Problem
Reaching people outside your follower network is extremely difficult for mid-size accounts.
Example account: ~30k followers, ~15k active. Average post: ~1k views, i.e. at most 6.7% of
active followers (views also include non-followers, so true follower reach is lower).
The Aug 26 cold-start change (see #82) made early Home views drive out-of-network retrieval.
That rewards follower-base size rather than how well a post landed with the people who chose
to follow the author.
Contributing mechanics (6bb4594)
Proposal
- Compute an in-network engagement rate per post: engagements from followers / followers who
were served it.
- Once a post has been served to 30-40% of the author's active followers (4,500-6,000 for the
example account) and its engagement rate clears a threshold, relax the OON discount for that
post and make it eligible for Phoenix/SimClusters retrieval.
- Keep Phoenix prediction as is; it runs on the follower pool first, then carries into
out-of-network ranking.
Why
- Followers opted in, so their reaction is the most honest quality signal a post has.
- Rate-normalizing removes the advantage of simply having a larger audience: 500 engagements
from 5k followers says more than 800 from 185k.
- Non-followers then see posts that arrive with proof of engagement, which gives new viewers a
credibility signal and should improve follow conversion.
Open questions
- Minimum follower-impression count before the rate is trusted (to avoid small-sample noise)
- Guarding against engagement pods inflating follower rates
- Whether "active follower" should use an existing definition in the codebase or a new one
Problem
Reaching people outside your follower network is extremely difficult for mid-size accounts.
Example account: ~30k followers, ~15k active. Average post: ~1k views, i.e. at most 6.7% of
active followers (views also include non-followers, so true follower reach is lower).
The Aug 26 cold-start change (see #82) made early Home views drive out-of-network retrieval.
That rewards follower-base size rather than how well a post landed with the people who chose
to follow the author.
Contributing mechanics (6bb4594)
post_retention_seconds= 172800)https://github.com/xai-org/x-algorithm/blob/6bb4594/thunder/args.rs#L49
MAX_POSTS_TO_RETURN,RESULT_SIZE)https://github.com/xai-org/x-algorithm/blob/6bb4594/thunder/config.rs#L1
https://github.com/xai-org/x-algorithm/blob/6bb4594/home-mixer/params/config.rs#L18
https://github.com/xai-org/x-algorithm/blob/6bb4594/home-mixer/params/param.rs#L234-L245
https://github.com/xai-org/x-algorithm/blob/6bb4594/home-mixer/params/param.rs#L660-L686
OonWeightFactor= 0.75,TopicOonWeightFactor= 0.5https://github.com/xai-org/x-algorithm/blob/6bb4594/home-mixer/params/param.rs#L254-L277
PostUnexploredWeight= 0.02, gated byPostUnexploredWeightInNetworkOnly= truehttps://github.com/xai-org/x-algorithm/blob/6bb4594/home-mixer/params/param.rs#L384-L406
Proposal
were served it.
example account) and its engagement rate clears a threshold, relax the OON discount for that
post and make it eligible for Phoenix/SimClusters retrieval.
out-of-network ranking.
Why
from 5k followers says more than 800 from 185k.
credibility signal and should improve follow conversion.
Open questions