Max Riethmuller (TechLife)

@mrcompletely@heads.social @amberage@eldritch.cafe @cwebber@social.coop we need to get activitypub developers serious about account portability (per this discussion https://shadowfacts.net/2023/activitypub-portable-identity/) before you can seriously expect to migrate users from platforms like Bluesky. Interoperability is also important, but in many ways account portability comes first.

@donnodubus@mas.to okay, got ya. 🙂 I guess the key is that "algorithms" are the big bad, because 1. people don't know what's in them and 2. they have no choice in which algorithms they are subject to. Simple sort and filter criteria yes, are algorithms, but they are also transparent, which is I guess what we want to focus on. I think we can suggest sort and filter functions without needing to bring the word algorithm into it. But yes I see what you are saying. It is useful to be clear about defintions

@donnodubus@mas.to @hildabast@mastodon.online @mission_europa@universeodon.com it's valuing toots based on how recent they are, which is the functional equivalent of not using an algorithm. There's also a functional difference between sorting by simple criteria and sorting by a complex algorithm.

@donnodubus@mas.to @hildabast@mastodon.online @mission_europa@universeodon.com I think even if toots are sorted b y the 'algorithm' of 'chronological placement', it's still a rather large qualititative difference between algorithms using criteria such as toot content, audience, the rating of the tooter etc etc.

@kfury@mstdn.social https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2XqHebHwpo

@donnodubus@mas.to @hildabast@mastodon.online @mission_europa@universeodon.com in fact I'd like to know if there is any sort criteria involved at all or if the server simply displays the post on the time line as it receives it not based on the timestamp, not sorting by any criteria, simply displaying it as it is received (which may sometimes differ slightly from the time stamp). Do you know for sure that posts are sorted by time?

@hildabast@mastodon.online @donnodubus@mas.to @mission_europa@universeodon.com yes I've noticed that also which leads me to suspect that toots aren't sorted by chronology but are just posted as they come in, which results in chronological mismatch due to different processing loads for a given moment.

@hildabast@mastodon.online @donnodubus@mas.to @mission_europa@universeodon.com I don't think the push mechanism is as robust as other more established social media platforms.