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I ditched the algorithm for RSS

joeyehand.com

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Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#101

Post by s1mplicissimus »

zahlman wrote: post #53
s1mplicissimus wrote: post #48

If I remember correctly "the algorithm" as a concept of feed curation has been introduced by facebook ( or youtube?), long after RSS was used by blogs and podcasts. Heck, even Twitter used to have an RSS feed they killed a looong time ago [1] I also remember that in the beginning I was chuckling to myself "who on earth would want to have their feed curated by a black box whose target function cannot be checked? If I…

>turns out I was very wrong and lots of people seem to prefer just getting washed in a steady stream of somewhat internally consistent worldview. If you're putting together an RSS feed from creators you like, isn't that liable to happen anyway?

Interesting point. Yes, if you pick too narrow a set of feeds, they might not even prompt you to engage with other sources, leading to our good old filter bubble effect. I'd still posit the risk of that happening is way higher when you only have a centralized platform like, say, twitter, controlling the push-factor based on payment. With RSS, I can still adjust my feed exactly to my preferences once I notice a bias or degradation in quality of certain feeds. This cannot be done if my feed is controlled by a machine optimized for maximizing engagement/advertisement $.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#102

Post by wussboy »

s1mplicissimus wrote: post #48

If I remember correctly "the algorithm" as a concept of feed curation has been introduced by facebook ( or youtube?), long after RSS was used by blogs and podcasts. Heck, even Twitter used to have an RSS feed they killed a looong time ago [1] I also remember that in the beginning I was chuckling to myself "who on earth would want to have their feed curated by a black box whose target function cannot be checked? If I…

Many people do not have the technical expertise to set up an RSS feed and so fell into the algo by default.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#103

Post by khet »

ikesau wrote: post #15
freetonik wrote: post #10

Apologies for promoting my project again (did this in at least 2 other threads related to RSS), but I'm weirdly proud of it: I'm curating a list of human-written blogs on my blog reader/discovery/search engine called Minifeed: https://minifeed.net/blogs/ There's an OPML export available as well: https://minifeed.net/blogs/opml.xml

There's also https://ooh.directory/ and https://blogscroll.com/

and https://boredreading.com/

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#104

Post by tolerance »

bluGill wrote: post #100

A good algorithm is a good thing. However what a good algorithm is for me is often different from what it is for those who maintain them. Outrage gets attention and sometimes it is needed, but there is a level of too much, and also a lot of outrage unfairly represents the issues and so it makes me mad even though if I understood the details I wouldn't be mad just concerned. I want an algorithm that surfaces things of…

> I want an algorithm that surfaces things of interest to me, then says "you have seen it all, go outside" (with an option of if I'm confined to a hospital bed to go on).

[Acquire, or Employ your] good taste, sensibility & discipline.

Edit: For the record, "Employ your..." assumed that it if "good taste, sensibility & discipline" was not already acquired, it was already possessed and who I was responding to is able to put it to use.

Let those characteristics be your algorithm...or rather, your natural heuristic for living fair.

Has good faith met the end that it's said that chivalry saw?

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#106

Post by PaulKeeble »

bbkane wrote: post #99
netghost wrote: post #87

The one thing that kills me is the number of "modern" blogs/sites that don't offer rss or atom is really frustrating. If I really like your site, please let me be an engaged reader and let me know when you have something valuable to say again! I've even resorted to adding features in my personal feedreader to seek out common feed locations or APIs that common blogging tools leave on mostly unnoticed.

My SSG (Zola) offers an RSS generation option, so I turned it on. Several months later I realized it was broken for some reason and I hadn't noticed. Nobody emailed me or anything (I'm not a popular blogger), so I just turned the RSS generation off

No blog is worth the hassle and honestly there is always a feed broken somewhere showing up in our reader we just wait for them to fix it. If they don't fix it then at some point it will just get deleted. That is just the reality of maintaining your own feed websites remove feeds sometimes and all you can do is go back see if its changed address and if not remove it.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#107

Post by PaulKeeble »

danielspace23 wrote: post #92

RSS and the lack of algorithms may sound nice, until you subscribe to the feed of a couple of media outlets, and see the content of the independent creators that post less often get buried under a truckload of "stuff you're vaguely interested in". BlueSky kinda addresses this issue with Feeds. I follow the people that post at a frequency that I know won't flood my main feed, then I have pinned a separate feed for new…

A lot of feeds are useless, they don't allow you to select more about what you are interested in and they fire a huge amount of content on a daily basis. Those aren't worth following.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#108

Post by Yhippa »

ourguile wrote: post #39

I use inoreader - https://www.inoreader.com/ as a feed aggregator and I absolutely love it. I use it every day to highlight, tag and search for information. I'd recommend it to anyone.

I forgot I had an account there. Just logged in and this is great! Way less click-bait headlines unlike my Google Discover feed.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#109

Post by gfiorav »

I use this method with X. I only follow a few accounts and exclusively use the following view (which prevents algorithmic content push).

The drawback is that it can become monotonous. However, there’s the “For You” view and the curated news section to mitigate this.

Re: I ditched the algorithm for RSS

#110

Post by nialv7 »

bluGill wrote: post #100

A good algorithm is a good thing. However what a good algorithm is for me is often different from what it is for those who maintain them. Outrage gets attention and sometimes it is needed, but there is a level of too much, and also a lot of outrage unfairly represents the issues and so it makes me mad even though if I understood the details I wouldn't be mad just concerned. I want an algorithm that surfaces things of…

You said what I wanted to say.

I think there is a niche market for tools that allow individuals to train their own recommendation systems.

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