Right now, big communities dominate the feed. I’m wondering what sort algorithm could level the field so niche or hobbyist communities have a fair chance to get seen.

There’s a good related post: Niche Communities won't be able to reach their true potential until Lemmy adds a sort that takes engagement into account. It puts it well:

“If Lemmy is to truly start having active hobbyist communities instead of being 95% lefty US politics, Shitposts, and some tech stuff, it needs a sort that takes into account the user’s engagement.”

What do you think should be the default sort for a more balanced Lemmy?

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[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Try "Scaled," it is better.

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

I've just tried it out on "All" and basically the entire first page is filled with one user's posts to !visualarts@lemmy.dbzer0.com :/

[–] PhilipTheBucket@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/?dataType=Post&listingType=All&sort=Scaled

Yeah, maybe so. I think you may have to do it to "Subscribed" only, and then sometimes cut out one specific community or other that it is over-promoting. I mean, it's doing what it's supposed to do, promoting small communities, but I think sometimes it maybe gets carried away.

[–] Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 1 points 1 month ago

Maybe the size of the community should be determined based on posts per month instead of the number of active users

[–] MHLoppy@fedia.io 1 points 1 month ago

Imo that's as much a problem of the sorting algorithm as it is with a single community blasting out too many posts at once without any consideration for how current frontends are unable to usefully integrate that into people's feeds. A couple of years ago nanoUFO was being a bit (subjectively) overenthusiastic about posting - I counted and !games@sh.itjust.works had 40 posts at once from them and it made the first couple pages of my feed basically unusable for a while.

Scaled is also probably better suited for your subscribed feed rather than /All.

[–] sanity_is_maddening@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Please. No algorithm, please.

And I don't use the Hot or Popular filters because I think they do possess some of the same undertones of that perverse incentive that algorithmic social media has. It would be advisable to kill this before the lemmyverse grows too wide.

Just chronological in all options: Home. Local, and All. But allowing to filter any of them through themes or subject. Piefed is already toying really well with some of these concepts.

This alone allows a lot more of the other small instances and communities to be seen. And removes those perverse incentives to "climb" that corrupting ladder that makes some people post controversial and deranged posts that seek the reward of getting more attention. Algorithms rewarded this. The Hot and Popular filter options of sifting through them rewards this too. And we all know it. And we are seeing its' effect already. In an ideal world this wouldn't be a problem. But we know these will keep being hijacked to that end.

And these don't help the small and the thoughtful communities to arise as we want them to.

I personally set my home page to be the list of the communities I follow and decide what I'm in the mood for. The voyager app is also great for this. And all are set to chronological.

So summing up, my suggestions are:

-kill the Hot and Popular filters. Chronological feed only.

-Add subject filters instead.

-List of Communities followed as homepage. It let's you know what you're in the mood for.

These will help everything including the smaller instances and communities to be seen. This isn't about my preferences. I do this to remove my own tendencies to fall prey to the rage bait catching my attention as a starting point. Because I'm no better. That's the point. Media Experts as soon as 2008 said this ingrained reward loop is a problem because disgust and rage are the reactions that track the most immediately and lock on in the history of all media. If we want Lemmy to be better, we have to make it so. This already doesn't have ads and algorithmic suggestions to nurture engagement, which is great. So this is the only thorn that remains from the dark legacy of social media. Nobody would be shutting up anybody. It's just not rewarding shitposting. If I can disable it myself, the space at large is still falling prey to it as I would if I was using it.

PS: Also, Crossposting obviously helps smaller instances and communities to get noticed too.

[–] PumpkinDrama@reddthat.com 0 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Compute raw post score (upvotes minus downvotes).
Normalize score by community size (e.g., divide by square root of active users).
Calculate z-score relative to community mean and standard deviation.
Apply time decay to prioritize recent posts.
Sort posts by adjusted z-score.

Outcome: Posts that significantly outperform their community norm appear prominently, giving small and large communities equal visibility potential.
Enhancements: Minimum engagement thresholds, Bayesian shrinkage for small communities.

[–] trajekolus@piefed.social 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm not sure how Scaled is determined, but as far as I know, it is made for what you want

[–] PumpkinDrama@reddthat.com 0 points 1 month ago

Nah it only rewards communities with few members, that means bot communities with lot of posts and almost no active users are always going to be top. That's not the outliers sorting that I want.