cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/36655278
I was expecting lemmy to sort posts by upvotes but this is not the case: I often find a post with 70 upvotes further down the thread than a post with 20 upvotes.
what decides what goes up and what down?
most clients allow you to sort posts and comments using different algorithms. what you’re describing is generally referred to as ‘top’, but a lot of clients default to ‘hot’, which i believe focuses more on recent activity rather than overall upvotes. i personally almost always sort by ‘new’, but my client, thunder, also gives options for ‘old’ and ‘controversial’.
edit: and posts also get the option of selecting a time frame for ‘top’, and also get a ‘scaled’, ‘active’ ‘most comments’, and ‘new comments’ sorting options.