Abram, I think your suggestion is also good, but what it doesn't provide is a partitioning into coherent, comprehensible groups of the comments on a given topic. So your approach works for a user who is reading a topic such that they've already rated a lot of stuff on related topics. Whereas my approach creates a clean body of info for a new user approaching a topic and its comments.
For a brand new user with odd tastes, in your approach, they might need to fish a lot (through very low ranked comments) to find the stuff they were willing to rank highly... right? I think the two ideas could be used together... ben On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 12:17 PM, Abram Demski <[email protected]> wrote: > Mark, Ben, > > @Mark, > > Sorry I didn't see this sooner! > > This reminds me of an idea my brother had, which was that a feed should > include some randomness in their ranking algorithm. You should not *only* > be presented with things similar to what you've previously liked, because > this leads to stagnation. That isn't to say that totally random articles > should be thrown in every 10 items; the randomness should be integrated in > a sane way, continuous with the rest of the ranking algorithm. But you need > to see a variety. He justified this on evolutionary grounds, similar to > your argument. > > It also reminds me of an idea I had about cell-phone autocomplete: if you > base autocomplete on your data for texting habits, you get suggestions "for > free", but they may be low quality (because the crowd's spelling accuracy > in texts is low). It is beneficial to include higher-quality data (such as > well-spelled text), and also to hand-craft suggestions (my cell phone's > suggestions when I have not typed anything are all good-quality polite > beginnings for messages, which I doubt are pulled from statistics). Making > suggestions which are well-spelled and polite will increase the general > quality of texts. Sometimes it is good to allow the crowd to speak, but > sometimes it is good to guide them in the right direction! > > @Ben, > > I think you're actually making it more mathematically sophisticated than > necessary, by talking about finding clusters in graphs. I proposed an > algorithm (as a diaspora feature request, which got closed for being too > speculative, understandably) which works more like this: > > You can upvote or downvote items in your feed as much as you want. (No > 1-vote limit like on Reddit.) This alters a matrix of the people you > subscribe to, so that we know how many up/down votes you've hit a > particular person with. (Items could be ranked by more than just who posted > it, but a source-based ranking would be fairly good I think...) Ordering in > the feed is similar to the Reddit formula, (upvotes - downvotes)/age. > However, the upvotes and downvotes are weighted according to how much > you've liked a particular person (so if you "like" the same thing as Ms. X > a large number of times, your feed will rank things based mainly on how Ms. > X votes.) > > This could use some refinement, I'm sure, but the point is that I think we > can work in a local way (essentially looking at dot products between my > preferences and other people's) rather than looking at the network to find > clusters. People can form their own clusters if several people mutually > like each other's posts. > > More importantly, a "like" will now directly tune your personal feed > (without a global crowd vote like on Reddit). > > Best, > > Abram > > On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 2:59 AM, Ben Goertzel <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hey Mark Nuzz... >> >> I thought about the issue you raised (problems w/ Reddit comments and >> their dynamics) in this email back in August, and here is my >> suggestion... what do you think? >> >> >> http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/avoiding-tyranny-of-majority-in.html >> >> -- Ben G >> >> On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 10:23 AM, A. T. Murray <[email protected]> wrote: >> > Mark Nuzzolilo wrote on 27 August 2012: >> > [...] >> >> 1) Reddit is where the masses (at least in my part of >> >> the world) go to talk about things. >> >> >> >> 2) Comments are artificially moved by a computer algorithm. >> >> People influence the movement by clicking on buttons to >> >> approve or disapprove of something that is said. It's often >> >> done without much thought or >care, just a first impulse. >> >> >> >> 3) The voting tends to favor a strong bias toward certain >> >> patterns, which are not directly designed or programmed >> >> by Reddit, but are rather an emergent consequence >> >> indirectly resulting from the site's >design. >> >> >> >> 4) The results in the voting determine who has a stronger >> >> voice. The stronger the voice, the more people see it. >> >> >> >> 5) Based on these votes, the site gives people rewards >> >> for being popular, and punishes them for being unpopular. >> >> People who might have slightly opposing cultural beliefs >> >> could become assimilated and become thinking more similar >> >> to those who earn the most votes. People who disagree with >> >> those who carry the most votes may find themselves without >> >> many people to talk to, since people don't use forums anymore, >> >> they use Reddit more. Less people to talk to means these >> >> people do not get to share their ideas quite as much. [...] >> > >> > I take a lot of flak (Fliegerabwehrkanone) for my AI ideas, >> > but I persist in "Redditing" because of useful sub-Reddits: >> > >> > http://www.reddit.com/r/artificial >> > >> > is the sub-Reddit on artificial intelligence. See also: >> > >> > http://www.reddit.com/r/programming >> > >> > http://www.reddit.com/r/technology >> > >> > Mentifex (Arthur) >> > -- >> > http://www.scn.org/~mentifex/AiMind.html >> > >> > >> > ------------------------------------------- >> > AGI >> > Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now >> > RSS Feed: >> https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/212726-11ac2389 >> > Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; >> >> > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com >> >> >> >> -- >> Ben Goertzel, PhD >> http://goertzel.org >> >> "My humanity is a constant self-overcoming" -- Friedrich Nietzsche >> >> >> ------------------------------------------- >> AGI >> Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now >> RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/7190161-766c6f07 >> Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; >> >> Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com >> > > > > -- > Abram Demski > http://lo-tho.blogspot.com/ > > *AGI* | Archives <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now> > <https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/212726-c2d57280> | > Modify<https://www.listbox.com/member/?&;>Your Subscription > <http://www.listbox.com> > -- Ben Goertzel, PhD http://goertzel.org "My humanity is a constant self-overcoming" -- Friedrich Nietzsche ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-c97d2393 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-2484a968 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
