Interestingly we now track views in last n days, we could add it as signal
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If a topic is controversial on the forum, it will cause comments and emoji reactions, and therefore the Hot algorithm will promote it regardless of what moderators would prefer todo with it.
The real choice for moderators about topics being controversial somewhere else but not in the forum itself (yet) is to be aware or not of the external controversy. I think awareness is always preferred, and if a topic of your forum is relevant today somewhere in the internet, why not making it relevant on your forum too.
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After a few more months using Hot by default… all good!
I still think that topics with many recent views should make it to the Hot list even when they don’t have any 
s or comments. We had real cases of new topics becoming hot in social media, driving many views (and their promoters even getting badges for it) and yet the topics are out of sight in our Hot homepage, and only those following Latest would see them.
On the other hand, after months observing how topics evolve in the Hot homepage, it is also clear that the algorithm should let dip “heavy” discussions after, say, a month without new s or comments. They might have been heavy discussions weeks or months ago, but clearly the community has moved on. And yet they still appear very predominantly because of their now perhaps not relevant dozens of comments and likes.
This is especially true for closed topics. No matter how many comments and likes a closed topic carries, it is closed and therefore it shouldn’t be predominant in a Hot list a few days after it has been closed. It could even disappear from Hot the moment it’s closed. Those who know still can find it in Latest, or it might show up in their Unread if they participated.
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