I am having a high rate of surprises when using the new feed, at a level that makes it hard to pinpoint a specific problem. probably that’s because there isn’t one. Some examples:
selection:
ew this recommender feels (malicious? emotion-seeking?), as recommenders usually do. how do I get rid of it. ah, some sliders. set that to zero. done. [a few hours later] why is the recommender still there? oh, it didn’t save.
feature request: no need to click save in order for saving to happen; instead, an undo tweaks button, and no save button.
how do I just view recent posts and comments, chronological? ah there’s probably something in the sliders. ah, yes. but I just want to view recent temporarily. and really, I want to see all recent things.
is there a way to shut off randomness? hmm, following? or just concentrate all the randomness on a single thing?
More generally, I want to know what exactly the randomness does. like, my hope is that what you did is: there are k feeds, each of which acts as a stack. there is a sampler. the sampler gets to choose which stack to use in a result.append(stack.pop()). in other words, my hope is that order and presence are not random within a given source, only interval between entries coming from that source is random. now that I think about it, I have 60% on this being what you did, but it’s not obviously the case.
ui:
I’d like to read this post. click on it. uh, huh. this is a different UI. It’s got gaps on the sides and a back button. something sets me on edge about that. It doesn’t feel like I’m on the page. low weight on this one.
click around to find the feedback button. okay, found it. now I start writing feedback, get the settings out of the way so I can scroll down to the thing I want to give feedback about—oops, feedback box is gone.
something about the multi-post thread ui is throwing me off. I’ll learn to read it, but I’m initially having trouble parsing it. I might try editing the css to see if I can fix it that way. Will probably have similar confusion for new users, which is where I see most of the value in tweaking this.
how do I just view recent posts and comments, chronological? ah there’s probably something in the sliders. ah, yes. but I just want to view recent temporarily. and really, I want to see all recent things
You’re not the only person wanting that, so maybe we’ll find a way.
is there a way to shut off randomness? hmm, following? or just concentrate all the randomness on a single thing?
Following is the intended way to avoid randomness. I kind of see as the “the recommendation algorithm wasn’t good enough” escape hatch for people.
I think about it, I have 60% on this being what you did, but it’s not obviously the case.
That is approximately how it works. The source code is open source if you’re curious enough. However I’ve been working on a different algorithm that at least currently is much more transparent and doesn’t randomly sample, instead does a universal scoring of items. See my recent Quick Take
I’d like to read this post. click on it. uh, huh. this is a different UI. It’s got gaps on the sides and a back button. something sets me on edge about that. It doesn’t feel like I’m on the page. low weight on this one.
That will be changing soon, making it same UI as normal posts.
click around to find the feedback button. okay, found it. now I start writing feedback, get the settings out of the way so I can scroll down to the thing I want to give feedback about—oops, feedback box is gone.
Hmm, I’ll have to investigate that.
something about the multi-post thread ui is throwing me off. I’ll learn to read it, but I’m initially having trouble parsing it.
Following is the intended way to avoid randomness. I kind of see as the “the recommendation algorithm wasn’t good enough” escape hatch for people.
I don’t want to limit my view to people who I’m following; I want to be able to view each of these weighted mix ingredients individually, chronologically. I want nothing to do with recommender-type randomization.
What do you mean by multi-post thread?
This thing:
it shows this repeatedly, with many instances of context-for-a-thing. kinda needs a way to mute a post, or something? there’s a “see less like this :sparkles:” but I don’t want to see less, I want to see none of specific things, mainly ones I deem to be distracting drama. I’m not super clear why, but it felt like I saw less drama in the pure-recent-comments mode than this feed is giving me, even with the recommender off—maybe there was a lot of drama lurking under the surface, or maybe the new feed has reset my mental adblock a bit. In general, I want all the randomness gone; randomness feels like it’s ~for making things addictive. The recommender should probably be off by default (or removed entirely), seeing as how those things are cognitohazards, especially when they’re the normal kind rather than some Leo Gao galaxy brain customizeable thing.
different post types use different layouts in a way that makes it hard to tell things apart—breaks the “different things should be different” design rule. Here’s a post by Human wanting replying to an unshown post titled TsviBT, and below it, a top-level post titled James Diacoumis which begins “Sahil’s argument...”. Just kidding, strike that, reverse those. The second one sure does look like a top level post, though. In general there’s not enough use of different visual emphasis to build a reading flow.
I am having a high rate of surprises when using the new feed, at a level that makes it hard to pinpoint a specific problem. probably that’s because there isn’t one. Some examples:
selection:
ew this recommender feels (malicious? emotion-seeking?), as recommenders usually do. how do I get rid of it. ah, some sliders. set that to zero. done. [a few hours later] why is the recommender still there? oh, it didn’t save.
feature request: no need to click save in order for saving to happen; instead, an undo tweaks button, and no save button.
how do I just view recent posts and comments, chronological? ah there’s probably something in the sliders. ah, yes. but I just want to view recent temporarily. and really, I want to see all recent things.
is there a way to shut off randomness? hmm, following? or just concentrate all the randomness on a single thing?
More generally, I want to know what exactly the randomness does. like, my hope is that what you did is: there are k feeds, each of which acts as a stack. there is a sampler. the sampler gets to choose which stack to use in a
result.append(stack.pop()). in other words, my hope is that order and presence are not random within a given source, only interval between entries coming from that source is random. now that I think about it, I have 60% on this being what you did, but it’s not obviously the case.ui:
I’d like to read this post. click on it. uh, huh. this is a different UI. It’s got gaps on the sides and a back button. something sets me on edge about that. It doesn’t feel like I’m on the page. low weight on this one.
click around to find the feedback button. okay, found it. now I start writing feedback, get the settings out of the way so I can scroll down to the thing I want to give feedback about—oops, feedback box is gone.
something about the multi-post thread ui is throwing me off. I’ll learn to read it, but I’m initially having trouble parsing it. I might try editing the css to see if I can fix it that way. Will probably have similar confusion for new users, which is where I see most of the value in tweaking this.
You’re not the only person wanting that, so maybe we’ll find a way.
Following is the intended way to avoid randomness. I kind of see as the “the recommendation algorithm wasn’t good enough” escape hatch for people.
That is approximately how it works. The source code is open source if you’re curious enough. However I’ve been working on a different algorithm that at least currently is much more transparent and doesn’t randomly sample, instead does a universal scoring of items. See my recent Quick Take
That will be changing soon, making it same UI as normal posts.
Hmm, I’ll have to investigate that.
What do you mean by multi-post thread?
I don’t want to limit my view to people who I’m following; I want to be able to view each of these weighted mix ingredients individually, chronologically. I want nothing to do with recommender-type randomization.
This thing:
it shows this repeatedly, with many instances of context-for-a-thing. kinda needs a way to mute a post, or something? there’s a “see less like this :sparkles:” but I don’t want to see less, I want to see none of specific things, mainly ones I deem to be distracting drama. I’m not super clear why, but it felt like I saw less drama in the pure-recent-comments mode than this feed is giving me, even with the recommender off—maybe there was a lot of drama lurking under the surface, or maybe the new feed has reset my mental adblock a bit. In general, I want all the randomness gone; randomness feels like it’s ~for making things addictive. The recommender should probably be off by default (or removed entirely), seeing as how those things are cognitohazards, especially when they’re the normal kind rather than some Leo Gao galaxy brain customizeable thing.
different post types use different layouts in a way that makes it hard to tell things apart—breaks the “different things should be different” design rule. Here’s a post by Human wanting replying to an unshown post titled TsviBT, and below it, a top-level post titled James Diacoumis which begins “Sahil’s argument...”. Just kidding, strike that, reverse those. The second one sure does look like a top level post, though. In general there’s not enough use of different visual emphasis to build a reading flow.