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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

#71

Post by edgyquant »

CornCobs wrote: post #56
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…

Come on, if you never looked at any of the social stuff in Github I bet any new recommendation system isn't going to bother you either. Unless they actively undermine their code/repo search functionality to push social stuff, let them do whatever they want for people who actually like browsing GitHub? (Not that I can imagine who actually browses GitHub)

Social stuff on GitHub is weird. I have a couple of old colleagues that fill up most of my feed daily with stars to repos.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#72

Post by kissgyorgy »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #12
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…

What exactly does "optimizing for Github recommendations" mean? I'm not writing and debugging 10,000 lines of C just to farm Github stars. It seems crazy to think anyone would change how they work for that. Whereas, people on Youtube/Twitter/Facebook/etc. really do change their videos or writing to spread better.

Here is an example of possible abuse: it is already showing releases, so I can imagine a project would release more often with crappy updates just to show up in your feed more often.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#73

Post by toto444 »

da39a3ee wrote: post #15

I've used GitHub intensively for 13 years. I've never looked at the front page or "feed". Why would you? GitHub is for working with git repositories, it's not a social website.

I am interested in Japanese learning and Emoji and I am actually happy that Github recommends me repos related to these topics.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#74

Post by tedivm »

ape4 wrote: post #67

I took a look at mine and it might be interesting. Its in addition to the "following" feed - that's still there. It had people and projects I might want to check out based on (er, something). Why not? I might find something I like. It recommended a Rust project but I haven't posted any Rust.

Yeah I actually like it. Besides, it's an optional new tab- you can completely ignore it if you don't like it.

If they remove the existing chronological based feed then I can see why people might complain, but that hasn't happened.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#75

Post by smordistan »

ticviking wrote: post #14
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…

I’m convinced the ai recommendation audience is the origin of the “death of the internet”

It certainly seems like a watershed moment where the primary purpose of our machinery has shifted to serve the machines instead of the people.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#76

Post by runako »

jcelerier wrote: post #54
dxbydt wrote: post #48

> 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…

> So most algos let you personalize the feed. But without an algo…there’s just no hope. but there's an algo which is simple to implement and has very little biases: just show the things in temporal order ? Anything else is inferior to me. I don't want to see what's best for others, I don't want to see what some algorithm thinks is best for me, I just want to see what's last, with zero additional "reflection" on this.

"Temporal order" is another way of saying "prioritize accounts that post most frequently, while suppressing less-frequent posters." That obviously rewards e.g. unnaturally breaking up content into multiple parts, content-light posting, and other consumer-hostile behaviors. I'm not sure why so many seem to think this is obviously optimal for consumers.

"I'll unfollow the accounts that behave that way" doesn't work because a temporally-ordered system incentivizes all accounts to behave this way. An account that posts highly valuable content, but only posts once weekly, will not thrive in a temporal-only medium.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#77

Post by jjoonathan »

CornCobs wrote: post #56
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…

Come on, if you never looked at any of the social stuff in Github I bet any new recommendation system isn't going to bother you either. Unless they actively undermine their code/repo search functionality to push social stuff, let them do whatever they want for people who actually like browsing GitHub? (Not that I can imagine who actually browses GitHub)

Hey, we've seen this show a dozen times before. They are definitely going to undermine their core functionality to push social stuff, and for exactly the reason you gave: nobody uses it and they want to force you to.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#78

Post by ashtonkem »

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…

The incredibly frustrating thing is that the metrics they’re “growth hacking”, engagement mostly, aren’t great proxies for product success in a lot of cases! In a lot of these cases the constant design tweaks probably reduces the overall sentiment users have towards the product overall.

I’m thinking specifically of the Netflix autoplay box, which I’m sure did wonders for their engagement, but also was universally hated. I think its no coincidence that during this time my social group went from “I love Netflix!” to “I can’t cancel Netflix because it has ”. I fear GitHub going down the same path with such tweaks.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#79

Post by edgyquant »

chockchocschoir wrote: post #51
dxbydt wrote: post #48

> 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…

> 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. I think that the common complain is not "it isn't showing what I personally want" VS "it isn't showing what people generally want" but rather that the algorithm is often no…

If anything algorithms that drive engagement are mutually exclusive with what people want to see. Most people don’t usually engage with anything but the odds are a lot higher for someone to reply etc out of anger or disgust than anything else.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#80

Post by mistrial9 »

smordistan wrote: post #75
ticviking wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m convinced the ai recommendation audience is the origin of the “death of the internet”

It certainly seems like a watershed moment where the primary purpose of our machinery has shifted to serve the machines instead of the people.

management ownership of algorithmically-generated profits, the machines dont care
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