⚙️ Control your Feed Preferences - Fixes & Updates Coming Soon 🛠️
Similar Worlds has now for the first time since our launch 5 years ago, upgraded our Default Feed's algorithm, from being purely 100% Chronological, to now taking into account Both Content Relevancy and Time of Post.
[i](This is something we have been letting users know, for years, is planned and being worked on.)[/i]
We understand that after 5 years of being accustomed to one specific feed format, this change will be "Drastic" to most users, and can seem confusing and uncomfortable initially. We do apologize for that, and ask that you please bear with us.
However, we do believe, and have already begun to see, that many users are beginning to understand and get more comfortable with the recent changes.
We also understand that such a major cannot have a perfect initial release, as much tweaking and improvement needs to be done, as we test the performance and results of these changes, and listen to user feedback.
[sep]
As some users may have noticed, the "Customize Feed" options are currently unavailable, but are being worked on and will be Upgraded to offer more control, and compatibility with the new Feed Structure.
Certain amount of user feedback was needed (which has been helpful) to help us finalize what customization options will be offered, and how they will function.
[i]Some of the options that will be made available very soon:[/i]
[c=004A59][big]Customize Feed[/big][/c]
[b][u]Show more of:[/u][/b]
[b][i]Friends & Following:[/i][/b] 🔲 Everyone | 🔲 Mix | 🔲 My Friends & Following
[b][i]Subscribed Groups & Categories:[/i][/b] 🔲 All Groups | 🔲 Mix | 🔲 My Groups & Categories
[b][i]Comments in Feed:[/i][/b] 🔲 Less Comments | 🔲 Mix | 🔲 More Comments
[b][i]Post Order/Sorting by:[/i][/b] 🔲 Time Posted | 🔲 Mix | 🔲 Most Relevant
[sep]
[b][u]Additional important notes:[/u][/b]
• The New/Smart Feed changes does take some time to initially "Warm Up", to sort itself out. The Stability of these new feed changes should improve with time, and with your usage of the feed, and regular interactions with other users.
• Your "Own Posts" appearing in the Home Feed, will likely be returned soon.
• The new Feed changes are not "Random", but they are also not purely Chronological, as have been for the past 5 years. The feed now takes into account, Users and Groups you Follow and interact with, as well as the recency (time) of the content (Post/Comment).
• The more often you see a particular Post/Comment in your feed, the more it will slowly begin to "Drop" lower down the list of posts in that feed to you. This helps you to see more content you may not yet have seen, and less of the same, each time you visit the home feed.
• We will be continuing to improve and adjust these changes, based on user feedback and analysis.
• [b]Customize Feed[/b] (Control your Feed Preferences), will be returning very soon, as mentioned above.
[sep]
Thanks for reading, and for your feedback. Kind regards! [i][c=005E2F]- The SW Team[/c][/i]
@SW-User [quote]where you have to add/follow people to see content.[/quote]
They have been saying this from day one back in 2016!
All of them have been doing this equally. It's actually based on "commercialism". Which is where the concept came from back in the 1940s with TV and even radio.
Now look where TV has gone with cable and internet TV! And still there is "popularism" involved.
We all are responsible for even allowing it to continue all these decades.
They, as well as everyone else, see not one thing wrong with the concept. And why they all support the concept.
I agree with you. The last change to how we post made it more difficult with more steps to go through. Why make something more complex, when it was easier the old way. @geoam1
@PirateMonkeyCabinet Yes. The 'posts' feed shows different posts than the 'new' feed. And if you search on "and" or "the" you will find posts that don't show up in either. Even with all the sliders set to the left.
@FeetAreFantastic Exactly. Mentioned just that in another post. They seem intent on forcing this mess of a feed on everyone.
SW-User
[c=4C0073][quote]many users are beginning to understand and get more comfortable with the recent changes[/quote]
Actually, no. Just no. Sorry but you know i have never spoken against change, but this time, it's a big no. If you insist on this, we may part ways. Maybe[/c]
Once the "Customize Feed" settings have been completed and released, users will be able decide more or less, almost exactly how they prefer their Default Feed to be.
Users will be able to adjust:
- Broad range of User Content, or very Specific / Limited to your Friends & Following.
- Broad range of Group Content sources, or more limited to our own Subscribed Groups.
- What general proportion of your feed should be Comments, or should they appear at all.
- How much of your feed includes "Relevant Content" (users you interact a lot with, but may not be specifically following - we try our best to estimate the most positive interactions).
- Priority Order of the Posts in your Feed, by Time or by Relevancy (more granular selections will be added).
It is being made in such a way that the options overlap and accommodate one another, so that users can tweak and decide with a high amount of specification, how they choose for their feeds to appear.
The feed may never be perfect to many users, however we are doing our best to make sure that all users at least have some significant say/choice in how their feed should appear to them.
[sep]
As mentioned before, the previous options that were in place, have been there for much of the past 5 years, which is quite a long time.
[u]Users had No Choice[/u] but to get used to what limited options were made available.
Interface Changes are almost never well received on any social platform or other type of website (unless it's the addition of New Features), because as we understand, there is comfort in sticking to what someone is already used to.
[u]We've only had less than a week[/u] to observe how these new Smart Feed changes perform and affect user's usage of this website.
During this short time, we have gained valuable feedback and insight, which is helping us to improve these new changes to accommodate most of the preferences of each user.
We are hearing all of your concerns, and thanks for the feedback.
We do ask for a bit more time and understanding, as we are working steadily to continue improvements and release the pending customizations and fixes.
Users may realize that we have fixed a lot of errors and improved a lot of the inadequacies of these recent changes, over the past few days.
@Andrew By your definition I am most certainly a so called "power user" and possibly then some by some of my own SW PSI's about similar worlds.
I attempt to make them neutral by the way, just the facts, with no opinions.
Yet I have noticed that many want every single post that is possibly available. With absolutely no filtering.
Now I know that is not likely to happen just simply because of blocks and mutes, much less any other kind of software filtering.
Yet I believe it's the software filtering that many are upset about the most. There really should be some kind of chronological everything which is totally unfiltered.
Being a so called power user I don't block or mute anyone. I also have maximized within reason all my interests. Then as well I probably am subscribed to the most groups.
I have done this mostly to maximize the number of posts on my feed. Yet even still if I do a search on the word "and" or "the" I see posts not in my feed.
Now why must I do that type of search to begin with to see more posts? 🤔🤷♂️
Please note many power users are doing this anyway. Yet you only make it more difficult by not having such a setting!!!
@NerdyPotato You're absolutely right. It's way too much detail to share with users. People generally love to complain and point fingers. This approach just leads to problems. Like you said, people who did notice it, would've thought of it as some sort of curious bug, which was soon "fixed." When admins to go into detail, many users believe that means it's time to argue. 😃 Just release the update when it's done, and then tell people. Only write the most necessary information, and keep it short enough for all users to comprehend fully reading it.
You folks may have been too busy tweaking to be aware of the recent revelations about Facebook's meddling via algorithms.
This is not a good time to be promoting modified algorithms to show us content we want. We know what algorithms' purpose is, and it is not to help us but to manipulate us. Even if that's not so, there is still the law of unintended consequences.
I do appreciate the drawing back of the curtain. This way I can think clearly and thoroughly about whether this is the end of social media for me. I think it is.
@CestManan I visualize it as an electronic library. In theory, and possibly in practice, if you choose to spend the time changing filters and using blocks and muting to select the content you're interested in seeing, you have access to the entire contents of the library. However, in this electronic library, automated shelves select and move to the forefront the books thought to be acceptable or desirable for you (or for the librarian, who is paid by advertisers). In actuality, the content is curated for you.
There may be zero malicious intent. There may be some, there may be a lot. I am making no claims about that.
If I wanted someone behind the curtain, I'd take the yellow brick road.
This is my opinion. I encourage you to voice your own.
@Mamapolo2016 FB probably does that a ton but not so much on here. That "library" on here has only about 10 books anyways - politics, religion, covid/vax, depression, selfies, concerns about the forum, smut, maybe a few others.
I appreciate the explanation though, I agree that big social media does that. Small ones like this though just don't really have enough various content to do such.
Believe it or not, we are capable of searching for content and like to see posts in a chronological order. We are also not pleased with the removal of the FOLLOWING feed nor the fact that the NEW feed is not the default. It's not that we're getting used to the changes...it's that we're getting used to screw-ups like this followed by "fixes" that would not have been needed if you left well enough alone. You create a lot of "busy work" for yourselves...which I never liked in business settings and don't like here. If I couldn't laugh about messes like this, I'd go elsewhere
[quote]However, we do believe, and have already begun to see, that many users are beginning to understand and get more comfortable with the recent changes.[/quote]
I'm not sure if you see the same feed we do but at least 50% of the posts [b][i]I've[/i][/b] seen this morning, were people [b][u]complaining[/u][/b] about the changes. And there's more and more of them by the hour.
@SW-User Same. Not at all "more comfortable". I guess we can't be trusted to make our own choices about what we want to see anymore, ye olde algorithm always knows better than we do.
SW-User
Change change change 🎶 I’ll do you good 👍🏻 @LucyFuhr
I just want a feed with ALL posts in chronological order, incl. comments made by friends and those I interact with the most on the boards. I'll scroll and sort the rest myself, thank you!
You guys need to keep in mind that your userbase is old and mentally unstable. We don't have the ability to handle such changes. Stressing us out for nothing good. Give us those games you promised since the start of this instead. 🙄
[b]Dear Andrew[/b], your commitment is greatly appreciated. We all know you do everything you can, to make using the site an even more pleasant experience for us users. [b]HOWEVER[/b], I think it was a bad idea to change the feed structure BEFORE you finished the "Customize Feed" settings. At the moment, it's just chaotic, and more often than not I don't even [u]see[/u] the most recent posts, even after clicking the "New" button. This escapes me. It is double plus ungood. It makes me look at the site less often. I would strongly recommend that you FIRST DO YOUR HOMEWORK, and [u]then[/u] let us decide how to customize our individual feed settings. I believe it would be great if you just [u]went back to the old chronological order[/u], until you get the "Customize Feed" thing done. Thank you very much for your consideration. 🌷 hS
@TheThinker I would say it was a typical inconsiderate mistake. I am a part-time programmer myself, and sometimes changes in my program will lead to unexpected side-effects. Something like that must have happened here. And I do not know whether they can really go back to the old version.
[quote]However, we do believe, and have already begun to see, that many users are beginning to understand and get more comfortable with the recent changes.[/quote]
At the time of writing this, this thread sits at a 16-to-1 ratio of thinking your changes are good. This was posted very recently too. Seems like you are just trying to play it off to us as if we are blind to what other people think. https://similarworlds.com/groups/community/4097691-Are-the-new-SW-changes-user-friendly-or-necessary
[quote]Certain amount of user feedback was needed (which has been helpful) to help us finalize what customization options will be offered, and how they will function.[/quote] I mean, you could have run an opt-in beta test, or simply asked instead of thrusting this upon us and seeing what seams rip apart.
[quote]The New/Smart Feed changes does take some time to initially "Warm Up", to sort itself out. The Stability of these new feed changes should improve with time, and with your usage of the feed, and regular interactions with other users.[/quote] You could have pre-fed the algorithm for a while, run it in tandem with the old one a little before hiding/removing the old feeds. But hey, better to just make us all beta-tester for a product that isn't ready for prime time, am I right?
@PirateMonkeyCabinet I’m sure they tested it before implementing it? No matter how many tests you run, there are a few problems you somehow didn’t foresee before release, right?
@Sheer Bugs happen, sure, but a lot of this sounds like bad and avoidable decisions rather than actual bugs. Certainly doesn't feel like it was tested beyond the two of them (or however few they are) in the office. Not only that, they released it in an unfinished state without any prior warning.
In fact they have been given feedback in post prior to the release of the update about some of the issues that we now see (i.e. the importance of chronological order to some), yet still these issues ended up becoming a major issue here.
If they wanted feedback and help there are people here who would be more than willing to take part in constructive talks with them. There are people who'd be willing to help test it. They could have been given user perspectives, but it doesn't seem like that was important to them until after it blew up.
SW-User
There should still be an [b]option [/b]to view all posts chronologically.
These changes aren't being made to benefit the users; they're being made to benefit the admins and the bottom line and they won't be reverted because anyone complained. That's how all sites work.
@SW-User We do not know [u]why[/u] the changes were done; we can only speculate. To me it looks like the recent changes were done hastily, like publishing unfinished work because of a deadline.
Andrew Appreciate the write and post event announcement. I appreciate more thorough explanation behind whatever change BUT this along with some of the others changes that have just been spit out to us; it would be nice and more preferred, I think, that the announcement come BEFORE the tweaking and beta testing is kicked off..
Why has it taken well over a day to let people know and put the site in disarray and engender Ill feeling from users. Seems to me you are making changes for the sake of making changes and alienating users who you need to make money from your advertisers - not a good way to do business
@Nimbus People often say they want to leave but where are they going to go? Back to FB or one of the other forums that is way more over crowded, nosy, and strict than this place?
While it seems a bit disorganized here at times, it is not overwhelming like most social media.
@Andrew are we going to be able to customize our feed to show all posts in chronological order?
I hate Facebook because of this issue. I haven’t seen anyone post to say they love the new changes. Where are you seeing this? Honestly you don’t care what we like. That’s pretty clear.
@iamonfire696 things are happening though, I'm still seeing the first post I saw over an hour ago. Its still first🤦♂️ Its gonna be exciting here from now on😂😂
It seems we'll be able to default to our old settings, essentially, once the ability to 'Customize Feed' is restored. In the meantime, logging in, then clicking on 'New' is just one extra step, as long as all the new posts are actually showing up there. I'm already beginning to automatically check a post's date before replying. I feel uncomfortable answering older posts that weren't re-shared by the OP. It would be better, imo, if people were in charge of relaunching their own older posts. Anywaaayyy... I've been through site changes enough (here and elsewhere) to know everyone will get used to almost any change thrown at them... eventually.
@geoam1 I hope not, because this is actually the best site out of 4 I've tried since the last last site I loved got sold. But even if it is gone sooner, it will create a vacuum that will need to be filled. This similar world is even less permanent than the real world.
@PirateMonkeyCabinet Exactly. It was all fine before the changes. No need for me to change anything. I just want the old chronological order back, that's all.
@helenS If this update had been an optional, separate feed I'd be fine with that (although with the option to select which feed is the default one for me). Would have had no objection to that at all.
But of course we get the usual admin/dev response:
SW-User
@PirateMonkeyCabinet yeah, I don’t think we’re wanting Tesla like autonomous driving
I ,like many others,want to be able to see eveything that is posted. How can we know if something interests us if we can’t see it?
Anyway i’m not sure after reading the above if i will able to see everything or not. It seems i might but it isn’t entirely obvious. But as you will know-and there have been umpteen threads on the subject-the feed is currently a bit of a shambles. But i will give it time to settle down and see what happens.
Not a fan Maybe give us the majority of users the option to keep how the feed was and if you want all those other options… those users can opt into them with your filters Simple 🤷🏻♀️
Just a tad concerning that it took me so long to see this post…my current experience is that new posts are not updated so I’m actually seeing newer content in the other threads and I’m continuing to just see the same posts. It’s also terrible just seeing posts and not comments…I will wait to see how it pans out. It’s not that I’m used to it being one way and don’t like change, I actually love changes it’s just that so far this change doesn’t work as well and makes the feed slower paced and less interesting…which is probably good as I will spend less time here and actually get on with my uni work
@SW-User yes!! 🙌🏻 isn’t it best people can comment all at the same time and have conversations while it’s there in live time, days or hours old isn’t the same. 😫
SW-User
@Fairydust I honestly just think interaction will go down and the feed will die, people will go to DMs or leave
You people need to learn to measure twice before cutting.
And we should not be your beta testers EVERY time.
But at least it is still free! So I should probably shut up, right?
Yet I do not do what you guys do. I am on a team at work, that makes custom programs, and some of us said we would talk about our programs tomorrow, if we have time to prepare for it. My plan was to use a draft of my code, yet which had never been debugged or tested. Yet I have other more important duties so put off my preparation until today. I thought I could make it work today. I failed. I just ran out of time. I may have time to finish tomorrow morning, but it is unlikely.
Yet rather than go ahead and discuss a program that still does not work, I plan to just apologize and reschedule for next month's meeting. There is no rush. And my code is just used by me, and perhaps a few others if they ever invest the time to learn its language and what it does.
Please slow down. We are not going anywhere. But if you keep rocking the boat we will all be in the water. Keep us all nice and dry!
Hey…would you consider making a colored light so people who are looking to sext can connect with like minded people and it cuts out the trash for others?
Dear SW Staff: I believe you think you are doing the best by us, the SW members. And I think you think you are doing your best and I have no doubt this is ALL a lot of hard work, dedication and [u]you must have our best interests at heart[/u].
Here is the thing: A lot of us have some illness and it's EXTREMELY confusing and discombobulating when you do anything like !THIS!
I just simply can NOT keep track of this in my brain, my cptsd and fibromyalgia (ETC), it makes it very challenging, if not impossible. For real. It's impossible.
I loved SW before ALL your amalgamation and so on began. THAT WAS A BEAUTIFUL SITE. Simple and comfy.
Now, I don't know what actually is going on. I Just know I am not using most of your features because I don't get them, I have no energy to 'learn' them nor do I want to. *I have a life outside of SW, and that's where MY energy is expended. In the real world.*
SW is supposed to be easy, fun, relaxing, enjoyable, silly, and caring and safe place. Maybe a little flirting if it's OK'd by both parties.
I just wish to god you'd STOP changing stuff ALL THE TIME, DEAR SW CREATORS.
It's too much for some of us members, I know I am not the only one who is super frustrated and feel UNheard totally. I want ALL of my groups back. I don't NEED this feed 'blah blah blah' (what you said).
@LunadelobosIAMTHEDRAGON it’s not really hard it’s just upside down while they complete the changes. I say we give them a chance. They do listen to us so maybe some of the features people have requested will be included. 👍
This post was actually lost several posts down in your new algorithm in one of the feeds. So the algorithm isn't even helping admin. So maybe this WAS posted before but we are only now seeing it cause it's two days old.
@geoam1 That's why programmers have two versions of their programs: (a) a deployment version (b) a sandboxed version. Everything is tested in the sandbox, and the sandboxed version will be deployed only when/if it is tested and debugged.
Having experienced the new feed for a few days, I have mixed feelings.
The relevance view is pretty nice to discover new topics and people. I also like how it keeps posts active. Before, it pretty much dropped out of view after 30 minutes, but now they keep receiving new comments for days.
I do however miss the feed of just the people I follow. I used to start there to catch up with everything my friends posted before more general browsing. Now I feel like a lot of their posts are never shown to me.
I also don't quite understand the difference between the Posts and New tabs. Both show way more than just people I follow or even interacted with much in the last months, but neither show even close to everything or everything that's relevant. (Unless there are no more than 10 posts an hour from the entire community during peak hours.)
It would be great to have a way again to see everything from friends and to see a bit more in general.
[quote]get more comfortable with the recent changes[/quote] I haven't seen this with anyone tbh. I'm not sure this is accurate. The back to chronological order option is good.
We can hope . But I’m still wondering why. A BIG upgrade then we have to redo everything to get back to where we was in the first place. I know I may be slow but this makes No sense to me.@zerofuks2give
