The only algo on this board is the "related threads" section. The rest is 100% in your control in terms of what you see. They arent remotely similar.
Right, but the purpose of the algorhythms is to present you with other things you're probably interested in and keep you engaged. On reg ol msg boards that happens organically based on the community. Ie, I come to the FFA to check out the betting and stocks thread and then notice there's a Vegas thread and see what's going on in there, or w/e.
On regular message boards, YOU have to choose what you look at as EVERYTHING is presented to you ALL the time. That's not remotely close to how the other platforms work. You're trying really hard to make these things similar when they really aren't. To put it another way, when you and I come to this board, we see the exact same thing (unless you have people on ignore etc). If you and I go to twitter, we will see VERY different things over time. Those platforms form an echo chamber for you in a way this place never could. For that reason alone they aren't really worthy of comparison.
The analogy that comes to mind is a fancy restaurant where you're just served whatever courses the chef has set up vs a place you order off a menu.
You can make the argument that they aren't worthy of comparison, but in the end you're sitting around a table eating and making convo.
Do you believe algorithms are inherently bad? I can't speak to the Twitter algo, but I find YT's pretty useful in presenting me stuff I'm interested in. There's plenty of duds too but it's easy enough to just block channels you don't like.
For a place the size of Twitter, I def think it's a necessary "evil". I shouldn't be seeing the same tweets as some middle aged housewife in the Midwest. We have completely different interests.
The problem is they pump the most divisive stuff because it's been determined that outrage is the best engager.
But again, the same effect happens in msg boards organically when the spicy convos keep getting replies bumping them to the top and eventually drawing more eyes.