Algorithms aren't the enemy. Chronological feeds don't scale and the signal-to-noise ratio will plummet if this ever gets popular. The real problems with today's algorithmic feeds are non-transparency, lack of choice, and optimizing for engagement instead of healthy discourse.
Open-source is a perfect opportunity to fix all this. Have there been any efforts to create a Mastodon instance with a (community governed) ranking algorithm? Is that technically feasible? Or is the idea simply anathema?
@randomwalker I very much agree that additional ways to display toots are called for. I'm missing out a lot from my own timeline simply because I'm in a different schedule to many of the people I follow.
But at the same time I fear that this will give incentives for bots and other ways to falsely amplify favourites, boosts, views and whatever metrics the algorithm will be based on. There might be ways to filter out assumed forgeries, but then those decisions also need openness.
