Recommended posts only show same threads

[thace]

Whenever I finish reading a thread, the “recommended posts” box always catches my attention. I like the feature and look at it often, but I’ve noticed it always shows the same posts (who’s gotten blueprints, 5v5 is ruining VG, matchmaking in 3v3, and the developers changed the name of VG). It shows that there’s unread posts in those topics (they’re really popular) and they won’t un-recommend until I read them.

Does that section keep showing the same threads until you read them? Is there a way to get it to show me other posts? I could understand when there wasn’t many posts in the forum, but now that it’s a little more populated I would think it’d be more diverse in what it shows me.

Have I somehow marked those topics as something I want the site to update me on, and if so how do I turn that off? I want the site to show me topics I haven’t seen, or stuff in other categories (like the fanart or salt mines) occasionally.

I’m sick of these same 5 threads,

[dream]

I’m not exactly sure of how it works, but I’m positive that due to the fact that the forum is still rather small, it’s likely to show you a lot of the same content. That being said, try reading the content it recommends. I have only unread topics in my suggested box at the moment, and I read everything on here, so I could imagine if you’ve exhausted what’s available to read it won’t recommend anymore. I will play around and see if I can come up with any more information. If there are any deeper details, @HipsterSkaarf, @idmonfish or @hazeleyes may be able to help.

[thace]

I certainly haven’t read everything here. I tried skipping through to the end of the threads it’s showing me, and it seems to have gotten rid of them for now. But now it’s showing me recent updates on two threads I read yesterday, so I think it just keeps track of things I’ve read I might want to catch up on? Not sure…

[HipsterSkaarf]

You’re in the same boat as me - compulsive readers ftw!

Here’s an interesting thread on how the system works:
How does Suggested Topics work and how can we improve it?

It’s 60 posts over the course of a few years, but the main idea is that it prioritizes content that you’re already invested in - that is, watching or tracking a topic, or content from the same subforum, etc. It’s the system giving its best guess about your interests. But if you don’t have any watched or tracked threads with new replies (i.e., you’re caught up on reading), it’ll give you new things as suggestions.

For the specific algorithm, here’s the second post in that thread quoted. It’s old, but I think still accurate-ish…:

@codinghorror

Well, the current Suggested Topics algorithm is pretty basic, it fills in this order:

1. Any topics you created with new posts? add those.
2. Any topics you are watching or tracking in this category with new posts? add those.
3. Any new topics you haven’t read yet in this category? add those.
4. Any topics you are watching or tracking in any category with new posts? add those.
5. Any new topics you haven’t read yet in any category? add those.
6. Choose random topics from this category which aren’t closed or archived or category definitions.
7. Choose random topics from any category which aren’t closed or archived or category definitions.

Repeat list until all (n, default 5) slots of Suggested Topics are filled. (# of suggested topics to be shown at the bottom itself is a site setting, suggested_topics)

Random works surprisingly well for me at the moment though, I’ve found a bunch of topics I should have looked at, or needed to revisit, just by virtue of random walk. Not sure it will scale, but… it’s much better than I ever thought it could be.

[thace]

Ah, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you!