People don't need to science it. They can choose different modes from the dropdown, stick with what they like for whatever reason, or play around. Or even ignore the option altogether. Personally, I use 'New Comments' as my default, inspect communities with 'New', and occasionally switch to 'Hot', 'Active' and 'Top X Hours' when I'm looking for more.

In terms of manipulation, I guess the biggest lever here is to which instance I log in, followed by which communities I subscribe to. This heavily influences the type of content I see, the political leaning, and things like that. How this content is sorted into a feed is a minor decision in comparison.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is it possible we talk about different things. OP was talking about Microblogging (e.g. Mastodon). Here on lemmy/kbin that is totally different. It wouldn't work without it. I don't think this style would really work with microblogging though I have nothing against trying that. I was more thinking about real recommender algorithms like "Things you might like".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Admittedly, I spent very little time on Mastodon. But as I remember it, there is something like a 'home feed'. And I also remember only seeing the most recent entries at the top, which is not necessarily what I would have found the most interesting. For example, I think I'd be at least equally interested in entries with engagement, where people talk about the post. Which sometimes requires some time to pass.

You're right I lost track about the precise topic, sorry for that.