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Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

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Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#41

Post by lukevp »

charcircuit wrote: post #28
everdrive wrote: post #5

Algorithmic feeds are always hostile to the user. They limit what a user sees, and slowly infantilizes them by teaching them to passively consume rather actively seek information. I've never encountered a situation where an algorithmic feed made things better. At best, they make things more addictive.

>They limit what a user sees No, a screen has limited real estate. There is only so many things that can be shown to you at once. So on youtube for example there maybe only be room to show 8 videos. Ideally I should find all 8 videos interesting. If I don't, that's a waste of space and a waste of my time. Algorithmic feeds serve to improve the results such that I am more likely to watch a video that is put in one of…

The problem with this is that your suggestions are based on past viewing history, which isn’t always related to future needs. Examples: on one youtube account we primarily watch different types of media on, we watched a Labrinth music video. Neither my wife or I like labyrinth, but now our music section in YouTube is completely consumed by labyrinth music videos. One or two viewings isn’t indicative of us being labrinth fans. This is what we mean by the AI is dumb and makes things worse for the user. The music video section on that account is basically useless now. The same thing will happen with anything - one time I watched a restoration video for an old lamp I had, and YouTube assumed I now mostly wanted to watch antique restoration videos for the next 6 months.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#42

Post by api »

eloisius wrote: post #6

I look forward to the quasi-spam slurry of infiniscroll feed crap once growth hackers start trying to game the algorithm to get more traction for their project. I don’t think you can introduce a recommendation algorithm without it having a negative effect on the content it’s supposed to aid discovery of. Pre-recsys, the content is made for human consumption, but once you add the recsys, the AI itself becomes part of…

See /r/elsagate for what recommendation algorithms do to content:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ElsaGate/

The effect on a population of heavy use of social media platforms run by recommendation algorithms can be seen here:

https://www.navytimes.com/resizer/xESsQM55InJ7pTur3Jd1NncWdS...

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#43

Post by charcircuit »

AlexandrB wrote: post #26
charcircuit wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because "2d ago" provides a better user experience even for developers.

Depends on what you're doing. If you're just browsing a repo, it's fine. If you're debugging something and need a timestamp for when a change went in, it's abysmal.

I should have specified on average. I do not often need to lookup the exact timestamp of a commit.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#44

Post by typeofhuman »

chockchocschoir wrote: post #29

> as users worried the recommendations were turning GitHub into something distressingly like a social media platform. Really users? This is news? I'll echo what I've said in another comment ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30769570 ) regarding GitHub being a social platform: > GitHub has always branded itself as a "social collaboration platform" rather than anything else (well, first "git hosting" but secondly…

How much longer until they release GitHub Stories?

/s but not really

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#45

Post by eminence32 »

I feel like I'm in the minority here: when I saw this new feature, I thought it could be useful and a better replacement for what's currently there. I don't follow many people, so the "old" feed was pretty boring and stale. However, the "new" feed is showing me things that I find interesting, like a new release of openzfs, even though I'm not watching that repo.

I understand why might be worse for other people, but I disagree in general with the idea that this is categorically the wrong thing for github to do.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#46

Post by zimpenfish »

lukevp wrote: post #41
charcircuit wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They limit what a user sees No, a screen has limited real estate. There is only so many things that can be shown to you at once. So on youtube for example there maybe only be room to show 8 videos. Ideally I should find all 8 videos interesting. If I don't, that's a waste of space and a waste of my time. Algorithmic feeds serve to improve the results such that I am more likely to watch a video that is put in one of…

The problem with this is that your suggestions are based on past viewing history, which isn’t always related to future needs. Examples: on one youtube account we primarily watch different types of media on, we watched a Labrinth music video. Neither my wife or I like labyrinth, but now our music section in YouTube is completely consumed by labyrinth music videos. One or two viewings isn’t indicative of us being labri…

Same issue here - if I watch one video from a channel I'm not subscribed to, my recommendations will be flooded with that and related channels. Even picking "don't recommend this channel" only cuts down the spam, doesn't stop it - which is annoying because, sometimes, I've enjoyed what I've watched and I wouldn't mind the odd recommendation ... just not a dashboard full every single day from then on.

Oh and "XYZ viewers also watch... [5 videos by XYZ]" is such an egregious failure that I can't help but laugh every time I see it.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#47

Post by chockchocschoir »

typeofhuman wrote: post #44
chockchocschoir wrote: post #29

> as users worried the recommendations were turning GitHub into something distressingly like a social media platform. Really users? This is news? I'll echo what I've said in another comment ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30769570 ) regarding GitHub being a social platform: > GitHub has always branded itself as a "social collaboration platform" rather than anything else (well, first "git hosting" but secondly…

How much longer until they release GitHub Stories? /s but not really

Again, you shouldn't be surprised if a company who always branded itself as "social" adds any new social features.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#48

Post by dxbydt »

> Algorithmic feeds are always hostile to the user….They limit what a user sees…never encountered a situation where an algorithmic feed made things better

I don’t know if Github should do algorithmic feeds. That said, my literal job description is to design an algorithmic feed for a tv news app. That’s what I’ve done - written an algo that decides what news gets shown, in what order => implicitly means a whole bunch of newsclips never get shown…or they are at the end of the queue and 90% of the viewers would never get to them.

Why does one do this ? Because screen real estate is finite. You turn on your tv, you have a finite rectangular canvas - I can show maybe 5 squares on that rectangle without scrolling. Each square has a newsclip with text & picture. Who gets to decide which 5 clips to show ? Well, my algo does. How else would you do it ? There are literally 100s of 1000s of newsclips per day! Can’t show every single one of them - nobody has the time, nobody would watch, most of it is not going to be relevant to the vast majority of the audience. So 10000 newsclips get filtered down to 5 clips that get shown on the screen. You scroll. 5 more. Scroll again. 5 more. So on…you cap at 50 clips…nobody scrolls that much anyways.

That’s why you have an algorithmic feed - because there is too much content, but your brain real estate is finite. Your screen real estate is finite. The amount of time you have to watch news is finite. Your interest in news is finite. All of this has been measured, analyzed, sliced & diced. Your time is finite. But content is infinite. There is just too much news. Take finance news - 100s of companies reporting earnings every given day, associated commentary around buying/selling that stock, how the company is doing…1000s of newsclips! Take political news - so much footage, all the way from local municipal town hall meetings to presidential press conferences. Take entertainment news…man, there is so much music/movie/art/talent related content. Can’t show everything. Hence algorithmic feed.

Now sure, you can complain that the algo isn’t showing you what you personally want - its trained on the entire viewer population, not on your personal tastes. So most algos let you personalize the feed. But without an algo…there’s just no hope.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#49

Post by eminence32 »

AlexandrB wrote: post #26
charcircuit wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because "2d ago" provides a better user experience even for developers.

Depends on what you're doing. If you're just browsing a repo, it's fine. If you're debugging something and need a timestamp for when a change went in, it's abysmal.

Just a note for the audience in general:

In github, if you hover your mouse over a time like "2 days ago", the tooltip will give you the exact timestamp. However, I can't find any way to easily copy this into your clipboard (for that I guess you have to go to your old friend "git show" or "git log")

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#50

Post by viswd »

chockchocschoir wrote: post #29

> as users worried the recommendations were turning GitHub into something distressingly like a social media platform. Really users? This is news? I'll echo what I've said in another comment ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30769570 ) regarding GitHub being a social platform: > GitHub has always branded itself as a "social collaboration platform" rather than anything else (well, first "git hosting" but secondly…

I think part of the fear is that they will expand it into a larger social network, that was my knee jerk reaction.
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