How does Lemmy (Mander in particular) sort "hot" and "active" posts?

Sorry if this seems like a silly question but I have noticed over the last few months my feed(?) has started to act odd.

No matter what I do I don't see any posts from .world. I checked and mander does not seem to block .world (kinda why I liked this instance) and even weirder is how my feed gets filled with mostly .ml posts with almost no activity no matter how I sort.

This did not happen before and got me thinking, I don't even know how this works across federated instances.

Does anyone know:

  • How does the sorting work on an instance? Is it all the same no matter what instance it is?

  • Did anything change in the last few months, that would cause all .world (and I assume others) posts to not show?

  • Other then changing instances what can I do to mitigate the weird slanted results?

Sal ,
@Sal@mander.xyz avatar

Yes, sorry, there was some serious lagg in fetching posts from Lemmy World that persisted for several days and accumulated a 1-week delay.

But after upgrading Mander it is now fetching data from LW quite rapidly and it should be back in-sync in about a day and a half from now.

If you are curious about the ranking algorithm, there is some info here: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/contributors/07-ranking-algo.html

M0oP0o OP ,
@M0oP0o@mander.xyz avatar

Thanks, I have been watching the graph of the lag behind time and its nice to see it now at 6.1 days.

https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/112c72e5-c907-4feb-97f4-69aa6be655a1.png

Sal ,
@Sal@mander.xyz avatar

I find it satisfying to see the graph come down :)

M0oP0o OP ,
@M0oP0o@mander.xyz avatar

Yeah, first time I have been cheering for line go down that I can think of.

M0oP0o ,
@M0oP0o@lemmy.world avatar

Almost under a day. I can now see .world, midwest.social, .ee and others in my feed.

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/555fd539-00df-4679-ad45-0f2a465626df.png

j4k3 ,
@j4k3@lemmy.world avatar

The Lemmy algorithm:

https://join-lemmy.org/docs/contributors/07-ranking-algo.html

The instances communicate between each other using special bots in the background that transport info between instances. Dot world is too big and makes too many requests to other instances. Most instances are reducing the number of transport bots back to dot world right now. There is supposed to be a fix in the next Lemmy version, but the code base is somewhat slow moving due to only two devs and it is written in Rust. Rust is a hard language like C, and not too many here are able to contribute to it, even though it is like the new gold standard of code.

So you might see a delay between posting and replies or the interaction may come in bursts that correspond with the transport bots carrying content between instances as the host admin have configured their instance.

gravitas_deficiency ,

I’m actually mildly surprised it’s still only two devs. Are they treating it like a walled garden, or is there really a complete lack of interest in contributing to the codebase?

Blaze ,
@Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

Rust is a niche language

It's like starting a book club in Esperanto compared to English. Sure, Esperanto is supposedly a better language, but very few people know about it

gravitas_deficiency ,

Rust is not a niche language. It’s a strict and strongly opinionated language by design. People with background in strongly typed languages, who additionally use opinionated linters and formatters have an easier time adjusting. JavaScript “devs” (note: distinct from “software engineers”) probably pull their hair out over a lot of stuff in because in my experience, many js devs know enough about the language to work proficiently in a couple of frameworks, but haven’t really dug into the nuances of the language, and also have limited experience with strong typing.

Carighan ,
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

It’s a strict and strongly opinionated language by design.

So it's a nice language.

SorteKanin ,
@SorteKanin@feddit.dk avatar

Very nice even :D

Blaze ,
@Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

My main argument about Rust being a niche language is how few contributors there are to the Lemmy codebase.

Mbin (PHP) has more spread across its contributors:

But maybe Rust isn't that niche, but the Fediverse apps and projects are niche themselves.

nutomic ,
@nutomic@lemmy.ml avatar

The Lemmy frontend is written in Typescript which is a very popular language, yet it has even less contributors than the backend.

SorteKanin ,
@SorteKanin@feddit.dk avatar

But maybe Rust isn’t that niche, but the Fediverse apps and projects are niche themselves.

Lemmy is niche even within the fediverse, where microblogging still dominates and the threadiverse style apps are smaller. It's just not a very large space.

Blaze ,
@Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

I guess Reddit and similar link aggregators are just much smaller than we all think they are.

SorteKanin ,
@SorteKanin@feddit.dk avatar

Even reddit is still niche when it comes to social media and has always been. It's become a little more mainstream the last few years, but for most people social media still equals Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and such.

nutomic ,
@nutomic@lemmy.ml avatar

We are two fulltime developers and a handful of devs who regularly contribute in their free time. We could definitely use more devs but the donations are simply not enough.

muntedcrocodile ,

I believe there is some work being done on an alternative code base written in python with flask it has lots of promise and i recon with a bit of extra work it might allow for mastodon integration into one server which would be cool af.

Really want to get to the stage where an account is just a private key I hold and all federated services can work with a single username.

Imagine having a single username which is for all services.

Blaze ,
@Blaze@reddthat.com avatar

I believe there is some work being done on an alternative code base written in python with flask it has lots of promise and i recon with a bit of extra work it might allow for mastodon integration into one server which would be cool af.

https://piefed.social/ ?

Otherwise, for Mastodon integration, there is mbin with https://kbin.run/ for instance

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