Community activity list not updating much

[neufuse Veteran]

I've noticed that under the community activity I almost ALWAYS see the same stuff

Russia v Ukraine conflict

Donald Trump - 45th President of the United State

Politics is ###### business

almost there every single time for me, and the other tops seem to update rarely... I will see topics that haven't been posted to for days! like something just happened.... but stuff that has recent updates never shows up there....

is there a reason for this?

 

Right now this topic is showing

What Windows Version is This?

and the last post was over an hour ago

and "Is there a way to change the color of Dark mode context menu borders in Explorer?" which was last posted to 5hrs ago

I'm sure newer stuff has been posted somewhere on the forum since then, and these last two I never posted to so why I see them so much is confusing

[neufuse Veteran]

I've had the same topics listed for 4 hours now, this thing does update right?

[zikalify Editor]

I don't know the mechanics behind it, but I always thought the threads with new comments got put to the top of community activity.

[shockz]

  On 24/10/2022 at 21:15, neufuse said:

I've had the same topics listed for 4 hours now, this thing does update right?

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The site is just that dead lately. I thought something was wrong at first too. There is a slight difference on what forums seem to get shown on the front page activity list vs forums activity list. 

[neufuse Veteran]

  On 24/10/2022 at 21:36, shockz said:

The site is just that dead lately. I thought something was wrong at first too. There is a slight difference on what forums seem to get shown on the front page activity list vs forums activity list. 

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I don't think it's that because I see posts in topics that happened way after those ones showing and they don't cycle... I still have the same exact posts from earlier showing and I've found tons of topics that have newer posts

  On 24/10/2022 at 21:22, zikalify said:

I don't know the mechanics behind it, but I always thought the threads with new comments got put to the top of community activity.

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but it's not, at least not for me, mine hasn't updated for almost 5hrs now? and I see lots of new update posts in the different forum topics lists

[zikalify Editor]

@DaveLeggDo you know if anything is broken?

[+Edouard Subscriber²]

  On 24/10/2022 at 21:22, zikalify said:

I don't know the mechanics behind it, but I always thought the threads with new comments got put to the top of community activity.

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Yes, that used to happen but it stopped doing that for me at least recently.

[neufuse Veteran]

Just looked again and it's still the same ones from almost 6hsr ago, someone turn on 24hr caching or something? 😆

[neufuse Veteran]

next day, same topics still...

[cork1958]

Yep, has been like that since they made the changes on here where they mentioned lack of support from making money off ads and community involvement as a whole. At least that's the best way I can think of wording what those changes were. Been a few weeks ago, at least.

[Steven P. Administrators]

It updates for me

News comments were removed from it so that we could get new people visiting the main page interested in forum topics rather than having a permanent reminder of the recent news article's comments.

[neufuse Veteran]

  On 25/10/2022 at 15:24, Steven P. said:

It updates for me

News comments were removed from it so that we could get new people visiting the main page interested in forum topics rather than having a permanent reminder of the recent news article's comments.

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I'm still seeing 90% of what I got all day yesterday, only the pfSense topic is dfferent for me.... honestly, the way it is now is just useless for me... I expect to see different topics not the same ones every time I look.... if anything it not updating more frequently with forum posts just reduces my site engagement a ton... because all I ever see there is Russia / Ukraine / Trump / Biden / elections.... its more political then tech

[+Edouard Subscriber²]

  On 25/10/2022 at 19:44, neufuse said:

I'm still seeing 90% of what I got all day yesterday, only the pfSense topic is dfferent for me.... honestly, the way it is now is just useless for me... I expect to see different topics not the same ones every time I look.... if anything it not updating more frequently with forum posts just reduces my site engagement a ton... because all I ever see there is Russia / Ukraine / Trump / Biden / elections.... its more political then tech

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Yeah, exactly. This is a poor experience. All I'm seeing is politics...which I like but I want it to show most recent new comments.

Nope, not liking this at all.

[+Edouard Subscriber²]

  On 25/10/2022 at 15:24, Steven P. said:

It updates for me

News comments were removed from it so that we could get new people visiting the main page interested in forum topics rather than having a permanent reminder of the recent news article's comments.

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Sorry Steven but I strongly disagree. 

Surely you should be supporting your actual tech articles above political forum threads.

I understand the site has had a downturn in recent times as you mentioned recently but pushing political forums above tech articles is surely not the way to regrow your site.

Sorry Steven, just my opinion but I feel you need to rethink your strategy.

[+Elі Subscriber²]

I don't like the change they did to the Community Activity area either, it seems to always show things I'm not interested in and yeah it takes a long time to change content. I liked it how it used to be before where it would update with front page comments and all.

[Steven P. Administrators]

There's also this: https://www.neowin.net/forum/discover/ and the MiniSpy, which does have news comments 

My intention is to get people who come to news articles, clicking on forum topics. They cannot see the political discussions because those are hidden for guests. Guests only ever saw the same recent news posts in the Community Activity block because they are commented on more than forum topics, that does not help me get guests to view our forum topics.

The Community Activity block also doesn't auto update like the MiniSpy does, so it makes me wonder if you are so interested in tracking the full site's topics activity, including news, you should be looking at this https://www.neowin.net/forum/discover/

[SnoopZ]

I personally only ever visit the forums if something appears on the front page community feed that interests me, I've been doing it for donkeys years and not likely to change, so if the feed doesn't update then I click off the site and visit again later.

[neufuse Veteran]

  On 26/10/2022 at 09:09, Steven P. said:

There's also this: https://www.neowin.net/forum/discover/ and the MiniSpy, which does have news comments 

My intention is to get people who come to news articles, clicking on forum topics. They cannot see the political discussions because those are hidden for guests. Guests only ever saw the same recent news posts in the Community Activity block because they are commented on more than forum topics, that does not help me get guests to view our forum topics.

The Community Activity block also doesn't auto update like the MiniSpy does, so it makes me wonder if you are so interested in tracking the full site's topics activity, including news, you should be looking at this https://www.neowin.net/forum/discover/

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but I'm not even seeing the non-news posts, it's just basically static... why when a forum post is made does it not update? I know forum posts are being made outside the same topics i always see

[neufuse Veteran]

I feel like in the "old days" it would update in near real time and I could find stuff people were talking about... on the forum side

[Steven P. Administrators]

  On 26/10/2022 at 11:18, neufuse said:

but I'm not even seeing the non-news posts, it's just basically static... why when a forum post is made does it not update? I know forum posts are being made outside the same topics i always see

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The Community Activity box does not update like the MiniSpy, in fact there is also some element of page caching going on for the main page too, to save some bandwidth from not having to regenerate the page hundreds of times in realtime. The MiniSpy of the forums also only ever updates in realtime for logged in members too, because we also cache the MiniSpy for guests.

Server resources cost money. For the Community Activity box you can click on the reload button to the top right of it for an updated list of recent forum topics.

[SnoopZ]

  On 26/10/2022 at 09:09, Steven P. said:

There's also this: https://www.neowin.net/forum/discover/ and the MiniSpy, which does have news comments 

My intention is to get people who come to news articles, clicking on forum topics. They cannot see the political discussions because those are hidden for guests. Guests only ever saw the same recent news posts in the Community Activity block because they are commented on more than forum topics, that does not help me get guests to view our forum topics.

The Community Activity block also doesn't auto update like the MiniSpy does, so it makes me wonder if you are so interested in tracking the full site's topics activity, including news, you should be looking at this https://www.neowin.net/forum/discover/

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Suggestion.

For people like me who live on the main page how about creating a button above the Community Activity feed that takes us directly and easily to your mini spy discovery link you posted, if you did that I could see myself using it all the time and could increase forum posting.

What do you think Steve?

[Steven P. Administrators]

  On 26/10/2022 at 14:13, SnoopZ said:

Suggestion.

For people like me who live on the main page how about creating a button above the Community Activity feed that takes us directly and easily to your mini spy discovery link you posted, if you did that I could see myself using it all the time and could increase forum posting.

What do you think Steve?

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The main page is a news page. Not a forum page with all of it's related options.

Lets stop splitting hairs here. I have answered as best I can the reasoning for making the change. Why not bookmark https://www.neowin.net/forum/discover/ or leave a tab with it opened?

[cork1958]

  On 26/10/2022 at 10:59, SnoopZ said:

I personally only ever visit the forums if something appears on the front page community feed that interests me, I've been doing it for donkeys years and not likely to change, so if the feed doesn't update then I click off the site and visit again later.

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Exact same way I visit/use this site.

[neufuse Veteran]

  On 26/10/2022 at 12:14, Steven P. said:

The Community Activity box does not update like the MiniSpy, in fact there is also some element of page caching going on for the main page too, to save some bandwidth from not having to regenerate the page hundreds of times in realtime. The MiniSpy of the forums also only ever updates in realtime for logged in members too, because we also cache the MiniSpy for guests.

Server resources cost money. For the Community Activity box you can click on the reload button to the top right of it for an updated list of recent forum topics.

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the Reload button for me doesn't do anything I get back the same list every time... which sadly is still 6 out of 8 items being what I saw over a day ago now...

seriously though, I'm not trying to be an ass about this, I just think it should update more frequently (maybe once every 10 minutes?) which not always the same topics (can we randomize the list of recent topics it picks from so it's not always the same?) just trying to help with site engagement 

[SnoopZ]

  On 26/10/2022 at 15:48, neufuse said:

the Reload button for me doesn't do anything I get back the same list every time... which sadly is still 6 out of 8 items being what I saw over a day ago now...

seriously though, I'm not trying to be an ass about this, I just think it should update more frequently (maybe once every 10 minutes?) which not always the same topics (can we randomize the list of recent topics it picks from so it's not always the same?) just trying to help with site engagement 

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Had the same issue in September.