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The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

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Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#281

Post by tragic »

Siecje wrote: post #161
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.

Why are so many videos I have already seen? I guess people re-watch them, or show other people "Hey have you seen this". But for me it is just silly.

Well, it sometimes makes sense. I, and many others, use YouTube as a music streaming service. Most people listen to most songs they like more than once. I dare say yt has gotten a good amount of ad revenue out of me listening to Darren Emerson's dub extravaganza mix of black sky by Shakespeare's sister, which is always in the recommendation panel for some reason...

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#282

Post by jrimbault »

phs318u wrote: post #268
cameldrv wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the economics of the Internet today. Most sites are ad-funded. They need to maximize pageviews and time on site. The recommender is a huge part of accomplishing that, and it simply won't be tuned to any metric other than maximizing revenue. The solution would be to reskin popular sites with recommenders that had other objectives, such as retrospective satisfaction with time spent. Unfortunately sites k…

Thought just occurred: would I be willing to pay a subscription to have the recommender tuned to remove revenue maximisation and site-addiction maximisation? Would anyone? I've made plenty of "remove ads" in-app purchases on my phone. This isn't too different. And it might actually result in a truly useful experience.

In the case of Youtube, it could be part of the Youtube Red package.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#283

Post by iplaw »

No joke. My mom is the first person to LIKE anything that I post -- and then make an inappropriate comment on it.

I have added all of my family to a family group. I'll see if I can post to friends/publically and exclude an entire group of contacts.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#284

Post by radarsat1 »

specialist wrote: post #72
ProblemFactory wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have a page, Facebook wants to milk you, so they've got this weird algorithm that pushes your posts to only a small fraction of the page's followers, expecting you to start "promoting" them. While this does enable Facebook to force brands to buy advertising, it is also an user-friendly change. Nobody who I have spoken to about this thinks that "like/follow" = "I want to see everything they post" on Facebook.…

I wasn't aware that facebook does partial publishing/pushing from Pages. I'm co-admin for an org's official Page (and Group). Our bylaws require advance announcement of various things, like meetings and resolutions. We've been using our official Page just like our mail listserv, assuming all our subscribers are getting all of our announcements. Frankly, this sucks. Minimally, it violates the UX design principle of le…

I would be pretty annoyed if I was part of an organization that required me to be keeping up to date on Facebook posts, that used it as the only way to know what's going on. You should definitely have a mailing list people can sign up to. Facebook is not really an appropriate medium for that kind of thing.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#285

Post by Broken_Hippo »

r3bl wrote: post #278
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4. Oh my god, the spam! Every single Facebook update I post, there's something in my notifications. Either it is to boost the post, or is it more popular than X% of my previous posts, or my page had X views, Y likes, and Z shares, or some random guy is somehow ranked higher than the rest of the likes enough that his like deserves his own notification. Like, whatever I post, there's some bullshit notification that I d…

This first one "more popular than X% of my previous posts" is the most obvious bullshit to me, because the number keeps changing! Sometimes it's 70%, sometimes 80%, sometimes 95%. Oh, and I forgot to even mention the "boost it for free!" that I get from time to time, even though it's not really free, it just says so on the notification. A friend of mine fell for that and was charged. I clicked on it and, luckily, I d…

Yeah, it most definitely is. I share the posts in art groups - sometimes from the page, sometimes the photo, depending on the group rules. I have a general idea which pieces are more popular, and it definitely doesn't match up to their statistics.

And oh my... though, I'm now curious if he happened to notice any actual results from it or if the negative reports still hold true.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#286

Post by type0 »

> I’d love to hear from others who’ve seen a similar effect and love their mothers (or other close loved ones) enough to not cut them out of their Facebook lives.

I think the bigger issue is family members, friends and relatives who do cut out their non-fb using closed ones by ignoring all other methods of telecommunication. "Oh, you didn't knew we planned a wedding, too bad you're not on fb!"

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#287

Post by hohenheim »

wfunction wrote: post #217
nkrisc wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Amazon homepage is full of stuff I already own. Even worse is their internet-wide remarketing makes it so I see stuff I own on many of the sites I visit. There was however one moment where Amazon got it right: they recommended to me a book that only a week earlier I had purchased on a whim from an independent bookstore with cash. Creepy good.

> There was however one moment where Amazon got it right: they recommended to me a book that only a week earlier I had purchased on a whim from an independent bookstore with cash. Creepy good. That is creepy. Any way it might've been more than just a coincidence?

Well there was this sometime ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14406583

Though that was Google.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#289

Post by nkrisc »

wfunction wrote: post #217
nkrisc wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Amazon homepage is full of stuff I already own. Even worse is their internet-wide remarketing makes it so I see stuff I own on many of the sites I visit. There was however one moment where Amazon got it right: they recommended to me a book that only a week earlier I had purchased on a whim from an independent bookstore with cash. Creepy good.

> There was however one moment where Amazon got it right: they recommended to me a book that only a week earlier I had purchased on a whim from an independent bookstore with cash. Creepy good. That is creepy. Any way it might've been more than just a coincidence?

It's possible, but it was a book in a relatively unusual niche that I have a hobbyist interest in. It was a book about the archaeological and linguistic study of proto-Indo-European people (PIE) and their origins and spread by means of horses and the, at the time novel, wheels. I had previously purchased a book or two on linguistics from Amazon so perhaps there is only a small set of popular books in that category for their recommendation algorithm to pick from.

Re: The Facebook Algorithm Mom Problem

#290

Post by hellbanner »

delecti wrote: post #62
hellbanner wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't care enough to talk them in a year, then I doubt you care about "disappointing someone who obsessively checks their friend count on their birthday"

Agreed, and it's never stopped me, but a couple times I've told people that and their response was along the lines of "on their birthday? harsh."

You can't please everyone.
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