I’m trying to understand the heuristics used to determine the “top” posts, mostly because I want to use them to auto-propagate into tiles at my header. However, as the community hasn’t launched yet, I seem to be having a hard time getting something to appear in the “top” filter.
My initial instinct tells me that if there are no other topics being called “top” any of my latest should automatically get that description. However, I clearly don’t understand what’s being used to hit that state. Can anyone shed some light on it for me? Is there a way I can make it accept the last few topics if nothing else qualifies?
there were topics about top-page algorithm, but i couldn’t re-find them using the search.
i don’t think that’s how it works, since not all the latest topics are shown in the top page. there exist some score and the topic should get the minimal score to be shown in the top page.
and you can change the top-scoring parameters in the admin setting panel, in the developer tab.
Thanks for the guidance @Pad_Pors. I’d been trying to search for the old topics too (I know I’d seen some in the past).
I’ve been fiddling with all of the options I can find (searching “heat”) in the settings, but I can’t seem to find anything that helps push something onto the “top” post sooner, or perhaps just the minimum threshhold that it has to cross? Perhaps I’m just not finding the right options. (I’ll look through the code you sent me when I get home later to see if I can parse what the minimum threshold is)
In general, I’m a little puzzled about the heuristics still. In my current (still private) site, I have a topic that is listed in the “daily” top topics, but the weekly and monthly are still empty. If it’s the top of the day, and there are no higher topics in the week, shouldn’t it also be in the week?
See here: http://162.243.159.122/
(The tiles at the top are supposed to fill in the rest with “Top” topics)
I’d like to believe that non of this will be an issue once I go live, but knowing that if we have a slow period, it’ll trip up the “top” categories and highlight just how slow makes me a little nervous.
I think the success of Top relies heavily on the forum being active.
As for the algorithm, hopefully you are more math savvy than I am.
It’s been many years since I learned, and have since only rarely used, logarithms. I know what they are and I can use them, but I am stonewalled when it comes to “reading” them.
What is clear to me by looking at the file @Pad_Pors linked to is that the multiplier settings influence the “weight” of views and likes and the settings (via log, ack!) affect the “score”.
What is also obvious is that
likes count
op likes count
post count
view count
are considered in determining the topics “score”
I think what the situation is in terms of Top is that Top will be a bit less than ideal until the forum gains some traction.
AFAIK there is little that can be done to change this other than tweak the multipliers (sorry, it’s log involved there, I’m clueless in Seattle) and maybe have those (i.e. Staff) that are active make posts, view posts, and like posts at least until members get involved.
As for the time filters, errm, that will take time to level out.
Oh fascinating - either the views from you guys here caused it to cross the threshold, or it was a delayed update from the time that I posted. Either way, that’s encouraging.
