Does anyone else feel like Tildes gets less effective at surfacing new stuff the longer you're on it?

NaraVara
2022-03-31T15:30:23Z

I notice this primarily with the YouTube videos. I've started to notice that the videos I see posted in here I have already had recommended to me by YouTube. And I realize it must be because when I watch a video here, the YouTube algorithm decides I'm interested in that kind of thing. So, functionally, by posting and interacting with content in Tildes we are tuning the various algorithmic recommendation feeds that we interact with to view us all similarly.

It's just an interesting side effect I noticed and some food for thought about the effectiveness of a link aggregator or discussion forum at surfacing novel, interesting content we might not find otherwise. In part, this could just be an effect of Tildes being kind of small and having lots of self-selection biases for its user population. Perhaps if it was more diverse we'd be exposed to more things that break the mold and recommendation algorithms won't be able to pin it all down as easily. In fact, we may be able to use this effect as a way to test the breadth and diversity of content and types of people a site is attracting.

Comments URL: https://tildes.net/~tech/10vl/does_anyone_else_feel_like_tildes_gets_less_effective_at_surfacing_new_stuff_the_longer_youre_on_it

Votes: 11

Comments: 8