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MNHQ

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

18 replies

JanineMumsnet · 16/05/2019 11:25

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

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MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 20/05/2019 14:58

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.

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 21/05/2019 08:52

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.

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 21/05/2019 09:05

@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.

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 21/05/2019 13:49

@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.

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 22/05/2019 09:42

@magimedi and @Spinnaret thanks for flagging. A fix for this is being released shortly. I will let you know when it's released.

@BertieBotts Thanks for the general feedback on the trending tabs. It's good to know your thoughts. We removed DoD from the sidebar widget as we saw this wasn't used as much as trending. Since removing DoD and adding the ability to view more trending threads in the widget we have seen an overall increase in usage. We decided to add a trending tab to active conversations as there was such a huge appetite for these threads, and the trending widget isn't very visible to users on mobile. Overall, we want to give users a wider variety of threads to choose from. Trending won't ever replace 'active' - we just wanted to add more choice. Some people may prefer the trending threads, whereas others may prefer newer threads at the start of the discussion.

@FancyRibbon Trending is the most viewed threads at any given time. To clarify, this certainly isn't a way to weed out the FWR threads - we certainly haven't created an algorithm which would exclude these discussions, nor have we created an algorithm which upweights AIBU threads. As I say, the tab shows the most viewed threads at that moment and it mirrors the threads which appear in the trending widget on desktop devices. We have included an explanation at the top of each tab which explains what each list is.

The idea behind new is to show a mix of the most recent unanswered threads or threads with fewer than 2 replies. If a new (or existing) user posts a question and it goes unanswered, this would make for a poor experience, so we want to make it easier for users to be able to find these threads so they don't get lost amid the throng. We are aware we haven't got the 'new' tab quite right yet, and we are taking on board all the feedback here to improve it and we absolutely using this to make improvements.

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 23/05/2019 12:05

@Acis we were just testing the wording for that, some audiences would see 'Trending Talk', 'What's hot', 'Trending now' or 'Popular now'. What's hot seems to universally be the worst performing option so we have removed this option now.

@Seeline we're working on a fix for that and I will update when this is released

@BrokenWing and @Dottierichardson these glitches are unrelated to these tests we are running. I promise.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 23/05/2019 14:35

Hi @BertieBotts we did also think that could be the case, but actually usage overall including both trending and DoDs has increased. For example, if the widget as a whole (DoDs and trending combined) were generating 100,000 thread views per day - 20,000 of that might be to DoD links and 80,000 might be trending links. We are now seeing that by removing DoDs and and simply increasing the number of trending threads available the usage has increased to 120,000 thread views per day (those numbers are made up, but it's just to illustrate the sort of thing we are seeing). In addition, it used to be the case that DoDs would appear first, but this was swapped when we found that usage of the trending links was higher and use of the widget increased even further when we made that change.

We could add DoDs additionally and also add the ability to show more trending threads too, but that seemed a bit unwieldy, but we are always listening to feedback so we certainly aren't wedded to the widget always being this way.

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 23/05/2019 14:43

@Acis Confused I know! I am also seeing it. But I am assured it has been removed, so I think there may simply be a delay or it could be caching issue. But rest assured eventually 'What's hot' will be no more. FYI 'Trending Now' was the most popular version.

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 24/05/2019 14:30

Yes @Optimist1, @Jux is right. Active conversations contains a list of the most recently updated threads so when you go back there may have been posts since you last looked. The thread titles should change colour once you've viewed them so you are able to keep track of what you have already look at.

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 28/05/2019 08:33

@Trills I am happy to share insights from the tests we do as we go along - as I always find it fascinating, so it's good to know if folks like to hear about it too.

Also - yes, at the moment we don't have the ability to hide individual threads from the trending/new lists, but once it's out of testing and if we decide to make it a permanent change we should be able to add that in. I'll make sure to make a note of it.

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 28/05/2019 08:37

@Acis @BertieBotts @Optimist1 @caughtinanet Blush I stand corrected, there have been another couple of threads about this so it seems you're right. I will get this looked into today - I suspect the reason it is changing each time is something to do with us implementing a change where the browser remembered which tab you were on.

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 28/05/2019 09:45

@Acis @BertieBotts @Optimist1 @caughtinanet I have just caught up with our developers on this. Could you confirm when you are returning to active is it actually the active tab itself that is reordering? Or is it the new or the trending tab?

Nothing seems to have changed about the active tab, that should remain static when you click the 'back' button. But the 'new' tab does reorder.

Also, could you confirm what the time delay is between you reading a thread and clicking the back button? Is this more or less than every 5 minutes?

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 28/05/2019 13:57

@Optimist1 Thanks for getting back to me. I'll feed that back to the team, but any extra info will be helpful.

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 30/05/2019 14:36

@Jux good to hear! I'll look into a way we can be a bit more methodical about how we report things like this to you. It could be that we just start a thread like this for every test and then update when we have any data to share. Do you think that will work?

MNHQ

JanineMumsnet · 04/06/2019 16:13

@adacoleman I have been told we've now made a release to ensure this doesn't happen. Please let me know if you notice this again.

Thanks

MNHQ

AnyaMumsnet · 10/06/2019 17:16

Hi there @AdaColeman,

Thanks for flagging - that should be sorted now.

MNHQ

FlissMumsnet · 20/07/2019 19:38

Hi AdaColeman & Jux,

We're very much still around and really pleased you've flagged the "New beta" issues with OTBT.

We're hoping to fix this glitch very soon or the feature may well be turned off until we can.

Thanks again for your feedback; it's so helpful.

MNHQ

soniamumsnet · 13/09/2019 11:01

Hi, thanks for the reports about this. We're just taking a look and will let you know when we have more information. Smile

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