Active Threads : What is the real criteria? (as it is NOT activity)

Hello all,
I've just stumbled across this and thought I'd wade in briefly!
Active isn't really complicated enough to have an algorithm - it's simply a list of the threads most recently posted on at the moment you refresh the page.

We don't exclude any conversations for the Active page - but users can do so by electing not to see certain topics in your preferences.

We do occasionally exclude threads from the Trending box on rhs of desktop/ half way down screen on mobile site. Typically that will be when a thread is getting very bunfighty and we want to try to dampen it down because for instance the OP is a bit upset. We can't think that we've ever done that for a Westministenders thread.

We definitely don't make any kind of censorship judgements based on a politics and our position is very much to stay politically neutral.

Yes, Pesty. We have sent MichaelMumsnet to bed with no supper tonight and reduced his screen time for this week.

OP - Michael was mistaken. Sorry - we thought we'd been clear about that. Apologies again for creating that bit of misunderstanding. He typed 'active', he was thinking of 'trending'. Hope that clears it up.

With moving threads out of AIBU and Chat, again there's no hard and fast policy. We just try to keep things tidy and keep conversation flowing.

We know that there are some subject areas that lots of users get fed up with when AIBU and Chat are full of them. Christmas threads in July, for example. And at times when it's in the news, Brexit threads. So when it seems like having lots of threads on one topic in Chat or AIBU is hindering conversation rather than helping it, we move them over to their respective topics.

When we do have dedicated areas for folk to discuss those things it seems counter-intuitive to have them elsewhere. But as we say, we're pretty fluid with it. It does depend on many factors. We don't move Brexit threads out of Chat as a matter of course, always. But when it's discussed a lot, as it is at the moment, we do feel it's best for the whole community if they're moved over so that Chat is freed up to carry a wider range of discussions. Some folk love to talk Brexit, others have understandably had more than enough, so we think the way we moderate is a good compromise.

Hi again, OP.

We're not really sure what more we can say. We've been clear that, as we said before, Active threads are not moved out of Active by us. You may find that hard to believe but, as we said, there are thousands of threads running at the same time. Active changes all the time, which you can see if you refresh the page.

We think we've commented already on our criteria for moving threads out of trending. But to make clear, there's no hard and fast policy. It happens for many reasons, but rarely. As you say though, you aren't interested in those 'trending' threads. With Active threads there is no moving them in and out. They're there if they're the most posted on at the moment you click on 'Active'. That's really all there is to it.

We're sorry if you feel you can't trust us but we've been open and honest here, so we aren't sure there's much more we can say to convince you. This is a talk forum, rather than a news source, and we hope our users do trust us, but ultimately the chat boards are a bunch of people expressing their opinions. Our job is to moderate that as best we can to facilitate conversation. We are sorry if there was confusion early on but we think we've been pretty clear now about how we do that and that it doesn't involve moving threads in or out of Active. Hope that reassures you.

Hi again.

Sorry we've been strangers here today. We've had a lot going on on other parts of the site. But we have just had a good read of the thread and wanted to confirm a few things with tech.

So, firstly, apologies. It seems we had the wrong end of quite a long stick here. We actually don't have the capacity to prevent any one thread going in Active. Some whole topics are 'hidden' but that's something you can change yourself in your settings. When you join Mumsnet a few topics are hidden from appearing in your Active view. These are the SEN topics mainly, as some years ago the SEN Parents community asked as to do this as they were getting a lot of 'unwanted attention' from folk out to cause trouble basically. We felt that we had a bit of a duty of care to keep that space as safe as we could for them so some of those topics are 'hidden' when a member signs up. You can of course 'unhide' them and also you can add topics to this list, as you probably know, so they don't appear in active.

What we were talking about in terms of specific threads is that occasionally we take them out of 'trending'. And that's an editorial decision really. It doesn't happen often at all but if we think a thread, for whatever reason, doesn't necessarily need to come down, but does perhaps not need to be proudly displayed on our front page, we might make that decision. It could be a privacy issue, it could be a matter of taste, and yes, sometimes, it's because a thread looks like trouble and we want to calm things down a bit. It's one of the tools we use to moderate, but it really doesn't happen that often if we're honest.

Just to be clear, the Brexit threads aren't excluded from either Active or Trending. That's not something we would do. And we don't exclude threads from Trending simply for having lots of reports. Firstly, reports aren't what gets posts deleted; posts that break talk guidelines is what gets posts deleted. So we might have hundreds of reports on any given thread, but unless the posts broke talk guidelines we wouldn't be taking them down.

To answer the question about vexatious reporting, this doesn't happen often but we do occasionally have people who mass report on one topic and the posts simply aren't reportable. When that happens we would have a word with them about it and if it continued we might then take further action. But we'd want to be pretty sure it WAS vexatious first. We don't want to discourage people from reporting in case they get it wrong. But honestly, we aren't daft and it is pretty clear when someone is reporting simply to try and get a thread deleted.

So to answer the original question, nothing is excluded from Active. The Brexit threads we assume would sometimes show up there but it's all about what's being posted on at the time. It's not quite as simple as 'that thread is busy' so it must appear in Active. There are hundreds of threads, if not thousands, being posted on at any one time, so it's not really surprising if a thread doesn't appear in Active at any given moment.

Hope that clears everything up anyway. Do shout if any of that lengthy essay wasn't clear and apologies for any miscommunication.

Apologies - we've been investigating. A response is on the way...