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Thumbs down recommended stories has the opposite effect than intended on desktop

When I have stories (articles) recommended through Pocket on new tabs that I'm not interested in I will typically "thumbs down" or "dismiss" the story. What I have found recently is that causes them to be promoted to me more rather than less. I believe it's interpreting my interaction as engaging with the content rather than not wanting to see it again. For example, I was shown an article on American football three weeks ago and I gave it a thumbs down. Later that day it was three articles. I gave them the same thumbs down. After repeating this process for days, weeks later I'm still getting multiple articles recommended per day related to football. I've never read one out of interest, and I didn't have any recommendations related to sports until the first one I gave a thumbs down. Based on that, I'm convinced it's having the opposite than intended effect. Dismiss doesn't seem make a difference. Please give me a way to tune the algorithm to what I actually want to see, I like this feature and don't want to have to turn it off.

When I have stories (articles) recommended through Pocket on new tabs that I'm not interested in I will typically "thumbs down" or "dismiss" the story. What I have found recently is that causes them to be promoted to me ''more'' rather than less. I believe it's interpreting my interaction as engaging with the content rather than not wanting to see it again. For example, I was shown an article on American football three weeks ago and I gave it a thumbs down. Later that day it was three articles. I gave them the same thumbs down. After repeating this process for days, weeks later I'm still getting multiple articles recommended per day related to football. I've never read one out of interest, and I didn't have any recommendations related to sports until the first one I gave a thumbs down. Based on that, I'm convinced it's having the opposite than intended effect. Dismiss doesn't seem make a difference. Please give me a way to tune the algorithm to what I actually want to see, I like this feature and don't want to have to turn it off.
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Réiteach roghnaithe

Hi,

Sorry for the delayed reply.

Currently, thumbs down have no effect on what stories are displayed to you. Moreover, they will be completely removed from the UI with the next major update.

To help you personalize stories, the team is rolling out topic sections, so that you can pick topics which interest you (and skip those which don't). If you provide your country/region, we could give you a rough timeline for when this feature will become available to you.

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All Replies (2)

Réiteach Roghnaithe

Hi,

Sorry for the delayed reply.

Currently, thumbs down have no effect on what stories are displayed to you. Moreover, they will be completely removed from the UI with the next major update.

To help you personalize stories, the team is rolling out topic sections, so that you can pick topics which interest you (and skip those which don't). If you provide your country/region, we could give you a rough timeline for when this feature will become available to you.

Thanks very much for your response. Sounds good, looking forward to it.

Cuir ceist

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