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The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

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Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#241

Post by freehunter »

phkahler wrote: post #191
patmcguire wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably correct by expected value. You're just not the multiple wallet type. I'm sure there are people who'd want five wallets, eight different shoe styles, multiple cuts of pants... Your indifference is subsumed in the sheer size of others' consumption.

Dude it's a wallet not a coach purse.

I have multiple wallets. I have one I take on business trips that contains my work ID, American Express, business cards, etc. All stuff I normally don't carry with me. I have an everyday wallet with cash and my bank card and stuff I need everyday. And if I'm dressing up, I don't want to ruin the lines of my suit so I have a far slimmer wallet that just has my ID and space for one credit card.

I mean I'm not accessorizing with the latest seasonal fashions, but there are utility reasons to change the kind of wallet you're carrying for different purposes.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#242

Post by freehunter »

crowbahr wrote: post #128
Semaphor wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if it is because of weird tastes or something else. But for sites like Steam, YT, Netflix I always wish for more tuning parameters because their recommendations are all horrible. On Netflix, for example, I get recommended stuff that's similar to other things I didn't like. Amazon is often the best of them for books because their engine seems to only really value the last few things I looked at / bought a…

Netflix, I think, has killed their own recommendation algorithm when they removed stars and made it boolean. I don't know if those buttons even do anything anymore because I think they're just matching based off demographic and who they're trying to market to now. It's recommending shows that I never would watch in a million years and giving them high matches despite me disliking most similar shows just because I'm a…

Thumbs up/down might not be the best for training a recommendation engine, but as someone who just switched his product's rating system from 1-5 to simple up/down, let me tell you: people have no idea how to use a star rating system. I would get people raving but leave a 1 star review, some people would leave a 5 star review and say bad things, some would leave a 1 star review but seem pretty neutral in their review.

A person is smart. People in general are dumb.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#243

Post by freehunter »

lanstin wrote: post #142
ProblemFactory wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I get notices from pages/groups I dont care about anymore, I either unfollow or mute the next time their post annoys me. I do that as well, but I think it's extremely rare among Facebook users. Everyone else I know either: * Puts up grudgingly with "spam" they no longer want to see, or eventually * Complains "Facebook is full of crap these days, I'm deleting my account". A filter algorithm is a much better exper…

What I want to read is stuff my friends have taken the trouble to type in, all of it whatever the topic. I don't want to read whatever random crap on the web they are reading or what ever. Original user generated content made Facebook and the inability to find my friends' generated content is what makes it not worth reading. I have about 1B ways to get hot memes and trending internet topics. I have relatively few way…

A few years ago I had to manually add a few specific people to my "close friends" list because Facebook decided to stop showing me their posts completely. One of the people was the best man at my wedding, another was my wife. You know, just the two people I care about most in the world. Just completely stopped showing me their posts, but I would see a ton of stuff from my wife's cousin that I'd never liked or commented on. So now I get a notification every time they post something so I can have a chance to see it.

I like Facebook's utility but man their algorithm sucks.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#244

Post by freehunter »

fenwick67 wrote: post #86
titanix2 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I want is a feed API to write my own post selection algorithm. Sadly, it's never gonna happen.

There used to be a Feed API, but it was removed for privacy reasons... people (understandably) didn't like that their friends could allow another company to read their posts.

There's a lot of API stuff they used to have but don't anymore. Like how I can read events from their API but can't create an event using their API. Not sure why Facebook doesn't want me adding content to their site but have no problem with me pulling content from their site.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#245

Post by ryanbrunner »

gabrielgoh wrote: post #135
ryanbrunner wrote: post #95

I find a lot of sites feel like they're overtuning their recommendation engines, to the detriment of using the site. YouTube is particularly bad for this - given the years of history and somewhat regular viewing of the site, I feel like it should have a relatively good idea of what I'm interested in. Instead, the YouTube homepage seems myopically focused on the last 5-10 videos I watched.

i think this is the right approach, you're not after all, the person you were 5 years ago, or even a week. most interests change with time, I lose interest in a topic very fast, and gain interest in another topic just as quickly. No good recommender system should be based off a reading of my "personality", whatever that may be - the most stable aspects of my personality, even if they can be divined from my viewing hi…

I think that's a fair point, and I wouldn't expect a video I watched 10 years ago to factor in very heavily on what I'm seeing today. But at least in my experience, it doesn't appear that the engine takes anything that happened more than a few days ago into account.

As an example: I watched a few episodes of Penn and Teller: Fool Us yesterday. I hadn't really watched it before, and while I like Penn and Teller in general, I don't remember watching them all that much on YouTube prior to yesterday (I'm sure at some point I had watched a video or two, but not more so than anything else I stumbled on.)

Today, 12 of the top 30 videos on my YouTube home page are specifically Penn and Teller: Fool Us. Not magic in general, not Penn and Teller in general, but specifically that show. That seems like the very recent past is way overrepresented.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#246

Post by drizzzler »

maxxxxx wrote: post #177
kerbalspacepro wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Amazon: "Oh, you bought a wallet? Here are twenty wallets of the exact same type but with slightly different colors that you might want to buy, too"

Funny story: A while ago I took an Ayurveda class (Indian medicine) and part of it was doing an oil enema. There are devices for this that are also used by a certain population for sexual pleasures. Bought one on Amazon and for months I couldn't show my Amazon page to other people because it was filled with sex toys....

lol

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#247

Post by vacri »

badwolf wrote: post #159
kerbalspacepro wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Amazon: "Oh, you bought a wallet? Here are twenty wallets of the exact same type but with slightly different colors that you might want to buy, too"

Buy a Dyson vacuum cleaner on Amazon... For the next several weeks Amazon thinks I've taken up the popular hobby of collecting vacuum cleaners

I once clicked on a 'russian bride' google ad for a laugh, quite a while back. Google still puts lots of russian and filipino bride ads into my 'bubble' to this day...

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#248

Post by chiefalchemist »

Semaphor wrote: post #101
ryanbrunner wrote: post #95

I find a lot of sites feel like they're overtuning their recommendation engines, to the detriment of using the site. YouTube is particularly bad for this - given the years of history and somewhat regular viewing of the site, I feel like it should have a relatively good idea of what I'm interested in. Instead, the YouTube homepage seems myopically focused on the last 5-10 videos I watched.

I'm not sure if it is because of weird tastes or something else. But for sites like Steam, YT, Netflix I always wish for more tuning parameters because their recommendations are all horrible. On Netflix, for example, I get recommended stuff that's similar to other things I didn't like. Amazon is often the best of them for books because their engine seems to only really value the last few things I looked at / bought a…

All the technology hype aside, it often feels as if these feed prediction algorithms are akin to weather forecasting. That is, there not forecasting per se, but taking educated guesses based on some set of knowns. The problem is correlation is not cause.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#249

Post by chiefalchemist »

unoti wrote: post #206
Semaphor wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if it is because of weird tastes or something else. But for sites like Steam, YT, Netflix I always wish for more tuning parameters because their recommendations are all horrible. On Netflix, for example, I get recommended stuff that's similar to other things I didn't like. Amazon is often the best of them for books because their engine seems to only really value the last few things I looked at / bought a…

> for sites like Steam, YT, Netflix I always wish for more tuning parameters because their recommendations are all horrible. The problem with those recommendation engines is that they're not optimized to serve your needs. They're optimized to serve the goals of their respective companies. And the problem comes when your needs are a little incompatible with the needs of the company. Consider Netflix for example. Their…

It's worth noting that satisfaction is also a function of perception. Did you enjoy the movie? Yeah, probably. But then you think about all the possibilities, a small number of which would naturally be better, and an acceptable film fades towards unacceptable.

Regardless of how good the recommendation engine might be, it's still always subject to human perception. That can be unpredictable and fickle, on a good day :)

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#250

Post by chiefalchemist »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #95

I find a lot of sites feel like they're overtuning their recommendation engines, to the detriment of using the site. YouTube is particularly bad for this - given the years of history and somewhat regular viewing of the site, I feel like it should have a relatively good idea of what I'm interested in. Instead, the YouTube homepage seems myopically focused on the last 5-10 videos I watched.

It's not just over tuning, but finding me things I might have missed. Not necessarily popular things, but thinks that appeal to me.

For example, I get emails from Pocket "You saved a popular article..." And I think "Who cares?" Don't tell me what I know, tell me what I missed. YT is similar. It recommends things I've watched. I'm looking for new and interesting and I'm getting yesterday's news? That doesn't excite me.

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