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Twitter is a place where my blocklist length far exceeds my follow or following list. I use it only for the academic chatter. It is unfortunate that ML/Systems

Twitter is a place where my blocklist length far exceeds my follow or following list. I use it only for the academic chatter. It is unfortunate that ML/Systems research has major presence on Twitter & thats happening to be high SNR.

TOMDM 5y ago
The ML community has been so focused on recommender systems, maybe what we need is un-recommender systems. (I'm joking, it obviously has very similar perverse results)
vishnugupta 5y ago
Same here. Besides author wise block I desperately need topic wise block. For instance this Will Smith slapgate has totally screwed up my carefully curated timeline. My only option is to take a two week Twitter sabbatical and hope it dies down.
- oefrha 5y ago
  This is the social graph vs interest graph problem. With an interest graph you should only see content on topics you’re interested in. With Twitter’s social graph however, which is only a poor approximation of an interest graph, once you follow someone you also get all of their political hot takes, sports and other shit you don’t care about.
  - pbowyer 5y ago
    That's a great framing of it. I'm a good example, interested in many things so my tweets are about multiple topics. It must drive my followers nuts. And the accounts I like to follow are focused on a single topic. I've thought about running half a dozen accounts with a focus on each, but be far easier if I could curate my output by topic and people can subscribe to only those they want (religion, ML, funny, politics, arty photography, steam trains)
  - vishnugupta 5y ago
    Indeed! My purpose to follow someone is to get their insights into a specific topic. If they go off topic beyond my acceptable threshold (which is set to very low) I just unfollow them; the noise isn't worth it. However once in a while stuff like slap gate happens to mess up with my timeline. So sabbatical it is.
- EricE 5y ago
  Third party clients are a must if you are going to screw with Twitter. You can filter out all the noise and topics that aren't of interest. That people use the native Twitter interface at all constantly amazes me.
- cpncrunch 5y ago
  You can already hide tweets containing phrases in your Twitter settings.
  - Freak_NL 5y ago
    Might be a bit of a challenge with two generic names such as 'Will' and 'Smith'. Even in combination these offer a good chance of occurring in non-actor related phrases (e.g., “Will Smith's new paper offer valuable insights into ML-research applied to Twitter threads?”).
    - Aissen 5y ago
      If one's ready to take a two weeks sabbatical, hiding tweets with common words for 7/30 days is probably an acceptable compromise anyway.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
idrios 5y ago
After reading this comment, now I wish there was a way to create something analogous to Pandora or Spotify channels for Twitter. If you want to view news on ML research, change to your ML channel where you've followed relevant researchers and used this blocking tool for all else. Want to follow certain artists, change to your art station. Same for politics, sports, animals, etc. I'm sure the way to do this for someone who wanted to is just to have multiple profiles but it'd be cool to have Twitter with a Spotify-like interface to use the site through different contexts with a single click.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  For some reason, this worked brilliantly and organically on Google plus. I easily built circles of photographers, astronomers, computer geeks, artists, etc. Got interests based suggestions that made sense. I felt I had curated, high quality content lists. Compared to my google plus experience, Facebook and Twitter are just so much crap crap crap. Therefore It only makes sense Google plus is the one that died - I'm pretty much the universal negative focus group :)
- everly 5y ago
  Twitter has lists for exactly this purpose
soheil 5y ago
I often wonder how valuable a public block list might be and even if more valuable than a follower/following list. In this case as in many other cases there is probably more insight to be gained in silent evidence than in positive evidence.

TOMDM 5y ago

The ML community has been so focused on recommender systems, maybe what we need is un-recommender systems. (I'm joking, it obviously has very similar perverse results)

vishnugupta 5y ago

Same here. Besides author wise block I desperately need topic wise block. For instance this Will Smith slapgate has totally screwed up my carefully curated timeline. My only option is to take a two week Twitter sabbatical and hope it dies down.

oefrha 5y ago
This is the social graph vs interest graph problem. With an interest graph you should only see content on topics you’re interested in. With Twitter’s social graph however, which is only a poor approximation of an interest graph, once you follow someone you also get all of their political hot takes, sports and other shit you don’t care about.
- pbowyer 5y ago
  That's a great framing of it. I'm a good example, interested in many things so my tweets are about multiple topics. It must drive my followers nuts. And the accounts I like to follow are focused on a single topic. I've thought about running half a dozen accounts with a focus on each, but be far easier if I could curate my output by topic and people can subscribe to only those they want (religion, ML, funny, politics, arty photography, steam trains)
- vishnugupta 5y ago
  Indeed! My purpose to follow someone is to get their insights into a specific topic. If they go off topic beyond my acceptable threshold (which is set to very low) I just unfollow them; the noise isn't worth it. However once in a while stuff like slap gate happens to mess up with my timeline. So sabbatical it is.
EricE 5y ago
Third party clients are a must if you are going to screw with Twitter. You can filter out all the noise and topics that aren't of interest. That people use the native Twitter interface at all constantly amazes me.
cpncrunch 5y ago
You can already hide tweets containing phrases in your Twitter settings.
- Freak_NL 5y ago
  Might be a bit of a challenge with two generic names such as 'Will' and 'Smith'. Even in combination these offer a good chance of occurring in non-actor related phrases (e.g., “Will Smith's new paper offer valuable insights into ML-research applied to Twitter threads?”).
  - Aissen 5y ago
    If one's ready to take a two weeks sabbatical, hiding tweets with common words for 7/30 days is probably an acceptable compromise anyway.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

idrios 5y ago

After reading this comment, now I wish there was a way to create something analogous to Pandora or Spotify channels for Twitter. If you want to view news on ML research, change to your ML channel where you've followed relevant researchers and used this blocking tool for all else. Want to follow certain artists, change to your art station. Same for politics, sports, animals, etc. I'm sure the way to do this for someone who wanted to is just to have multiple profiles but it'd be cool to have Twitter with a Spotify-like interface to use the site through different contexts with a single click.

NikolaNovak 5y ago
For some reason, this worked brilliantly and organically on Google plus. I easily built circles of photographers, astronomers, computer geeks, artists, etc. Got interests based suggestions that made sense. I felt I had curated, high quality content lists. Compared to my google plus experience, Facebook and Twitter are just so much crap crap crap. Therefore It only makes sense Google plus is the one that died - I'm pretty much the universal negative focus group :)
everly 5y ago
Twitter has lists for exactly this purpose

soheil 5y ago

I often wonder how valuable a public block list might be and even if more valuable than a follower/following list. In this case as in many other cases there is probably more insight to be gained in silent evidence than in positive evidence.