this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2025
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"No algorithms"??
What do you think "Hot" is? What do you think "active" is? There is some ranking algorithm that picks what to show. If you want to be pedantic, even "top" or "new" are algorithms.
Perhaps it would’ve been more accurate to say no mysterious, dark-pattern algorithms. The Fediverse has documented, simple algorithms that aren’t trying to manipulate the viewer.
I mean, that's a little pedantic. Those are simple sorts by post attribute, not individualized preference targets. And you explicitly choose your own sort, it isn't assigned secretly and dynamically.
It's the difference between getting junk mail in your mailbox and going through the card catalogue at the library.
"hot" and "active" are not simple post attributes. It's a weighted algorithm that takes into account many things like score, time, how fast the score is changing, upvote percentages, etc.
It's not a personalized feed, but it's farm from simple or objective. Look at how many people complain about reddits many different sorting algorithms
When people say "no algorithms", they don't mean literally no algorithm, because by definition there always is one. It's clear what they are referring to.
When they say "no algorithms", they mean "no personally tailored bubble for your interests, all done to keep you engaged and enraged, while scrolling past ad impressions"
Obviously there's an algorithm, even if it's just sorting by times voted on in the last hour. It's actually detailed here: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/contributors/07-ranking-algo.html
I've not experienced that on Lemmy. It looks like simple descending sort by upvotes, similar to using the Sort function on Excel.
If you mean algorithm by "sorts biggest number to smallest", you'd be correct
How does the "Hot" function work on Lemmy?
It's the first sorting type on the Lemmy main page:
Tell me how this works without algorithms and just purely by sorting "biggest number to smallest".