6mo ago

Instead of algorithms why don't we create a map of Lemmy?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/27216373

Instead of focusing of creating good algorithms to push certain content to users why don't we focus on creating a good map that allows users to find the kind of content they want more easily?
I found this website that created a map of reddit with different countries for different topics and I thought it would translate to lemmy because instances sort of do this already really well.
https://anvaka.github.io/map-of-reddit/
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28 comments

So maybe like some sort of list of computer instructions -- which tells the computer to generate a map, and then tabulates the data and presents it to the user like...
If only we had a term for this...
Like algoism, or arithmos... something to do with calculation or something...
- I never said we shouldn't use algorithms I just think what those algorithms were doing could be different.
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  You literally said “instead of algorithms”, implying that algorithms would be replaced.

Am I a joke to you?
- I forgot the project explicitly mentioned "map of communities in the Fediverse" ha ha

I think its a cool idea. I had a similar idea once: https://fungiverse.wordpress.com/2024/07/27/floo-network-anouncement/ but for the whole social web instead of just Lemmy.
Its interesting, it could get overwhelming easily though. Maybe this could be solved by only showing instances of a certain size?

For discoverability, !newcommunities@lemmy.world has regular threads
- Yeah and !trendingcommunities@feddit.nl
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I like it! I don't know to look for something if I don't know it exists yet. Something like this would really help with browsing.

How would this help? What is the problem this addresses?
- People say they have problems with discoverability. A map will help people find the content they want faster.
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  Discoverablility of what?

Don't get me wrong, I love the map, The 2/3 of the names on there don't really do the subject of the communities justice.

A neat idea. How do we decide who goes where though?
- The map up above checks how similar two subreddits are by checking how much overlap the people that comment in both communities there is. It could be the same as that or maybe something different.
  The easiest would be to have countries similar to how it had in the map of reddit be the instances and show the connections between subscribers maybe.
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  Subreddits? They are called communities here.
  
  I was picturing a graphical map with circles for the communities at different sizes for the amount of traffic. It could be based on proximity for how much overlap there was in user posts and comments, and also by category, color the circles by instance maybe too? Like make it waaay more visible and accessible than Reddit. Somebody must have the chops to make something like that here, right?
- Maybe a division by interests, and that way a country could still be a category

If we ditched the daft names?

I always thought it would be nice if communities (and/or posts) could be tagged. It would open up a lot of potential for discoverability
- Aren't they now with version 0.19.5?

28 comments