Surfacing Content from Smaller Communities on Lemmy
Before the scaled sort was introduced, the hope was that it would provide a solution to surface posts from smaller communities, without being overrun by memes and political posts from larger communities. However, the scaled sort has been ineffective so far, as most posts appear with a single vote, making it practically the same as the "New" sort.
The developers have closed all issues related to the scaled sort, even though it fails to address the issues raised in several discussions:
Although I've blocked the largest communities, I still want to see some of that content occasionally.
Do you have any ideas or suggestions on how Lemmy could better surface content from smaller communities?
Edit:
Potential Solutions
Several potential solutions were discussed:
Tagging System and Custom Feeds
Implementing a tagging system could allow users to create custom feeds by subscribing and blocking specific tags across communities. This could surface niche content by filtering for relevant tags. An incentive system like leaderboards could encourage accurate user tagging.
Community Grouping
Similar to Reddit's "Multireddits", allowing users to group multiple smaller communities together into a single custom feed could boost visibility for those niche communities when browsing that grouped feed.
API for Client-Side Sorting
Providing an API endpoint that shares metadata for recent posts like post ID, post votes, and comments would allow third-party clients and plugins to experiment with custom sorting algorithms on the front-end tailored to user preferences.
"Unanswered" View
Having a view that surfaces posts with little or no engagement yet, specifically from smaller communities, could help discover underrepresented niche topics that may need more attention.
Server Plugin Architecture
If sorting algorithms must be implemented server-side for performance, having a plugin architecture where different instance owners can test out new sorting implementations and formulas could allow faster iteration.
Ideally, a combination of tagging, custom feeds, and improving sort algorithms to factor in community size could provide a multifaceted approach to better surface content from niche communities on Lemmy. Encouraging open discussion around desirable features is valuable to guide development efforts when resources do become available.
I just want the ability for people to deploy their own sorting systems. Then we could have opensource projects and everyones happy (ok maybe not, but thats as close as we get to it)
Idk how that would work, I'm not tech literate but it's the obvious solution to me
I just want a superintelligent AI that always talks to me about the things I like to hear. That’s a bit far-fetched, but I also thought it was possible before: Algorithm Marketplace
This is not possible because sorting is done in the database, so adding a new sort option requires a database migration with new indexes, columns and updated queries. Not something that can be done with a simple plugin.
Actually scores are regularly calcuated from a scheduled task which runs in Rust. Yes the score caculation is currently implemented in SQL, but it could also be changed to a Rust implementation or a plugin. This would probably need some optimization so that the plugin only calculates scores for recent posts, not every single known post. In any case it would need someone with the time and motivation to implement it.