I don't use Twitter, except to look at tweets that people on HN or whatever link to. And the main reason that I don't is that the idea of "following" just doesn't work for me. I tried it. But even people who sometimes post stuff that interests me mostly post stuff that just gets in my way.

I like HN. But I never look at particular users' posts. I just look at the front page, or sometimes at the comments list, so see what people are talking about.

Hacker news is pretty well regulated though in that bad comments are voted down now retweeted to more people.

I think for it to work people would have to start blocking more and using more mute words.

The thing where someone retweets something horrible because they disagree with it is so wrong and is what is being badly gamed.

Yes, that is a bizarre thing about Twitter. And it's a huge part of why I don't like it.

It's funny. For all that I support free speech, I don't have the patience to read much of it. So I end up gravitating to well moderated forums.

Then make it an opt-in. Companies should use the more "opt-in" method.

Bundle it under "experimental" or "advanced features" in an easy to use page with a very clear explanation of what each feature does.

That's kind of the point though - I had no idea this feature existed until they started pushing it to me. I think it's too much to expect users to opt-in to things. How would I have known to opt-in to this? Yet I am now much happier because they improved the UX for me.

I think opt-out makes sense though, for users who don't a feature.

If you put it on a single, easily recognizable, easily accessible page (all new features, etc.), then many users will find it. You can even give a notification when a new feature is added (as long as kept to a reasonable amount).

Features that will go viral are worth adding for all, features that did not can be kept there.

You overestimate what people will understand from a technical description in a configuration option. Even if they were experimentally inclined, which most people are not, they probably wouldn't even notice the effect, particularly if not a new user. Twitter is a black box for most users.

Twitter very likely did market research on its effectiveness for the target market they were trying to please. Probably that's just not you.

i can see no way to opt out of it either

Use Tweetdeck instead of the main page.

https://tweetdeck.twitter.com

You can click the "I don't like this tweet" button in the dropdown.

that's not opting out of the feature, that's trying to train the feature to be better.

Isn't that what the feed is? Now you have 2 feeds...

My bad, I missed that this thread was just on the notifications section.

Sometimes it shows me stuff from users I've blocked, which I find really irritating.