# Digest: Difference between popular Posts and popular Topics

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/digest-difference-between-popular-posts-and-popular-topics/49884
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** activity-summary
**Created:** [September 8, 2016, 11:18am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/digest-difference-between-popular-posts-and-popular-topics/49884 "2016-09-08T11:18:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Slind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@Slind](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Slind)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2016, 11:18am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/digest-difference-between-popular-posts-and-popular-topics/49884/1 "2016-09-08T11:18:36Z")

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Hi,  
I was wondering what the difference between popular Posts and Topics is in the weekly new email.  
The Posts part seems to be identical with the weekly top page [Discourse Meta](https://meta.discourse.org/top/weekly)  
I also found this about its algo [Improving the "Top" criteria](https://meta.discourse.org/t/improving-the-top-criteria/26064)  
But how is the topics part different then?  
Or is it just the continuation of the weekly top page below entry 5?

It feels a bit off that the first one is called top Posts although those all being Threads/Topics. Which causes a little confusion for me.

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### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2016, 8:08pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/digest-difference-between-popular-posts-and-popular-topics/49884/2 "2016-09-08T20:08:25Z")

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It is top posts, to see how it works, enter any topic with \> 50 replies and click the “Summarize This Topic” button under the first post.

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### Author: ![Slind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3bc359/32.png) [@Slind](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Slind)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2016, 10:03am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/digest-difference-between-popular-posts-and-popular-topics/49884/3 "2016-09-09T10:03:05Z")

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Hmm. I’m talking about this weekly mail:

 ![tvnl0nP](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/1/4/d/14dcc68e39e5c9d9108de599f5ae0f8b01298904.png)  
The section “Popular posts” is identical with [Discourse Meta](https://meta.discourse.org/top/weekly) which is about Topics not posts from what I understand. Those topics don’t have 50+ posts and the post in the email is always the first one.

The second section “Popular topics”, is this the continuation in short of the first section? Otherwise I don’t understand it.

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### Author: ![erlend\_sh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/erlend_sh/32/119475_2.png) [@erlend\_sh](https://meta.discourse.org/u/erlend_sh)
#### Post date: [September 12, 2016, 9:00am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/digest-difference-between-popular-posts-and-popular-topics/49884/4 "2016-09-12T09:00:31Z")

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> [@Slind](#):
>
> the post in the email is always the first one.

That is indeed a bit pointless. We’ll soon be redesigning the activity summary mail, in which popular **topics** will be the first to be highlighted. I think another change we should consider is changing Popular posts to Popular **replies**.