I loved Reddit for what it is, but nothing made me back out of a post faster than seeing the top 3 parent threads as a regurgitation of the same inside jokes, pun-chains, and so on.

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[–] Hildegarde@lemmy.world 42 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Lemmy sorts comments differently from reddit. Lemmy's documentation page about their algorithm describes reddit's algorithm as one that,

rewards comments that are repetitive and spammy.

It's an issue the developers claim to have a solution for.

I have no problem with jokes and comment chains. People should have their fun. But, I deleted my reddit account in frustration years ago. Reddit ranks the jokes higher than relevant discussion.

I'm cautiously optimistic. Lemmy is likely to be less prone to this particular problem.

[–] DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow, that's a clever little algorithm. It feels like it could work better.

Reddit's big problem (among many) was you had to get in early on a thread to contribute. Otherwise you could be so far at the bottom you might as well have sent your reply to the bit bucket.

[–] dystop@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

lemmy's algo seems in theory to work better, but we'll only know when the userbase here gets large enough.

On reddit, once a thread got past 300+ comments, the only way to get any views on your comment was to post it as a nested comment in a top-level comment.

[–] DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

lol, I realized the same thing and gamed that broken system more than once.

[–] dystop@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

most power users realised that, i think. and that's what led to the pun chains.

[–] SlappyRedcheeks@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I feel like there is a potential but minor problem with Lemmy's algorithm. It favors new comments but what if the post itself is asking a question with a definitive answer? The best answers might get buried by side discussion as time goes on.

[–] nephs@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I think as time goes on, I'd assume the recency boost would subside and the upvotes for the definitive answers should float back to the top.

Also, length is probably favoured as well, since so many top content isn't just 3 words.