Yeah, I’m not sure whether this is a great addition for overall platform engagement, nor the health of conversations in the app. But it is another interesting statement about the mentality in approach at Elon Musk’s X, and what his team thinks people will like.
X developer Chris Park has today unveiled a new “Ratio Finder” mini-site, built on X’s API, which lists the most “ratioed” users in the app at any given time.
Being “ratioed” on X means that your post received more replies and comments than likes or re-posts, or, in this context at least, that the responses to your post got more likes than the original. The implication then is that the post is being more criticized than agreed with, and the more replies it gets, the bigger the ratio, which generally points to people on X disagreeing with the post.
So this listing, above, would then indicate that these are the most disagreed with users on X.
So it’s public shaming, a public listing of the people who get lambasted and roasted the most by X users. Which seems not overly valuable as a means to inspire creation activity, but again, this is what the X team is keen on. So…
There’s also a listing of top “ratio-ers,” or the people who regularly post replies that get more likes than the original post.
Oh wow, what a surprise, Elon Musk, the most followed user in the app, who works to make sure as many people as possible see his updates, gets the most positive responses on his posts.
Yeah, it seems a little on the nose that the formula here has been designed to showcase the platform’s owner, and his posting prowess, but again, as an example of X’s approach to development, and the features that it thinks users will like, it’s also not a big surprise.
And I actually don’t agree with the formula as it’s being presented, in terms of ratios reflecting negative sentiment towards the original post.
For example, in this one:
That’s not roasting or criticizing the original, it’s just adding to it, but because Elon Musk has so much presence in the app, more people tend to like his posts.
So the implication that this user has been “ratioed” is not correct, at least as a negative connotation, which being ratioed generally refers to, in the context of negative or critical responses outweighing the indicators of agreement.
In fact, this post actually saw 78 responses and 1.3k likes, which would indicate broad agreement. But the implication of this calculation is that this statement has seen general disagreement, based on a rudimentary counting of the stats.
But it’s not actually counting ratio correctly, as is generally viewed. So it feels more like a structured approach to appeal to Elon’s fragile ego instead.
Either way, you can check out X’s Ratio Finder for yourself, which also enables you to check out the ratios for any user in the app.
