the idea was interesting and wondered if something similar could be implemented in the fediverse.

They currently don't have plans of open-sourcing their work which is fine but I think it shouldn't be too hard to try and replicate something similar here right?

They have the option to try this out in guest mode where you don't have to sign in, but it seems to be giving me relevant content after upvoting only 3 times.

There is more information on their website if you guys are interested.

Edit: Changed title to something more informative.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If you happen to encounter Boba first then Cofee will be predicted to be disliked based on the overall preferences of people who agree with your Boba preference.

With this specific algorithm, I don't necessarily think that would be the case. It only shows you fewer links from people who like the links that you dislike. It doesn't show you fewer links based on what people who are like you dislike which is what it seems like you are describing.

Also, it doesn't have to be this specific algorithm that we implement but I thought the idea was unique so I thought I'd share it anyway.

It seems to be working well enough for me now so I plan to keep using it and see what it's like.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Whether or not you use downvotes doesn't really matter.

If what you like is well represented by the Boba drinkers and the Boba drinkers disproportionally don't like Cofee then Cofee will be disproportionally excluded from the top of your results. Unless you explore deeper the Cofee results will be pushed to the bottom of your results. And any that happen to come to the top will have arrived there from broad appeal and will have very little contribution to thinking you like Cofee.

If you don't let the math effectively push things away that are disliked by the people who like similar things as you then everything will saturate at maximum appeal and the whole system does nothing.