I'm delighted to announce that diamond geezer now has a new non-chronological algorithm.
Previously posts were displayed in reverse chronological order, newest first, an option which is 100% counter-intuitive. This changes.
From today an automated algorithm will determine the order in which posts appear in your feed. This algorithm uses various factors to prioritise content with the goal of showing you the most relevant and engaging posts first.
This non-chronological restructuring will lead to an enhanced readership experience by creating moments of discovery and prolonging audience engagement.
FAQs
How will my experience change?
From today a new machine learning algorithm will analyse your activity and engagement on the blog by considering factors such as the type of content you engage with, your commenting portfolio and the recency of posts to determine what appears at the top of your feed. Posts that have a higher likelihood of preference may often be prioritised and appear higher in your feed.
How is the algorithm constructed?
Your new personalised timeline has been carefully constructed to follow known interests, engaging content and trending topics. The algorithm is designed to encourage focus with the platform by displaying content optimised for personal characteristics. This realignment to engagement protocols also means that you may not see all recent published content without scrolling down. Rest assured that the most recent post will always appear somewhere within the first three pages.
Why are you doing this?
Research has confirmed that chronological order is an outdated concept and that a majority of new users are perfectly happy to scroll down their feed endlessly, engaging with individual posts as appropriate.
How do I opt out?
Please note that no option to view the feed chronologically is being provided going forward because software developers know what you want better than you do.
When was this announced?
The implementation of this procedure was fully explained in the post of 22nd November, if you can still find it.
How do I complain?
This is the future, grandad, get with the program.
For the avoidance of doubt that wasn't true, the blog does not have a new non-chronological algorithm.
It wouldn't still be a proper blog if it did - reverse chronological is how they work.
Sure, if it's your first time here you might want to discover a spread of past posts you'd never read before - the order isn't relevant. But as soon as you make a commitment to come back regularly the most recent post needs to be at the top, otherwise it's all a mess and the readership ebbs away. Other social media platforms might do well to learn that lesson.
What I did was create one very long post by combining 10 old ones. To try to make it look more convincing I added links to the original comments and hid everything else on the front page. Everybody got the same 10 posts, there was nothing personalised about it.
Also one of the 10 'old' posts was new - it had never appeared before. This was the post about the Post Office Tower, a remarkably prescient post which purported to foreshadow the 'hotel' announcement but was in fact written afterwards. I slapped a fake date on it, kicked off the conversation with three fake comments and hid it four posts down. Well done to those of you who noticed.
I have since expunged the algorithmic feed as if it never happened and returned to normal ordering. If you actually enjoyed the experience, remember that you can always click on one of the 258 monthly archives in the sidebar and uncover all sorts of old stuff you may never have read before.
For posterity's sake here's a list of the 10 chosen posts, followed by that Post Office Tower interloper in full...
What is to be done with the Post Office Tower?
Yes I know it's officially called the BT Tower but who calls it that, only lickspittles, it'll always be the Post Office Tower to me.
It was once the epitome of the white heat of technology, a 1960s upthrust in the heart of Fitzrovia connecting the capital to the world and bringing communication to all. You could marvel at its modern form, you could dine at the top while rotating very slowly and famously you couldn’t see it on a map because it was officially top secret. But then the restaurant closed, then the Nat West Tower topped it, then it became some lesser British Telecom emblem, then the microwave aerials came down and now it sticks out pointlessly like a sore thumb.
BT still own it but it must be like an albatross around their neck, a full-on white elephant, being both a listed building and a bloody awkward stack of decaying technology. They can't actually need it any more, not with all those awkwardly shaped floors, plus everything's digital now, plus it covers an entire city block because the base is huge. All it's doing is keeping your phone bills marginally higher, that and providing a lofty billboard for occasional rotating advertising messages. It looks highly impractical and must require a significant amount of upkeep.
I can't believe it'd make a good office block because the floorplates are all wrong. I can't see it as a tourist attraction because they'd have to charge an absolute fortune for entry, nor as a standalone restaurant atop an obsolete metal cylinder. In my opinion the tower's only sensible future is as a luxury hotel - a multi-storey stack of suites and bedrooms offering an iconic experience and a unique view of London. The revolving restaurant would be the top draw - just imagine the premium you could charge for meals up there - and the public would totally lap it up.
There again they'd probably give the job of redesigning it to that bloody Heatherwick and his fancy chums and they'd repurpose it in a jarring way that'd get the public's back up, perhaps even altering the famous silhouette to make a fatuous architectural statement. It'd then become some luxury hideaway for the world's moneyed upper echelons, nowhere you'd ever be able to afford to go yourself. Not that you'd ever have got inside anyway so at least this way somebody gets in, but a super-exclusive hideaway for poshknobs all the same. They'd jump at the opportunity.
Of course I bet BT Group would take a number of years to vacate the premises, due to the scale and complexity of the work to move technical equipment, meaning there would be significant time for design development and engagement with local communities before proposals are revealed. It won't be opening as a hotel any time soon. But if not a hotel, might this fantastic landmark merely crumble away?
