Beta: 'Trending' and 'New' tabs in active conversations

[JanineMumsnet]

Hello everyone

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed a new addition to Active Conversations, which is the ‘Trending’ and ‘New’ tabs. We’ve made these changes to (hopefully) to make it easier for you to find interesting and popular threads as you navigate your way around Talk.

The Trending tab will show you the most popular threads being viewed at this moment in time. You already get this from the Trending Talk widget in the sidebar on a desktop device, but this should hopefully give you a more extensive list to choose from.

The New tab will show users a selection of recently created threads - typically these will be threads with fewer than 3 posts. This is all part and parcel of our aim to make parents' lives easier and our hope here is that it will mean that fewer of your posts go unanswered or get lost amid the throng.

Both the Trending and the New tab will mirror your talk preferences for your active conversations feed which you can adjust here. For example, the number of posts shown will be the same as your active feed and if you have selected to hide any topics then threads from these topics should not appear in these tabs.

You'll notice a little 'beta' icon next to the tabs when you first view them, and this is because this is something we are testing, so we absolutely welcome your feedback and please do leave your comments below on this thread.

MNHQ

I noticed :) so am glad you explained.

I'm useless with technology.

is this why threads I have read have stopped changing colour...can we have that back?

Will the tabs be coming to the app?

Where are these new tabs? I'm going to hazard a guess that they aren't visible on "MN Classic"

if you go into trending, and read a thread, then use the back button it DOES NOT take you back to trending, it takes you back to active

I do not like that.

I like both these new tabs.

I miss my read threads not changing colour, though.

Thanks for the feedback and we're glad this seems to be a welcome addition so far! Thanks also to @ScreamingValenta and @MsMightyTitanAndHerTroubadours for the feedback about viewed threads not changing colour, we are fixing that right now.

Thanks @MsMightyTitanAndHerTroubadours for the additional feedback about the back button not taking you back to the appropriate tab, we are also making a fix to that too.

@SoupDragon I'm afraid you are right, this feature is not viewable to users who use the MN Classic theme.

@MsMarvellous If the feature is successful (we hope it will be) we will likely release as a permanent new feature across the website and at a later date we will will look to roll out on the app too.

The read threads are changing colour again, I think. I must admit I don't quite get the point of the "New" tab, they show up in active most of the time with 0/1 responses, but I do like "Trending".

And they're mostly from AIBU

Mine aren't yet, Sneaky .

If you want fewer posts to go unanswered, how about showing them all in 'unanswered threads' (like you used to) rather than only the first 50 or 100?

Oooh I like it, thank you.

I'm pretty sure I'm using the old MN classic and yet the new stuff is working for me.

Google Chrome on laptop.

Will you then lose the 'Last 15 mins', 'Last hour' and 'Last day' links? (I still mourn the loss of 'Unanswered threads'!)

What's the difference between 'active' and 'trending'?

My 'read threads' still aren't changing colour. Please put that back!

What it the thinking behind hte 'new' threads? They don't seem to be in any rational order in terms of first post or last post, and several appear more than once in the list. They also disappear and reappear. Makes it hard to follow.

Also when using hte back button from trending or new, you go back to active, rather than the list you were on - very annoying!

Hi @00100001 the difference between the two is that 'active conversations' have always been the threads that have been most recently posted on, whereas trending threads are the most popular threads at that moment in time. By 'popular' we mean the threads with the most views.

Each tab should have an explanation at the top with the meaning of that particular tab.

@Jux we can see that usage of those links is pretty low, but we don't have an immediate plan to remove them, but this may change.

Regarding unanswered threads, the 'new' tab should help you, it does use much the same query as the unanswered page did, but we have decided to add in a few more threads with 3 posts or less because we got a sense that the previous unanswered threads page wasn't used much because there wasn't enough variety in the threads that remained unanswered. But we could be wrong, it's just a hypothesis. We do think the algorithm for the 'new' tab will require more ongoing work to make it more useful for users. So it's useful to hear your feedback on what you want from it, and if it is useful at all in its current state.

@Seeline good to hear your feedback on the new tab. You shouldn't see the same thread more than once - I will get this fixed. I'll let you know when the fix for threads changing colour once you've viewed and when you go back it takes you to the right thread.

In the 'new' topics there is one from OTBT - is this right?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/off_the_beaten_track/3591437-Longlost-relative-possibly-mentally-ill?new-tab=1

@magimedi this shouldn't appear - I'll flag that and let you know when there's a fix.

For everyone asking about the links changing colour and the back button taking you back to the right tab, this should be fixed now.

Came here to say the same as Magimedi. That needs an urgent fix. And the OP on that thread needs informing so they can decide whether to have it deleted.

I like new, but don't you think all this focus on trending/popular threads encourages pile ons?

Also I miss discussions of the day. It's been non default for ages and now you can't even choose to see it. :(

Don't know if it's been said, but, is there a way to time limit the 'New' tab?

By that I mean don't feature any older than a few hours. I've read a couple and bumped them and realised they were hours and hours old so the ops probably.buggered off.

Hours isn't that old - I'd make a thread and come back to check later in the day or the day after. It's rare a thread is that urgent TBH.

@JanineMumsnet - possible glitch - A deleted thread is appearing under the 'New' tab - this one:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/uk/3591245-Wish-to-stay-in-a-peaceful-monastery?new-tab=1

On the plus side, my read threads are changing colour again now.

I don’t like these new rankings. Especially ‘trending’.

What I love about MN is that it is different from the rest of social media because you can’t vote posts up and down. On MN Active, everyone’s posts are equally- whether it’s a thread involving a handful or thousands of people. It’s whats being talked about at the time. I find all kinds of things by checking out Active as they happen to pop up.

I don’t want MN to be about rating which threads are the most popular ones or MN gearing everyone’s attention to what the majority of site users are interested in. Or posters being deliberately clickbaity for trending status- a magnet for trolls.

Having said that, not sure if Trending means most viewed, most number of posted on or what makes a thread rank highest...but I do notice that it’s literally all AIBU threads. That’s not what MN is all about.

I am also suspicious that this is way to isolate out FWR threads which I am sure are a pain for advertising revenue and constant reports from people who object to women talking. Anyway I suppose I am saying I don’t like the obvious revenue- driven feel behind these new rankings and feel that the precious community aspect feels less supported this way.

Also I literally can’t see the advantage of having ‘New’. What’s good about it?