Greg Slepak<p>It's true that algorithmic feeds will work differently on the <a class="hashtag" href="https://crib.social/tag/fediverse" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Fediverse</a> than they do on either <a class="hashtag" href="https://crib.social/tag/bluesky" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#BlueSky</a> or <a class="hashtag" href="https://crib.social/tag/x" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#X</a>, but that doesn't mean they have to suck.</p><p>They can in fact be better.</p><p>Here's an example of how it can work (if done properly):</p><p>A common algorithm is to show popular posts you might have missed that are "near you".</p><p>Developers can explore 3 different concepts of "near you":</p><ul><li>"Near You v1": Popular posts from people you follow directly. 0-steps removed.</li><li>"Near You v2": Popular posts from the set of people you follow plus some sample of the people followed by some of the people you follow (perhaps not all of them, that might be too much data to process for your server).</li><li>"Near You v3": Popular posts from the set of people you follow, plus some sample of posts from the relay(s) you follow.</li></ul><p>Now the hard part on the <a class="hashtag" href="https://crib.social/tag/fediverse" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Fediverse</a> is figuring out which posts are popular. After all, the fact that a post has been RT'd or Like'd is not broadcast to all servers. My understanding is that there are ideas for protocol adjustments for how to make "just enough" of this information available to servers without clogging the pipes or overloading servers.</p><p>In fact, all 3 "Near You"s can be algorithmic feeds that servers like <a class="hashtag" href="https://crib.social/tag/pleroma" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Pleroma</a>, <a class="hashtag" href="https://crib.social/tag/misskey" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Misskey</a>, <a class="hashtag" href="https://crib.social/tag/mitra" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mitra</a>, <a class="hashtag" href="https://crib.social/tag/mastodon" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#Mastodon</a>, and others offer to their users.</p>