https://join-lemmy.org/docs/contributors/07-ranking-algo.html is everything you need

I too would like to know this and am too lazy to look at the source code. Maybe tomorrow.

When you post, the Lemmy app secretly takes a photo of your face. This is then sent to a 3rd party AI application that looks at your facial features and ranks you on how hot you are. This is then sent back to the Lemmy server. This hotness score is then weighted by the users location that is viewing the feed (ie, an LA 7 might be a 9 in Chicago, or a 10 in alamaba if they are genetically related to you)

Whatever is being upvoted the most recently.

Removed by mod

It would be kind of cool to be able to define yourself the function that decides this for your account.

the hot feed is the same as reddits rising feed. its not a hot feed, its just random posts that have gotten an above average number of upvotes in the last hour. this site is next to impossible to use between the lack of a hot page and all of the niche communities not being populated thus making the front page and your subfeed the same 5 communities, and they’re all memes.

Perhaps, it’s purpose is to help make old cold posts warmer by bringing them to the top.