# The "new new" has been enabled on Meta
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811
**Category:** Announcements
**Tags:** sidebar
**Created:** [September 13, 2023, 1:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811 "2023-09-13T01:10:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2023, 1:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/1 "2023-09-13T01:10:11Z")
## ⚠ This has been disabled as of 2023-11-26T16:00:00Z
See [The "new new" has been enabled on Meta - #31 by sam](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/31)
### What it is?
Over the past year we have experimented with a refined pattern for new/unread.
The setting `experimental_new_new_view_groups` on meta now has `trust_level_0` which enables this feature for everyone.
This setting “merges” the lists for `new` and `unread` into a unified list:
**old way** : New / Unread
**new way** : New (New Topics / New Replies)
### Why?
This experiment is running for multiple reasons:
1. Over the years people have complained Discourse is too complex, this is an attempt at simplifying things.
2. This unlocks counts that are simply a number in the sidebar. When you enable `show count of the new items` in your sidebar you get a very clear understanding of backlog.
### Will this become default?
We are not sure yet, we are gathering feedback, let us know what you think of the change.
It optimises for the “inbox 0” crew and may be less of an optimisation for people that sit on large “new” lists.
Let us know what you think.
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2023, 1:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/2 "2023-09-13T01:10:32Z")
---
### Author:  [@ClawdiaWolf](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ClawdiaWolf)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2023, 5:32am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/3 "2023-09-13T05:32:07Z")
Personally, I love this feature. In fact I had enabled it on my self-hosted instance when it was first possible to enable it for our Beta Testers group and most of our members like it.
The thing I would suggest doing differently is maybe make it a user preference in the future, like how the Topics link in the sidebar can be changed based on user preference. The reason is that for some neurologically divergent users the split between new and unread works better than the merged New New view. Having both available as a user preference would be much better from an accessibility standpoint. 🙂
---
### Author:  [@packman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/packman)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2023, 6:41am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/4 "2023-09-13T06:41:06Z")
I’ve enabled this for all users and explained the change so will see what they make of it. My user demographic is relatively older people who often aren’t that techie so they can be a bit resistant to change at times so their response will be interesting!
The "show count of the new items’ is user based preference with seemingly no option to turn it on for everyone. There is a setting ‘Make navigation menu links show count of new items instead of badges by default.’ which looks to be similar but I’m not sure if it’s exactly the same?
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2023, 6:54am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/5 "2023-09-13T06:54:22Z")
> [@packman](#):
>
> The "show count of the new items’ is user based preference with seemingly no option to turn it on for everyone. There is a setting ‘Make navigation menu links show count of new items instead of badges by default.’ which looks to be similar but I’m not sure if it’s exactly the same?
I think what @ClawdiaWolf is alluding to here is:
Navigation →
Change: `Show a count of the new items` from a checkbox to a combo box with the options:
1. new posts then new topics
2. new posts
3. all new
4. none
This distinction is important cause many people think that “new posts” are very important, whereas “new topics” are a lot less. Mixing the 2 counts in the sidebar for these users means that they can’t just sit back and let “new topics” wash away.
---
### Author:  [@packman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/packman)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2023, 6:58am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/6 "2023-09-13T06:58:55Z")
I understand what @ClawdiaWolf is saying about options, but I was commenting on what you said…
> [@sam](#):
>
> When you enable `show count of the new items` in your sidebar you get a very clear understanding of backlog.
Is there an option do to this globally for all users?
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2023, 7:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/7 "2023-09-13T07:01:45Z")
> [@packman](#):
>
> Is there an option do to this globally for all users?
Yes we try to ensure every setting a user has also ships with a default:
`default_sidebar_show_count_of_new_items` is the setting you are looking for.
---
### Author:  [@packman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/packman)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2023, 7:04am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/8 "2023-09-13T07:04:24Z")
> [@sam](#):
>
> default\_sidebar\_show\_count\_of\_new\_items
Thanks. The description is subtly different between the two with the global option referring to badges which the user preference doesn’t. Maybe the description could be changed to match in both places?
---
### Author:  [@RGJ](https://meta.discourse.org/u/RGJ)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2023, 5:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/9 "2023-09-13T17:56:14Z")
I think this is brilliant and we should keep it!
Or at least
> [@ClawdiaWolf](#):
>
> maybe make it a user preference in the future
Finally there is one place to go when I “want to read everything I want to read” 👍
This also (kind of) solved my main issue with the sidebar, at least made it better
> [@Sidebar topic list links prefer unread and new over latest](https://meta.discourse.org/t/sidebar-topic-list-links-prefer-unread-and-new-over-latest/239575/83):
>
> I expected that clicking on the category name would take me to “latest” and clicking on the “unread” link would take me to “unread”. But clicking on the category name is taking me to “unread” as well. This is severely limiting the usefulness of the sidebar since it now costs me (a second of confusion and then) an extra click on “latest”.
---
### Author:  [@schneeland](https://meta.discourse.org/u/schneeland)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2023, 10:20pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/10 "2023-09-13T22:20:01Z")
1. I’m not sure, but it doesn’t seem to work for me. At least not in the way the screenshot in the initial post indicates. I still get only the “new” indicator, not “topics” and “replies”.
1. Having a list of unread replies in my tracked topics is actually one of the feature I find extremely useful in Discourse. The only thing that would make it even better would be if I could easily access the tracked topics even when there are no new replies (potentially: a “Tracking” entry in the header row with a number if there are unread replies, and without if there are none).
2. I do think that the “new” feature could be extended in a useful fashion by including new replies I haven’t seen yet. In fact, my intuition when first seeing this was that I would get new topics and new replies since my last visit, and I was confused when it would rather show me new topics from the last two days by default.
3. I don’t think the numbers on the categories in the side bar look good. But I have to say, the longer I use the side bar, the less I like it in general, because IMO it represents a navigation option that is partly redundant with the category view. So maybe that colours my perception of this aspect of the proposed change.
---
### Author:  [@ClawdiaWolf](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ClawdiaWolf)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2023, 10:22pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/11 "2023-09-13T22:22:57Z")
> [@sam](#):
>
> Change: `Show a count of the new items` from a checkbox to a combo box with the options:
>
> 1. new posts then new topics
> 2. new posts
> 3. all new
> 4. none
>
> This distinction is important cause many people think that “new posts” are very important, whereas “new topics” are a lot less. Mixing the 2 counts in the sidebar for these users means that they can’t just sit back and let “new topics” wash away.
Actually, I was referring to the fact you can choose whether or not it links to the filtered list or latest. 🙂
For some (like myself) that filtered list link is useful, and honestly I never pay attention to the count, just the sidebar looks weird to me if it’s not enabled 🙂
I would love it if the topics link honored a _separate_ setting unrelated to the count display that would respect the unified view if enabled but kept the current behavior if the unified view isn’t used when the **Link to filtered list** option is enabled.
Then again this is actually why on a lot of Discourse instances I use the /unseen view, but that has its own issues when you’re on a huge instance like the NaNoWriMo forums with a _lot_ of topics set to normal.
> [@schneeland](#):
>
> I’m not sure, but it doesn’t seem to work for me. At least not in the way the screenshot in the initial post indicates. I still get only the “new” indicator, not “topics” and “replies”.
It only shows those headings if you’re on the New tab. It doesn’t show them on Latest. 🙂
---
### Author:  [@schneeland](https://meta.discourse.org/u/schneeland)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2023, 10:37pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/12 "2023-09-13T22:37:29Z")
> [@ClawdiaWolf](#):
>
> It only shows those headings if you’re on the New tab. It doesn’t show them on Latest. 🙂
Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to make a difference for me.
---
### Author:  [@ClawdiaWolf](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ClawdiaWolf)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2023, 10:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/13 "2023-09-13T22:43:06Z")
It should look something like this:
---
### Author:  [@schneeland](https://meta.discourse.org/u/schneeland)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2023, 10:46pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/14 "2023-09-13T22:46:55Z")
Ah! I see, then I misunderstood the initial post (I expected the new sections to show up at top level and the subheading are quite discreet).
---
### Author:  [@packman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/packman)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2023, 12:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/15 "2023-09-14T00:10:46Z")
> [@schneeland](#):
>
> I don’t think the numbers on the categories in the side bar look good.
I agree. They look a little small and disconnected. To me they’d be better saying ‘1 new’ rather than just ‘1’.
---
### Author:  [@Jagster](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Jagster)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2023, 10:02am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/16 "2023-09-14T10:02:41Z")
So, _Suggested_ under topics is now same than _New_, but shorter, right?
---
### Author:  [@ondrej](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ondrej)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2023, 10:10am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/17 "2023-09-17T10:10:46Z")
I find this new feature very helpful indeed - a great addition to Discourse 😍
However, where do I find the option to dismiss certain new topics individually as opposed to just having a ‘dismiss’ button in new?
(from another community)
---
### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2023, 6:20pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/18 "2023-09-17T18:20:20Z")
Click the three lines (selector) select the topics and dismiss 🙂
---
### Author:  [@ondrej](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ondrej)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2023, 9:18pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/19 "2023-09-17T21:18:16Z")
Hi Sam 👋
At the moment it looks like this **(1)** where I can only choose to dismiss all the new topics **or** replies. I cannot individually select new topics like in the image in my post above. This was previously available before the ‘new new’ was enabled. Does that make sense? 😅
* * *
**1**
* * *
It seems that if I dismiss all the replies this appears again. My bad
---
### Author:  [@mbauman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mbauman)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2023, 6:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811/20 "2023-09-18T18:59:26Z")
I miss the top level “unread” count/link. I tend to have two modes of reading discourse sites:
- checking back in on threads I’ve tracked
- choosing new threads to track
Most of my time is spent paying closer attention to threads I’ve already decided I want to pay attention to — the unreads. Only on some visits do I have bandwidth to look for new things to pay attention to (the new). This change prioritizes the latter, which I spend less time doing… and I liked the clearer top-level separation of the two.
A few things feel **more** confusing to me than before: When I think “Replies” I think posts, but the count on the new page under “Replies” is the number of topics… and then each topic gets a badge with the number of posts. The `/unread` endpoint still exists and that’s where you land if you choose that to be your home page, but it’s subtly different from `/new?subset=replies`. I also think it’s confusing that “Replies” appears on the top of the table of topics twice, and I don’t really understand why “Replies” wouldn’t count as “Topics”:
[Next page](https://meta.discourse.org/t/the-new-new-has-been-enabled-on-meta/278811.md?page=2)