이번 주에는 이곳의 신규 회원 경험을 개선하기 위한 몇 가지 작은 변경 사항을 적용하는 데 시간을 보냈습니다.
신규 회원에게 경쟁적인 행동 유도(Call to Action)가 없도록 discobot 튜토리얼과 환영 메시지를 완전히 비활성화했습니다. 이제 신규 회원은 상단에 고정된 환영 주제가 있는 TOP 페이지에 바로 도달합니다. 자동화를 이용한 환영 메시지 전송은 여기에서 논의 중이므로, 나중에 설정할 예정입니다.
또한 환영 주제로 가는 모든 내부 링크에 ?silent=true를 추가했습니다. 이렇게 하면 주제 하단의 모든 백링크가 억제됩니다. 이 주제를 테스트 용도로 많이 사용하는데, 백링크들이 실제로 관련이 없어 신규 회원이 이곳에 적응하는 과정에서 불필요한 노이즈를 만들어내고 있었습니다!
이제 그 주제 하단의 Suggested(추천) 및 Related(관련) 링크에 주목했습니다. 로그인하지 않았거나 신규 회원인 경우 Suggested 링크가 표시되지 않고, AI가 생성한 “Related” 링크만 표시됩니다. 표시되는 링크들은 오래되었고 도움이 되지 않았습니다. 특히 도움이 되지 않는 링크된 주제들(예: 오랫동안 활동하지 않은 사람들이 Discourse를 무료로 설치해 주겠다고 제안하는 것 등)을 대량으로 삭제했지만, 나머지 링크들도 신규 회원이 보고 싶어 할 것 같지는 않습니다.
커뮤니티의 다른 분들이 현재 주제 하단에 표시되는 이 링크들을 어떻게 인식하고 있는지 의견을 듣고 싶습니다. 여러분에게 유용하다고 생각하는 주제들이 표시되고 있나요? 개선되었으면 하는 부분이 있으신가요? 관심 있는 토론을 쉽게 계속 읽고 따라잡기 위해 이 기능을 사용하시나요? Suggested와 Related 중 어떤 것을 더 선호하시나요?
환영 주제의 경우, 제가 더 적합하다고 생각하는 #announcements로#contribute:site-feedback에서 이동했습니다. 이렇게 하면 추천 주제에 공지사항이 포함되며, 신규 회원이 발견하고 싶어 할 내용이라고 생각합니다. 이는 기존에 로그인한 회원들에게는 잘 작동합니다.
방금 가입한 익명 사용자 및 신규 회원은 현재 그렇게 나쁘지 않지만 오래된 Related 주제만 보입니다:
이 회원들에게 Suggested 주제가 하루 정도 지나면 표시되기 시작할 것으로 추정합니다.
AI 임베딩에 더 익숙한 분들의 도움이 필요합니다. Related에 영향을 미치는 설정을 조정하는 데 도움을 주실 분을 찾습니다. "semantic related age penalty"는 현재 0.3으로 설정되어 있습니다. 더 높은 숫자로 올려야 할까요? 그렇게 하면 다른 사용자의 결과에 부정적인 영향을 미칠까요? 해당 설정이 현재 제대로 작동하고 있는지도 궁금합니다.
FWIW The Related Topics here on meta used to be It was my most favourite AI addition (hands-down )
It has gone a bit squiffy though and seems to be prioritising less useful topics. As a now casual browser, I can’t pinpoint exactly when it happened, but the difference does seem noticeable.
Do you know if the model was changed at any point, or maybe something else backend-wise that could have had an impact?
In general, I prefer related topics. Often AI is really helpful in showing related discussions, like related feature requests. I often look at these to suggest a merge, update them with new information (e.g., when a feature was completed), or at least tag those old topics accordingly. Sometimes I can find answers to support questions directly in the related topic because the question has been asked before.
Suggested topics are based on my unread topics. They are helpful to find topics I might want to continue reading, but they are not related to the topic I am currently reading. I used to read those topics based on latest. So actually, until February, that list was empty for me most of the time, so I only had suggested topics tab below topics. Now that I mostly read without being logged in, that’s no longer the case. Most topics shown there are topics I’ve read, but Discourse doesn’t know that. I am still forced to look at them because every time I log out, Discourse deletes the localStorage where it saved that I prefer related topics. So usually those are what I see because it’s not always worth switching. But these are, of course, problems based on my perhaps unusual use.
In general, I see use cases for both, my unread topic and other topic with similar content. Related topics based on AI instead of category was a huge improvement. It made them way more interesting.
But of course, it depends on the topic. The more detailed the problem is described, the better the suggestions are. To me, it makes sense that the suggestions below the welcome topic aren’t that helpful, because there aren’t several welcome topics on Meta.
I wondered whether, if you think they are confusing, it would make sense to hide these from new users, just as Discourse does not display other options to new users and therefore shows things that are hidden for more experienced users. But I think, apart from the welcome topic, they can be helpful for new users too because sometimes they find the answer to their question right there.
Interestingly, I had thought the Related Topics had been showing older ones that weren’t as useful. On this topic, the Related Topics had been mainly 2017/18 ish, whereas now it’s been turned off they’re now much more recent (2023/24).
On the off-chance, was the penalty perhaps reversed?
That’s one, quite wonderfully descriptive, way to describe it!
At the bottom of the welcome topic, my test new user now gets Suggested topics! It’s been two hours since I created the account. Not sure at what point they started showing up.
I agree this would be a fantastic idea for the welcome topic. Can you see if that feature request exists already and if not start a new feature request, explaining your own use case?
Yes, for the reason you give I’d prefer to show related topics but for them to be actually more relevant and recent. In the case of the welcome topic, I’d like it to show announcements, blog posts, etc or any other topics that are relevant to new members who are just finding out about us.
Mostly in line with what others have said: my impression was that suggested topics are of limited use most of the time. E.g. right now, what I see as suggested for this topic is
That hardly seems related to the topic at hand at all.
Related topics, on the other hand, have often brought up discussion that actually seemed related, and sometimes appeared to be interesting enough to actually check them. E.g. right now I get
I’m a bit surprised about the ordering (I would have expected the last item to appear further up, because it’s frequently accessed), but overall it does not seem so bad.
Among the various AI features that Discourse offers, related topics is actually one of the two (the other is AI-based SPAM classification) I would be willing to turn on, if we ever get to the point, where we get affordable vGPUs or vNPUs and self-hosting the LLM becomes an option.
I think the issue is with the tab title Suggested: it implies some rationale or relevance. People don’t generally make random “suggestions”, they base them on context. Maybe we should guess from the presence of the Related tab that Suggested is something else… but it’s not obvious what that is.
Elsewhere – like when AI is not enabled – this list is called “New & Unread Topics”, which is clearer (if inaccurate).
Related I use all the time here. Seems like the current curation settings work pretty well. I wish the tool behind it didn’t also bring the world generative AI slop content, but it’s admittedly useful as a pumped-up automatic search engine surfacing relevant topics.
It was my most favourite AI addition (hands-down 
)
It’s been two hours since I created the account. Not sure at what point they started showing up.
