Facebook The Third [split topic]

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Yeah I certainly do, I haven't had any for ages.

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

It is insecure to use a term widely seen as pejorative to describe yourself.

Nothing more to add than that.

Surely if enough people are using the words "geek" or "nerd" in a positive context (and they are - look at those shirts they sell in topshop or wherever), it's no longer widely seen as a perjorative?

[Thomas]

A sweet grandmother Telephoned St. Joseph's Hospital. She timidly asked,
"Is it possible to speak to someone who can tell me how a patient is doing?"

The operator said, "I'll be glad to help, dear. What's the name and room number of the patient?"

The grandmother in her weak, tremulous voice said, Norma Findlay, Room 302."

The operator replied, "Let me put you on hold while I check with the nurse's station for that room."

After a few minutes, the operator returned to the phone and said,
"I have good news. Her nurse just told me that Norma is doing well. Her
blood pressure is fine; her blood work just came back normal and her
Physician, Dr. Cohen, has scheduled her to be discharged tomorrow."

The grandmother said, "Thank you. That's wonderful. I was so worried. God bless you for the good News."

The operator replied, "You're more than welcome. Is Norma your daughter?"

The grandmother said, "No, I'm Norma Findlay in Room 302. No one tells me shit."

TRUE STORY

Didn't happen though did it

[Puce Moment]

I wonder if she was on a British warship sending telegrams to an Irish warship telling it to turn around?

[chand]

They want you to stick at the site for as long as possible, so they change the view and promote posts from people you interact with more. I use the site very infrequently and started to only like posts from a secret group. Now I see nothing but those posts.

I totally get why Facebook has a 'top stories' option. Whereas Twitter is all about the latest things happening and (almost) every tweet gets equal weight in the feed initially, whether it's a vitally important serious post about war crimes or some Weird Twitter guy tweeting about his dick, Facebook is more of a 'keeping in touch with your friends and family' site, so it's really useful that there's an algorithm that works out things it thinks will be the most relevant to me. Since a huge number of Facebook users are pretty casual about their use, it's cool that you can go on after two weeks away and pretty quickly catch up on who's got engaged, or split up, or died or got a cat, so like, I can find out that three days ago someone I know really well got a new job without having to wade through loads of pass-agg posts from my dull cousin falling out with her shit friends I don't know.

That said, I just want that to be an option I can have. I'd like to be able to set it to default to 'Most recent' without me having to change it every time I open the pissing app (and the app hides this option way down a separate menu rather than on the actual feed). Part of the reason I don't really post on Facebook is that I'm acutely aware that shitloads of people who are my 'friends' on there will never see whatever I post because Facebook has filtered it out without them even realising. There are people I'm interested in hearing about but whose posts I never because Facebook decided I didn't interact with them enough. And the people it shows me in 'Top Stories' tend to be my Twitter mates anyway. The default filtering of content puts me off being a properly regular Facebook user.

It also filters post within group feeds without me asking it to. Recently I joined a busy community group for the town I've moved to, it has anywhere between 10 and 30 new posts a day, but Facebook organises it by the recent comments posted underneath those posts, which means that the feed is clogged up with ongoing arguments on topics I've already read. Sometimes I can scroll for ages past posts from 5 days ago, and suddenly find something that was posted this morning.

In summary, god, get a life chand, look at how much shit you've just written about the order Facebook puts stuff in.

[olliebean]

Apart from music, I have yet to encounter an algorithm on any website that comes remotely close to making a decent job of showing me the stuff most likely to be of interest or relevance to me. Facebook's algorithm is worse than most. An algorithm that worked might indeed be useful, but one that makes such a bad job of filtering posts is worse than having no post-filtering algorithm at all.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Surely if enough people are using the words "geek" or "nerd" in a positive context (and they are - look at those shirts they sell in topshop or wherever), it's no longer widely seen as a perjorative?

If those tshirts still use the word in a crushingly insecure way theyre relying on it historically being pejorative, otherwise they wouldn't be using the words in the first place.

[checkoutgirl]

pretty quickly catch up on who's got engaged, or split up, or died or got a cat

That's my nightmare, other people's day to day tedium. So you died, big deal!! Fuck off.

[chand]

That's my nightmare, other people's day to day tedium. So you died, big deal!! Fuck off.

I need to know if people's mums have just died so I know whether I can drop a killer 'your mum' joke though.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Cut out the middle man and kill them yourself.

[Neville Chamberlain]

Hello,

I've got a problem with my Facebook. On my laptop, Facebook is displayed stretched all the way across the screen rather than in the more familiar 'column'-style format on all my other devices. It's really annoying and stupid and is only like this on my laptop, so it's not as if it's a personal setting or something like that!

What to do?!?!

Nev!

[chand]

Cut out the middle man and kill them yourself.

But I don't want to do a 'your mum' joke to someone whose mum has just died, I'm not a monster. This leaves me no option but to go and fuck loads of people's mums so I know they're alive. Although the knock on effect of that would mean that my jokes about fucking people's mums would just be statements of fact.

[Utter Shit]

Apart from music, I have yet to encounter an algorithm on any website that comes remotely close to making a decent job of showing me the stuff most likely to be of interest or relevance to me. Facebook's algorithm is worse than most. An algorithm that worked might indeed be useful, but one that makes such a bad job of filtering posts is worse than having no post-filtering algorithm at all.

What do you expect the algorithm to do? It can't read your mind - if you're interacting with certain people regularly, it will give those people priority on your feed. It can't know that you want to see more of Amelia's bikini shots from her trip to Cancun in 2011, because you never liked or commented on those photos in case she realises you're stalking her.

[olliebean]

Ideally I would like it to show me posts from the people I have told it I want to see posts from, and not leave any out because it has decided on my behalf they're not interesting enough, or show me old ones I've already seen because it has decided on my behalf I need to see them again. I don't, for example, want it to assume that I don't want to see a particular person's posts just because I don't regularly interact with them.

[Utter Shit]

I don't, for example, want it to assume that I don't want to see a particular person's posts just because I don't regularly interact with them.

But how do you expect it to rid itself of that assumption? How can the algorith differentiate between the people you're not interacting with because you don't like or care enough to speak to them, and the people you're not interacting with who you want to be kept up-to-date on?

You can create groups to ensure you don't miss out on anything important from specific people/social groups, you can favourite certain people to ensure they take priority on your feed...or obviously you can just click on an individual person to read their profile and get up to date on what they're doing. I'd say you're pretty well catered-for in terms of what you want based on what you've written in here, you're just going the wrong way about seeing that your needs are met - the algorithm is presumably intended as a more general list of "things you might be more interested in seeing", if you're looking for a highly-specialised feed that caters specifically to your demands then you are able to build it yourself.

Your expectations of the algorithm are unrealistic, I would say. You mention music as a comparison, but that's easier to quantify - the sites that use algorithm to work out your musical tastes are able to check your back catalogue and work out what you've listened to a lot, what ratings you've put on tracks/albums etc, then compare that to other users on the database. It's more complicated on a social media site where the best they can do is simply aggregate your likes, comments, page views etc, which is devoid of context.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Yeah back off the algorithm you fucking prick!

[BlodwynPig]

"Algorithm can do all that and more"

Algorithm Dreams Corporation 1982

[olliebean]

But how do you expect it to rid itself of that assumption?

I would prefer it not to make that assumption in the first place.

How can the algorithm differentiate between the people you're not interacting with because you don't like or care enough to speak to them, and the people you're not interacting with who you want to be kept up-to-date on?

If I don't like or care enough about someone to speak to them, and furthermore I don't want to be kept up-to-date on them, why on earth would I be friends with them?

You can create groups to ensure you don't miss out on anything important from specific people/social groups

Indeed, and this is what I do as it's pretty much the only way I can bear to use facebook.

I know it's possible to not have facebook second-guess what I want to see, but it takes some effort to set that up and I reckon it should be the default, or at the very least I should be able to turn it off on the main newsfeed.

My expectations of the algorithm are very simple, that it shows me what I tell it I want to see rather than what it thinks I might want to see (and worse, leaving out things it decides I don't want to see even though I've told it I do want to see them). Is that really so unrealistic?

[Uncle TechTip]

If I don't like or care enough about someone to speak to them, and furthermore I don't want to be kept up-to-date on them, why on earth would I be friends with them?

Because you're a nosy fucker and you can't face the possibility of explaining why you defriended them should you ever meet them in real life.

That's my reason anyway.

[JesusAndYourBush]

Lately I've had facebook put posts that are days old near the top of my news feed, making me feel like a dick when I reply to them and then see the post was made 4 days ago.

[MuteBanana]

IT DOESNT MATTER
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=654060213

[Morrison Lard]

_{Not sure who the reply is from, but it tickled me}

[MuteBanana]

Utter prick. I became everything I despise.

[momatt]

_{Not sure who the reply is from, but it tickled me}

Yeah, I like that too.  But surely the bad spelling is less important than the fact that this person doesn't know the difference between a girl and a duck?

[cosmic-hearse]

Yeah, I like that too.  But surely the bad spelling is less important than the fact that this person doesn't know the difference between a girl and a duck?

Maybe it was posted by a duck?
(this would also explain the misspelling if it was typing with its big flappy feet and/or beak)

[El Unicornio, mang]

Does anyone else hate that thing that people in relationships do on facebook where they post something like:

Me: Are you going to eat that sandwich?
Matt: Nah, I'm gonna put it down my underpants!
Me: You're bonkers!
Matt: Boing!!

I have a couple of friends who do it incessantly. It's never funny or cute or anything.

[Thomas]

A trending news topic -

Jimmy Carr under fire for offensive joke about Reeva Steenkamp killing at Q Awards.

_{Under fire.}