[mgerdts]

An algorithm that I can tune by having private +1, -1, and "hell no" buttons would be helpful. If I follow too many people and/or hashtags, I will end up with so many posts/toots that I spend a bunch of time reading through things that really aren't that interesting. If I had a way to easily mark content as interesting or not, an algorithm could construct my feed such that the things that I find interesting are more likely to be read. There have been people that I followed because they had an interesting post or two, then the other side of them started posting that is not interesting to me.

As an example, one person posted that they were working on end-to-end encrypted messages. That was really cool, nearly instant follow. This person identifies as a furry and posts a lot more content related to their furry identity than E2E encrypted messages. I'm not really into the furry scene, even as a spectator. Nothing against this person - I'm happy they can be who they are. I just wish there was a way that I could tune into the once in a while updates about the tech project without the part that is of no interest to me. That person may be equally annoyed with my feed if I posted regular updates of my love for mac n cheese.

Importantly, the +1/-1 that I give should be used only for my feed with no feedback to the poser. My -1 does not mean I disapprove and I certainly don't want it to hurt anyone. I don't want it to influence others' feed. A -1 needn't mean that I never see something like that, but a "hell no" should.

Such a system would allow me to follow more people and be exposed to different ideas that come from more exposure. It's then up to me to tune my feed to match my interests and available time.

[lonk11]

What you are describing is similar to how my hobby project works: https://linklonk.com

When you upvote content (+1) you make your connection stronger to those who posted that content and also those who also upvoted it. When you downvote (-1), your connection to the poster and other upvoters becomes weaker. The content in your feed is ranked base on how strongly you are connected to those who upvoted the content.

For example, I upvoted the OP post on LinkLonk: https://linklonk.com/item/3406294698351951872. If you upvote that item then you will get connected to me and to two RSS feeds that posted that content: the blog's feed (https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/ongoing.atom) and the the HN's feed of newest items (https://news.ycombinator.com/rss). As a result you will start to see other content from those RSS feeds and from my "main" channel more prominently in your recommendations.

Users can post/submit links under different user channels. So if your hypothetical E2E person were to post E2E stuff under their "E2E" channel while keeping the furry stuff under their "furry" channel then you would only get connected to their E2E channels if you only +1'd content from that channel.

[Karrot_Kream]

When RSS was hot stuff circa 2005, a friend on IRC and I were working on a bayesian classifier for RSS entries and it worked just like this. +1 trained it as "ham" and -1 trained it as "spam". It failed (among other reasons) because we were both really young and didn't have enough mathematial/computational maturity. With modern ML techniques, this doesn't seem hard to do at all. But you'd need access to the actual data stream which is something that the big social networks don't seem willing to provide.

[GauntletWizard]

I think it's actually important for you to see all the sick shit. I think it's worth rubbing your nose in it.

It's amazing how many technologists have a strong preference for truth in so many areas, but choose not understanding things they find disgusting and why they find them disgusting.

[mgerdts]

If you are implying that I think furries are “sick shit” you are confused. I just don’t care, much like most people do not care about my hypothetical obsession with cheesy pasta. To be clear, in my example the posts that I’d prefer not to see seem to be friends wearing animal costumes and cartoonish images of animals. On the face of it, it was all quite tame.

By being able to declutter my feed of things I don’t find interesting, I am likely to follow more people and hashtags, exposing me to more voices. With some effort and luck that includes more diverse voices.

Alternatively, I could just not follow people that have a low signal to noise ratio (per my interests) and I could block or mute those that frequently post uninteresting things to hashtags that I follow. I think this approach exposes me to less diversity.