4 ms·

I know the algorithm i use, it ends with ORDER BY date DESC.

by jdrc 4y ago

onychomys 4y ago
Same here, and it blows my mind that we're in such a minority.
hotpotamus 4y ago
Is that actually possible on Twitter? (I have an account but don't use it.) I do believe them that when a user follows several 100+ other users, it would probably be impossible to read every tweet chronologically.
- ironmagma 4y ago
  Impossible to read, maybe. Impossible to display, definitely not.
- madeofpalk 4y ago
  Yes. It is. It's been an option since... forever? Many many years at least. https://i.imgur.com/JM6saa2.png https://i.imgur.com/JM6saa2.png For about a week they made a change that prevent that chronological timeline from being the default, but they reasonably quickly rolled that back. https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/14/22977782/twitter-default-home-algorithmic-timeline-feed-reverse-chronological https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/14/22977782/twitter-default-...
- themanmaran 4y ago
  Sort by recent is an available setting. Whether you can keep up with the volume is up to how many people you choose to follow.
- dilap 4y ago
  i always use chronological, atm following very few people, but in the past following too many to keep up w/. even when following too many to read everything, i preferred chrono because it would yield a coherent slice of what was happening. an unbiased sample. twitter is basically a medium for conversation. imagine there's a large party. would you rather listen to an out-of-order "most important" set parts of the conversation, or just a slice of conversation from a particular time? well, actually, both can be interesting, but generally the slice is more coherent. :-)
- almog 4y ago
  Assuming we're talking about the timeline "latest" mode (rather than "top"), IIRC in the past the used to do the home timeline processing on the read paths, but have long since opted to optimize for read latency, thus the heavy lifting is performed during the insertion, so in broad strokes, when someone post a tweet, the three main things that happen are: 1. Insertion of tweet to tweets table. 2. Insertion of that tweet-id to the home timelines of all that user's followers. 3. Insertion of that tweet-id to the user-timeline of that user. On the read-path, if I'm not mistaken, the only join that happen is between the requested timeline and the tweets table (which is replicated across cluster of machines but not partitioned, or at least I remember reading that was the case not many years ago)
- lysp 4y ago
  I use lists by subject matter, including a list of personal contacts. I then use tweet deck which shows a column of tweets per list. As these are separated by subject and are chronological, it makes it far easier to follow.
themodelplumber 4y ago
Nice for some things. Absolute death for discovery in a lot of cases though. Either trim your follows down dramatically, or miss some incredible stuff...
- jdrc 4y ago
  there is nothing to discover anymore. everyone is retweeting the same stories. and the best bet at discovering is via soomeone you follow
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
xvmt 4y ago
This is what YouTube's Subscriptions tab does and I hate it. Rarely uploading quality creators are hidden in a sea of daily uploads from channels which focus on regular uploads rather than quality. I think there is a place for a smarter algorithm than "ORDER BY date DESC", but one that is not designed to manipulate users into addiction.
- jdrc 4y ago
  Yeah it s not good for youtube because youtube doesnt have retweets, so people subscribe to everything they like. On twitter you can subscribe to a few people and they ll still retweet most of the stuff that the algorithm would give u

I know the algorithm i use, it ends with ORDER BY date DESC.

by jdrc 4y ago

I know the algorithm i use, it ends with ORDER BY date DESC.

onychomys 4y ago

Same here, and it blows my mind that we're in such a minority.

hotpotamus 4y ago

Is that actually possible on Twitter? (I have an account but don't use it.) I do believe them that when a user follows several 100+ other users, it would probably be impossible to read every tweet chronologically.

ironmagma 4y ago
Impossible to read, maybe. Impossible to display, definitely not.
madeofpalk 4y ago
Yes. It is. It's been an option since... forever? Many many years at least. https://i.imgur.com/JM6saa2.png https://i.imgur.com/JM6saa2.png For about a week they made a change that prevent that chronological timeline from being the default, but they reasonably quickly rolled that back. https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/14/22977782/twitter-default-home-algorithmic-timeline-feed-reverse-chronological https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/14/22977782/twitter-default-...
themanmaran 4y ago
Sort by recent is an available setting. Whether you can keep up with the volume is up to how many people you choose to follow.
dilap 4y ago
i always use chronological, atm following very few people, but in the past following too many to keep up w/. even when following too many to read everything, i preferred chrono because it would yield a coherent slice of what was happening. an unbiased sample. twitter is basically a medium for conversation. imagine there's a large party. would you rather listen to an out-of-order "most important" set parts of the conversation, or just a slice of conversation from a particular time? well, actually, both can be interesting, but generally the slice is more coherent. :-)
almog 4y ago
Assuming we're talking about the timeline "latest" mode (rather than "top"), IIRC in the past the used to do the home timeline processing on the read paths, but have long since opted to optimize for read latency, thus the heavy lifting is performed during the insertion, so in broad strokes, when someone post a tweet, the three main things that happen are: 1. Insertion of tweet to tweets table. 2. Insertion of that tweet-id to the home timelines of all that user's followers. 3. Insertion of that tweet-id to the user-timeline of that user. On the read-path, if I'm not mistaken, the only join that happen is between the requested timeline and the tweets table (which is replicated across cluster of machines but not partitioned, or at least I remember reading that was the case not many years ago)
lysp 4y ago
I use lists by subject matter, including a list of personal contacts. I then use tweet deck which shows a column of tweets per list. As these are separated by subject and are chronological, it makes it far easier to follow.

themodelplumber 4y ago

Nice for some things. Absolute death for discovery in a lot of cases though. Either trim your follows down dramatically, or miss some incredible stuff...

jdrc 4y ago
there is nothing to discover anymore. everyone is retweeting the same stories. and the best bet at discovering is via soomeone you follow
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

xvmt 4y ago

This is what YouTube's Subscriptions tab does and I hate it. Rarely uploading quality creators are hidden in a sea of daily uploads from channels which focus on regular uploads rather than quality. I think there is a place for a smarter algorithm than "ORDER BY date DESC", but one that is not designed to manipulate users into addiction.

jdrc 4y ago
Yeah it s not good for youtube because youtube doesnt have retweets, so people subscribe to everything they like. On twitter you can subscribe to a few people and they ll still retweet most of the stuff that the algorithm would give u