It’s not that the current system is not good enough - it works well, but can be made better as with any system. In particular, by making personalised recommendations unique to every user. Interest, relationship and usage should be taken into account in order to display the most interesting posts to a user, as ‘interesting’ is so subjective. By refining a user feed, it could make for an even deeper discussion and engagement.
Discourse currently uses the following criteria in deciding what are the most interesting topics for a user:
- Likes
- Number of Posts
- Original Post likes
- Views
It already has a bunch of data that could better filter the most interesting posts:
Reading time:
If users are spending a lot of time reading a topic (adjusted for number of posts), it would tend to more interesting than a topic where users skim or close it after reading a few posts.
Topic with multiple replies to posts:
A topic that has a lot of replies to posts might have an interesting discussion going on.
Subscriptions to topic:
If users are tracking/watching a topic with interest, it would have more utility than usual.
Number of posts bookmarked:
If a lot of posts are getting bookmarked, the topic would tend to have some important information.
High number of likes:
If a single post has an unusual number of likes compared to the median, it would tend to have community interest.
Number of users online:
A large number of users lurking on a topic might indicate an interesting discussion.
OP Reputation:
A user with a higher trust level and reputation (badges, solutions, likes) would tend to have higher quality topics. Similarly, a user who has been flagged multiple times for example, would tend to post lower quality topics.
Referral traffic:
If a topic is getting a lot of outside referral traffic, it would have something of interest to the community.
Additionally, a user would be more interested in content that is tailored to their taste. For instance:
User interest:
If a user is tracking/watching a category/subcategory, they would be more likely to find a topic within those interesting.
Liked users:
If I consistently like a user’s posts, I tend to find their content more interesting. Showing topics started by the most liked users would tend to be of interest.
Potential user interest:
On the other hand, users could also be shown a small number of topics from categories they do not watch/track, in case that is something of potential interest.
As with the current system, admins would be able to set the weights and so customize it to their taste.