this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2025
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Not sure if this fits here, feel free to remove if not.

I'm sure the algorithm must be working as intended, but I always see a lot of rapid-fire posts under each other when browsing "Hot". Is this normal or am I missing a setting?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Try top week and hide read posts. After you pass the first couple of pages things get more dynamic. There is plenty of content here once you get past the repetition.

[–] [email protected] 89 points 3 days ago (3 children)

i think thats just the side effect of lemmy having not that many users.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Yeah, like certain communities have more eyes on them (so more upvotes) and they automatically dominate the feed, even with a flurry of fresh posts.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The bummer is that once the user numbers get to that sweet spot they’ll blow past it so fuckin’ fast and then shit gets dumb QUICK.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Luckily there is another layer here, and your can isolate yourself to just your instance.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

As well as not being designed to keep you scrolling

[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 days ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (4 children)

The formula for hot is something like upvotes - downvotes - age^2

Often, votes can't keep up with the square on the age.

Old Reddit used the same formula without the square. That worked much better.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 12 hours ago

Would be cool if we could define our own custom algorithm, but I guess that might be taxing the servers to much if we could.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago

An exponent between 1 and 2 would be better than either.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I had a feeling it was something like that, this makes sense, thanks. Would you recommend a different sorting method?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think instance admins can remove the square, but I'm not sure. Otherwise, given that Lemmy does not have that many users, I often stick with Hot anyways, and only look at active from time to time if I feel hot gets too boring. And if active is also boring, I do something else.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

On my subscribed, I use new. I mostly subscribe to more niche communities, so its fairly quick.

On local, I tend to use top 12hrs, and on all, top for 6 hours.

Edit: note/more autocorrect.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Use Scaled, it's awesome. Much better visibility on small communities, so less dominated with samey news.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I find scaled all gives me a bunch of single upvote posts from communities with <20 subscribers. They really should have implemented a minimum community size filter

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Oh, I mostly use it with subscribed, not all, perhaps that's the difference?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Yeah, scaled subscribed works since you're sorting a curated bunch of comms. Scaled all is just pointless.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What exactly does "scaled" mean?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's a post sorting option on your instance home page. I basically sorts by recent activity, but normalised by community size, so if something gets 10 upvotes on a community with 100 users it will be pushed much higher than a post with 10 upvotes from a community with 2k users

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Ah right, that makes sense, thanks!

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I have tried a lot of the different options and never felt any of them had a lot of value other than New. I don't wanna see the same stuff over and over again so I'm the guy trolling all new posts looking for interesting stuff.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Have you tried "new comments"? That works best for me because it makes sure that more interesting (more commented-in) threads are displayed more often, but I neither see the same stuff over and over again nor am likely to miss interesting stuff just because I don't look at Lemmy all the time.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, but I do really enjoy going through New and finding stuff worthy of engagement, and try to get the ball rolling.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Thanks for your service, this makes this website a better place 🫡

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think a lot of us, when we were be where, set our clients to “New, 6 hours” and forgot it.

It makes sense that Hot would reflect that, since that might be how a large portion of the user base is finding content to interact with.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 days ago

Yeah. I don’t like hot, because it’s only posts from an hour or two ago. Active is generally better in that sense.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago (2 children)

God, I hate hot after page 1. All I get when I'm browsing all and not logged in is the lemmit bot.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Do yourself a favor and starting blocking users (bots) and communities you will never be interested in. After a while, your feed starts getting a lot cleaner and more interesting.

The internet is too noisy to read everything, so tailor the content to stuff you will engage with for a happier experience!

edit: oh you said "not logged in", which might mean that you already blocked the bot on your account. Still, the advice stands for anyone reading along

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Block that bot

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago (2 children)

What, you don't like trenchcoats?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (2 children)

It's too mysterious, I can't handle it

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Love this for me to have amber heard

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

You never know. There could be 3 children stacked ontop of each other, in there. You just can't trust trenchcoats. :D

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

I like what is under them

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

For me, “hot” just shows a lot of pr0n.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Can't do that at work here. Also, I realize 99% of it is AI generated, so I'm not really interested

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

I’m not really into porn stuff but I don’t see a lot of AI things, personally. I wonder if it’s affected by our instances. I see a lot of real people and some furry stuff.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago

That's scaled for me

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

I go by susbribed top last 24 hours, which gives me a decent scroll experience.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

I browse New on Subscribed til I run out, then maybe I do Scaled on All.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

This is why I use mbin over Lemmy. Better hot algorithm.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Scaled is really good on lemmy for my taste at least

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

Holy doomscroll

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

Piefed has an optional feature that if you up/downvotes a post, the posts disappear on your feed. It's pretty nifty, kinda makes it feel like a RSS feed.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

Yea... that's why I feel very weird about the front page and it felt "broken" to me. Didn't feel like what a reddit-like front page should look like.

So I just switched to Top-Day, or if you want more "hot" content, Top-6-Hours or Top-12-Hours.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

No, it's like three "New"s all stood on top of each other, in a trenchcoat.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (3 children)

I am still having a hard time picking my default feed. Should it be active or hot? Should I remove read posts or keep them? If anyone has suggestions I would love to hear

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

I use New comments on Subscribed, than Top of the Day / 12 hours on All

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Imo active is boring, you get threads of 2-3 days ago where people are posting comments in. I like things to be actual

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

for now, removing read posts will empty your feed quickly. Active is good for a bit, but it becomes repetitive quickly. Hot is good for when this happens.

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