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Original poster

Pleeeeeeeease MN, take bloody Penis Beaker off the top of trending....

57 replies

EmpressOfTheSevenOceans · 13/05/2016 13:07

I don't know where it's been dredged up from but I can see it being up there for all eternity as more & more people click on it. It's not even as if they can add to it any more, it's full.

Please get Tech to take it off?

OP posts:

Quiero · 13/05/2016 16:44

I just came on to start an 'I'm outraged' thread, well done all of you.

Trending is the work of the fucking devil. So it's clearly just clicks rather than active posting. Please just bring back most active.

I totally get that the more visits the site gets the bigger the advertising revenue etc but there has to be a line where the site's usability and general purpose become compromised. I think we're getting very close.

Maryz · 13/05/2016 16:56

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Fairenuff · 13/05/2016 17:21

Get rid of penis beaker altogether.

Then get rid of trending. Or rename it 'Blocking' because all it does.

PeaceLoveGonk · 13/05/2016 17:25

We all need to report our posts and someone had MNHQ might wake up.

Vardyparty · 13/05/2016 17:53

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

paxillin · 13/05/2016 18:08

I'm guilty of helping it along, too. I thought not another one so I clicked.

AnnieOnAMapleLeaf · 13/05/2016 18:19

I agree completely! I hate trending and I especially hate seeing penis beaker there. It wasn't funny the first time and it isn't funny now.

MNHQ

DawnMumsnet · 13/05/2016 19:20

Evening all,

Sorry for the delay here.

You'll all be relieved to know that we've got our Tech folk to hit the magic button which means the penis beaker thread will no longer show up in Trending.

We know that not everyone's keen on the concept of Trending. The way it works is that every five minutes we get a list of the top-viewed threads from Google Analytics and we display the first five of those.

Essentially, Trending highlights the most viewed threads, not the most posted on - which is why a thread which is several years old often makes it into the Trending block.

It looks like we could do with discussing the mechanics of Trending, and whether it's feasible that threads which are maxed out and/or zombies could be excluded from the Trending block.

Please let us know your thoughts.

MrsHathaway · 13/05/2016 19:24

My thoughts: Trending adds nothing useful to the user experience. I can see why it's useful to MNHQ to have that information; I'm waiting decreasingly patiently to hear why MNHQ thinks it's useful to the rest of us.

DoreenLethal · 13/05/2016 19:34

Trending does nowt for me neither.

magimedi · 13/05/2016 19:47

My thoughts are go back to active, ie: most viewed.

Trending has led to berluddy Penis Beaker being around for ages and, so often, many deleted threads being on it.

It is far, far, more interesting to have a list of the posts that are truly most active (ie posted on) than those that are clicked on.

paxillin · 13/05/2016 19:53

So trending measures read and run? I often read and run if the title sounds interesting, but the content smells of troll or gf.

Good idea to exclude zombies from trending, Dawn.

Original poster

EmpressOfTheSevenOceans · 13/05/2016 19:55

Thanks Dawn. I think many of us would like to go back to the old days of Most Active & see which threads are getting the most posts.

That should be doable with Google Analytics too, surely?

OP posts:

LurcioAgain · 13/05/2016 20:00

Surely it shouldn't be much of a hack to add a line of code to your algorithm to check the date of the first post, and if it's more than a month old, do not let it go into trending?

paxillin · 13/05/2016 20:03

I bet clicks per post are really high on troll threads.

Zucker · 13/05/2016 20:04

Surely trending working in this way is a circular process. A thread is popular so trends which in turn has people click to see what it's about which drives up clicks so thread stays trending forever and a day.

lifesalongsong · 13/05/2016 20:43

The threads that appear on the daily email with the most views aften don't have as many posts on as you would expect for the number of views.

Number of posts in the previous hour or whatever would be a much better measure. Zucker is right about the circular nature of the current system.

It's daft to have threads that are full or deleted on there.

musicposy · 13/05/2016 21:19

Absolutely agree with what's been said here - was coming on earlier to complain and got called away, glad to see its gone at least from trending. Deleted altogether would be better. It was entertaining for about the first 5 minutes it was posted. A long time ago. It really just gives MN a bad name and feeds trolls now.

Most Active was way better because the threads you clicked on and thought "troll" we're less likely to make it to the list as less people posted. But as Zucker says, trending is circular. The more people click, the more people click, leading to some bizarre or tired threads staying there for days.

I haven't seen a single person saying they prefer it to the old system. So, MNHQ, why keep tweaking it rather than just going back to what everyone preferred? I suspect that's because it's not about what we want, it's about what's useful to MNHQ.

Fairenuff · 13/05/2016 22:09

The trouble with 'most viewed' is that people will click on whatever's trending which keeps the same threads there even if they are full or even deleted.

Most active was better because they were current threads.

BoreOfWhabylon · 14/05/2016 00:54

My thoughts: Please bring back Most Active

CiderwithBuda · 14/05/2016 08:47

Trending seems counter productive really. Rehashes old and full threads. Rehashes zombie threads. Potentially keeps troll threads as click bait therefore drawing more people in. Falsely keeps threads being clicked even though most people might click, read, think 'what a load of tosh' and ignore. But it's 'trending' so gets more clicks.

Surely 'most active' made more sense. It's threads that yes people are clicking on but also more importantly surely, people are actually commenting on. Yes we know lots of people lurk but surely the site would grind to a halt if people just clicked and read and didn't actually comment? And you can't comment on full threads. Zombie threads irritate a lot of the time as the OP is often long gone.

Trending makes no sense to me.

NamelessEnsign · 14/05/2016 08:54

Ah, so there has been an influx of outside viewers. I wondered why I saw so many zombie threads boosted by one lone comment overnight. I saw three on the active board at one time, not all from the same poster.

CiderwithBuda · 14/05/2016 10:34

And the current thread at the top of Trending is a TAAT and will shortly be deleted being a thread about a deleted thread. Slightly ironic that really.

AnchorDownDeepBreath · 14/05/2016 10:51

Is there a commercial reason for finding that data useful to display externally?

The vast majority of online advertising and partnerships now use active members as measurement rather than views, as views are pretty meaningless and so easily doctored. I mean, I could find a random thread now and fire a bot at it, and take over trending for days. It wouldn't suggest that the thread was good/popular/worth reading.

It seems altogether more valuable to show the top 5 most active threads in terms of responses. It shows that MN is busy and has an active community, and it makes the active community happy.

I'd be really interested to know why you've gone with views, if it's something you're allowed to talk about!

Fairenuff · 15/05/2016 16:50

There's a deleted thread trending again

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