beta testing bot algorithms now, like you do

Click for cool drone fail vid

Learned a new thing yesterday, probably nice of me to share. Kept wondering why my blood sugar level kept rising through the day, nearly tapered off the pred, only nibbling on cheese with no carbs, what gives? Well, turns out proteins break down over several hours into other things, and a percentage of protein metabolism becomes blood glucose, so even 4 hours later on an empty stomach, that teensy amount of digestion was keeping my blood sugar level up around 145ish. Wow. Good to know. Meats will do the same thing. Not sure about fats. Haven't really run into this problem before, hope it's not indicative of my function level changing. Probably more like I just never noticed.

Got that one particular big grunge job done yesterday, finally. Can't believe I already had to spend an hour fixing something in the middle of that. Sure glad I did the grunge work, or it would have been even harder to come back and fix later.

Office Cat cleans up your mess

Oh, yeah, remember the big paper.li disaster? They contacted me back. This was my reply to them before I went to bed last night and their reply back this morning. Wait, I'll just paste the whole convo here. I'm just using initials for the contact person. This is me not being paid to help a company test an epic fail.

Janika Banks, Jun 5, 00:11:

So something porny was surprisingly my leading story and I had to delete it off facebook, and none of my twitter friends were featured and they have the best scifi and gaming content. Settings are there for a REASON. I had my paper exactly like I wanted it, now the content doesn't relate to my readers on twitter at all.

D. S., Jun 5, 17:26:

Hi Janika,

Thank you for the valuable feedback. The new algorithm is a recent change that is currently in a 'live testing' phase, so your thoughts and comments are greatly appreciated. I'm going to pass your message on to our team for discussion.

Kind regards,
D.

D.S, Jun 8, 16:09:

Hi Janika,

Our team is discussing the new algorithm this week, and I have a question for you. In regards to some of your usual content going missing, if you had the ability to 'star' your most important source so that it's always included, would this solve the problem?

Kind regards,
D.

Janika Banks, Jun 10, 02:55:

Hello, thanks for contacting me back.

I'm already back on track with most of my content simply by severely restricting the twitter access down to one out of 20 lists, my favorite hashtags, and my own timeline. My readers are hardcore scifi fans, and your new algorithm knocked Star Wars and Lego right off the map for sex positions and hundreds of cute cats simply because they'd gone viral. Two porny lead stories two days in a row on my facebook was unacceptable, so I tightened the bolts way down.

I can't control what my followers at large retweet. Many of them are grouped by list into things like 'internet magazines' that focus on gaming and comiccons, and I use those lists on paperli. However, with the new logarithm all it takes is one of them to have a cat day to flood my paper with cute cat virals. Instead of spreading out and finding more random content specifically tailored to my paper's core focus, the new algorithm condensed it down to sex and cats. (That does sound funny, I'm kind of laughing.) The whole point of MY paper is sifting out my own kind of random, the kinds of things that fellow scifi fans love. A quick glance through my paper was adequate for picking up the best of a multiplicity of feeds, something I found thrilling and very useful.

I'm really good at juggling bots, have been on social media for years, have beta tested for photobucket, google analytics, twitter, and sumall. Your idea is good in theory but very impractical for anyone whose settings were mowed over with the new algorithm. I have friends who use paper.li but I'm not sure whether they've noticed yet if anything changed, many of them are professional writers and might not have had the time yet. I'm a little more obsessive, check the daily links every single day.

I don't think a star is going to fix this problem. I was very happy with the old algorithm. I'm not sure what your goals are with the new algorithm, unless it's to push content that is already maxed out all over the internet ahead of content that was already locked into settings. I'm not sure what kind of answer I can give that doesn't sound a little snippy, because that sounds way too simplistic without more information.

If you do make more changes and would like feedback, I'm happy to try gears and gizmos galore. Kind of my thing.

I wish I'd just left the first two days of change alone so you could compare them to past archives and see how utterly cartoony and porny it suddenly went. I actually thought someone had broken into my paper and changed my settings. I panicked and started changing the content. If I'd left it alone and simply deleted the links off twitter and facebook, you'd be able to see it and fall out of your chairs laughing at how UNrandom that new algorithm was. Sex and cats. Lots and lots of cats... Like an April Fool's joke from hell. I do have to applaud that, it's not often I panic any more.

Janika Banks

D. S., Jun 10, 03:38:

Hi Janika,

First, let me apologize for the content whiplash. Our developers worked very hard on the new algorithm (and they're still working to improve it), and for most papers, it's working out great. That said, sex and lots (and lots) of cats is definitely not an expected or acceptable result. We're keeping track of all of our feedback concerning the new algorithm, so rest assured and know that our developers will be reading your comments here.

We had a team meeting today to discuss the new algorithm, and I'm happy to inform you that we plan to implement the 'star' system I mentioned that will allow you to select one (possibly three) sources that you would like to boost content from. It's similar to our old source priority system and will put more control over your sources, and therefore your content, in your hands. We'll be implementing this feature very soon (possibly as early as next week), so please keep that mind. And I'll be looking forward to your feedback.

If you have any questions or other comments, I'll be happy to hear them.

Kind regards,
D.

:edit: I may as well insert the reply I just made to that, lol.

Hi again.

Question, just a thought popping into my mind.

If I need to use stars to refocus content now, what was the point of installing a new algorithm gathering more randomized content? Now we're layering settings over settings.

 Happy hump day.

Janika Banks

paper.li- how it should have ended... Pretty sure they did NOT get feedback saying most papers thought it was working out great.

I just wanna fix the internet...

Ok, getting on with my morning now. Coffee kicking in.

Time to get all over my day.