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One of the most hotly discussed API feature requests [1] but I'm nervous about it. I don't want my stream filled with junk the way my Facebook stream is. [1] h

by ed209 15y ago

One of the most hotly discussed API feature requests [1] but I'm nervous about it. I don't want my stream filled with junk the way my Facebook stream is. [1] http://code.google.com/p/google-plus-platform/issues/detail?id=41&colspec=ID%20Type%20Status%20Component%20Owner%20Summary http://code.google.com/p/google-plus-platform/issues/detail?...

cshenoy 15y ago
> I don't want my stream filled with junk the way my Facebook stream is. I always wondered why the Google+ team didn't implement that from the get go but after reading that, that's probably the biggest reason as to why they haven't.
- Lewisham 15y ago
  This is the reason: https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/FXaGHpa1kWK https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/FXaGHpa1... It's a not very thinly-veiled shot at frictionless sharing and the like. Having seen the hellhole my Facebook stream has become (while I've tried hard, it's almost impossible not to end up with unintended consequences for Apps and such), I'm on Vic's side.
mindcrime 15y ago
I don't want my stream filled with junk the way my Facebook stream is. Me either, but - IMO - the answer to this isn't to leave out the "write API," but rather the answer is to give users better filters and the ability to define their stream to meet their own desires. Of course doing so with a simple and intuitive UI is the tricky part, but hey... those G+ engineers make a lot of money, they should be able to come up with something, no?
- ed209 15y ago
  > they should be able to come up with something, no? no! :) Probably the hardest thing in social media is noise filtering via a UI (it's hard for Google, it's hard for Facebook, it's just a hard problem). For my own (app) selfish reasons, I'd like to see a write api for comments first as that doesn't cause issues on the same scale as writing posts to the stream. Could be a nice place to start.
  - Jach 15y ago
    Noise filtering is just another form of spam filtering, Google has a lot more in-house experience with that than Facebook I imagine. I think even something as simple as a personalized Naive Bayes filter would go far. Ad hoc groupings of people in your Lists and ad hoc set operations on your current groups (school intersection friends, union of all groups filtered where profession = X or Y, etc.) is something a write api would let a budding entrepreneur develop an app around and potentially make a lot of money.
    - ed209 15y ago
      > Noise filtering is just another form of spam filtering Logically you might think so, but noise is not always noise, sometimes it's what you're interested in reading about, some days it isn't. Spam, however, is always spam. Google+ have tried to solve this "noise" problem through the ui with a "volume" slider. But it's like fine tuning a recording desk if you have to do that to 50 circles to get the mix just right. I'm just not sure it's solvable through the UI and that we may have to be quite harsh on what "noise" we let through and rely on "if it's important enough, it will find me". There's just too much data to consume otherwise.
      - mindcrime 15y ago
        Google+ have tried to solve this "noise" problem through the ui with a "volume" slider. But it's like fine tuning a recording desk if you have to do that to 50 circles to get the mix just right. The problem is, that's not even the right approach. It's built on a faulty assumption - that "who" is the sole determinant of whether or not I'm interested in something. That's not even close to true, unfortunately. I have plenty of social-network connections for whom I value their posts on certain topics and have less-than-zero interest in what they have to say about other things. For example: "I follow Bob, and I want to see Bob's posts on technical topics, but NOT Bob's posts on religion." Or more generally: "I follow all these people, but regardless of who posts what, I never want to see pictures of cats." I'm just not sure it's solvable through the UI and that we may have to be quite harsh on what "noise" we let through and rely on "if it's important enough, it will find me". There's just too much data to consume otherwise. I don't know, I think a solution that was 80% effective would be incredibly valuable. I don't see this as something that's "all or nothing." And my personal take is that, in the case of G+, the Circles thing is a good start, but they need a way to specify "excludes." Whether those excludes should be explicitly defined by the user, or whether they can use machine learning to figure out what I don't want to see is an open question, granted. But I'd take some UI for specifying "exclude this topic" (while acknowledging there is some inherent fuzziness in this) in the meantime.

by ed209 15y ago

cshenoy 15y ago

> I don't want my stream filled with junk the way my Facebook stream is. I always wondered why the Google+ team didn't implement that from the get go but after reading that, that's probably the biggest reason as to why they haven't.

Lewisham 15y ago
This is the reason: https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/FXaGHpa1kWK https://plus.google.com/107117483540235115863/posts/FXaGHpa1... It's a not very thinly-veiled shot at frictionless sharing and the like. Having seen the hellhole my Facebook stream has become (while I've tried hard, it's almost impossible not to end up with unintended consequences for Apps and such), I'm on Vic's side.

mindcrime 15y ago

I don't want my stream filled with junk the way my Facebook stream is. Me either, but - IMO - the answer to this isn't to leave out the "write API," but rather the answer is to give users better filters and the ability to define their stream to meet their own desires. Of course doing so with a simple and intuitive UI is the tricky part, but hey... those G+ engineers make a lot of money, they should be able to come up with something, no?

ed209 15y ago
> they should be able to come up with something, no? no! :) Probably the hardest thing in social media is noise filtering via a UI (it's hard for Google, it's hard for Facebook, it's just a hard problem). For my own (app) selfish reasons, I'd like to see a write api for comments first as that doesn't cause issues on the same scale as writing posts to the stream. Could be a nice place to start.
- Jach 15y ago
  Noise filtering is just another form of spam filtering, Google has a lot more in-house experience with that than Facebook I imagine. I think even something as simple as a personalized Naive Bayes filter would go far. Ad hoc groupings of people in your Lists and ad hoc set operations on your current groups (school intersection friends, union of all groups filtered where profession = X or Y, etc.) is something a write api would let a budding entrepreneur develop an app around and potentially make a lot of money.
  - ed209 15y ago
    > Noise filtering is just another form of spam filtering Logically you might think so, but noise is not always noise, sometimes it's what you're interested in reading about, some days it isn't. Spam, however, is always spam. Google+ have tried to solve this "noise" problem through the ui with a "volume" slider. But it's like fine tuning a recording desk if you have to do that to 50 circles to get the mix just right. I'm just not sure it's solvable through the UI and that we may have to be quite harsh on what "noise" we let through and rely on "if it's important enough, it will find me". There's just too much data to consume otherwise.
    - mindcrime 15y ago
      Google+ have tried to solve this "noise" problem through the ui with a "volume" slider. But it's like fine tuning a recording desk if you have to do that to 50 circles to get the mix just right. The problem is, that's not even the right approach. It's built on a faulty assumption - that "who" is the sole determinant of whether or not I'm interested in something. That's not even close to true, unfortunately. I have plenty of social-network connections for whom I value their posts on certain topics and have less-than-zero interest in what they have to say about other things. For example: "I follow Bob, and I want to see Bob's posts on technical topics, but NOT Bob's posts on religion." Or more generally: "I follow all these people, but regardless of who posts what, I never want to see pictures of cats." I'm just not sure it's solvable through the UI and that we may have to be quite harsh on what "noise" we let through and rely on "if it's important enough, it will find me". There's just too much data to consume otherwise. I don't know, I think a solution that was 80% effective would be incredibly valuable. I don't see this as something that's "all or nothing." And my personal take is that, in the case of G+, the Circles thing is a good start, but they need a way to specify "excludes." Whether those excludes should be explicitly defined by the user, or whether they can use machine learning to figure out what I don't want to see is an open question, granted. But I'd take some UI for specifying "exclude this topic" (while acknowledging there is some inherent fuzziness in this) in the meantime.