When I visited the site on my new laptop I found that the suggested topics were frequently months old. Suggesting topics this old could lead to someone thinking the discussion is new and trying to log in and comment on it. Instead, it would be better to suggest newer topics.
2 Likes
Relevant background information on the logic discourse uses to populate the list of topics shown at the bottom of a topic page (after the posts related to the current topic):
Specifically:
Random topics
If there are fewer than 5 unread topics, or if you are viewing the site anonymously, random topics that are less than 365 days old will be added to the list.
It seems we can change this with a setting:
suggested topics max days old- The maximum age in days to query for random suggested topics (defaults to 365 days)
I would agree with reducing this value . This forum clearly sees enough activity that we can serve fresher content.
8 Likes
I’d say 30 days at most & maybe only 14?
Looking at that page, we should probably also use:
limit suggested to category - Instead of just prioritizing the current category, only show topics from the current category in the list (checkbox, defaults to false)
1 Like
14 is too small period for the majority of categories (mainly the local communities ones). 30 should be a perfect period.
1 Like
I’ve set it to 30 for suggested topics max days old and 14 days for suggested topics unread max days old. We can see how that works.
7 Likes