Mitigating floods of posts in Artemis

2026-05-30 · Source: James' Coffee Blog · Field: Technology & Digital — Software Development & Engineering · Depth: Intermediate, short

Summary

Artemis, a reader application, has implemented new logic to mitigate user feed "floods" caused by websites publishing significantly more posts than usual. This system, introduced on May 30, 2026, addresses the issue of "zombie sites" or other sources suddenly posting a high volume. The logic operates on a per-day, per-author basis, counting daily posts. An author is flagged if they publish more than three times their historical daily maximum within a 30-day rolling window, provided they have published on more than two unique days in total to prevent false positives. When flagged, posts from that day are collapsed into a single "roll-up" entry, titled "Roll-up for example.com on 2026-05-30 (Author published more than usual)," presenting a link to a dedicated page. This prevents overwhelming user feeds and offers a cue for potential zombie sites, though it is noted as an initial step that may require future refinement.

Key takeaway

For Product Managers designing content aggregation platforms, you should consider implementing adaptive heuristics to manage sudden influxes of content. By dynamically flagging authors who post significantly more than their historical average, you can prevent user feed overload and maintain a calm reading experience. This approach, which collapses unusual post volumes into a single summary, provides a crucial user cue for potential spam or "zombie site" activity, improving overall platform usability and trust.

Key insights

A dynamic, historical-based threshold can prevent user feed overload from sudden content surges.

Principles

• Heuristics should adapt to changing user habits.
• Per-author analysis prevents false positives.
• User experience prioritizes calm over volume.

Method

Count daily posts per author. Flag if daily count exceeds 3x historical 30-day max AND author has >2 unique post days. Collapse flagged posts into a roll-up.

In practice

• Implement adaptive thresholds for content feeds.
• Use roll-ups to manage high-volume content.
• Provide user cues for unusual posting activity.

Topics

• Content Moderation
• Feed Management
• Anomaly Detection
• User Experience
• Zombie Sites
• Adaptive Heuristics

Best for: Software Engineer, Product Manager

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Editorial summary, takeaway, and curation by AIssential. Original article published by James' Coffee Blog.