A fairer Feed for everyone

If you have been using Locationscout for a while, you know that our community is growing fast. We are seeing more incredible spots and photos being shared every day. While this is amazing news for all of us who love travel and photography, it recently highlighted a major flaw in how the homepage worked.

For a long time, the "New Photos" feed was exactly that: a raw chronological list. If you uploaded a photo at 10:00 AM, you were at the top. But if someone else uploaded 10 photos at 10:05 AM, your photo was pushed down, buried, and effectively invisible before most users even had a chance to see it.

The "Flooding" Issue

I have received a lot of emails and messages about this recently. It was frustrating for users who shared a single masterpiece only to see it vanish from the feed in minutes. It was also annoying for viewers who would visit the homepage and see 12 photos of the exact same lighthouse because one user decided to upload all of them at once.

It created a weird tension where users felt like others were "spamming" the feed. But here is the truth: Those users were just excited to share their work. They weren't doing anything wrong.

As the saying goes: Don't hate the player, hate the game.

The system I built was the problem. It pitted users against each other based on timing rather than quality. So, I decided to change the game.

The Solution: Smart Grouping & Fair Rotation

I have spent the last few weeks prototyping different algorithms, trying to find a balance that rewards users who upload batches of photos without punishing users who upload just one.

I believe I have found a great solution. Starting today, the homepage feed is getting a massive upgrade:

1. No More Flooding We now group uploads by "sessions." If a user uploads 10 photos in a row, they will no longer take up 10 separate slots on the homepage. Instead, they will occupy a maximum of 2 slots. This ensures that a single user can never dominate the entire feed, leaving plenty of room for everyone else.

2. The "Rotation" Engine You might ask: "If I upload 10 photos and you only show 2, what happens to the other 8? Are they hidden?" Absolutely not. In fact, they might get more attention than before. We now use a Random Rotation system. Every time a user visits the homepage or refreshes the feed, we shuffle the photos displayed from your batch. Visitor A might see photos #1 and #2. Visitor B might see photos #5 and #9. This means your entire portfolio gets a chance to shine over the course of the day, rather than just the last photo you uploaded.

3. The "+ More" Badge To make sure viewers know there is more to see, I’ve added a sleek new indicator on batch uploads. If you see a photo with a "+5 more" badge, you know that photographer has been busy and clicking it will reveal all photos.

Small clickable badges indicate that there is more, while this and the previous image are randomly selected from the pool of uploaded images per user per session.

Why this matters

This update is about fairness.

• For the Single Uploader: Your photo stays on the homepage much longer because it isn't being pushed off by batch uploads.

• For the Batch Uploader: You don't have to worry about "annoying" the community. You can upload as much as you want, knowing the system will display your work elegantly. The premise stays the same though: Upload your favorite photos from each spot, not hundreds of variations, because this will give you the best visibility while creating the biggest value for the community.

• For Everyone: The feed is now more diverse, colorful, and interesting.

I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who sent feedback on this. As a solo developer, your eyes and ears are what help me steer this ship. I’m really proud of this update because it ensures that Locationscout remains a place where quality content is king, not just timing.

Next steps

Go ahead and test it out! Upload your latest shots and let the rotation engine do the rest. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts and if you have ideas to improve this even further, I'm happy to listen. I have quite a few more ideas on how to improve the feed even further, but I wanted to do one step at a time and see how it feels to you and me.

Up for discussion: Should we keep the daily Top 10 or should we create 2 big sections, the new photos with the new rotation and a section with the top photos that gain rankings based on likes, and maybe comments or clicks but lose rankings the older they are. This would ensure a constant rotation (with possibly bigger images) instead of the quite stiff daily top photos.

Happy scouting! Manuel