What happened to the 'Most Read/Commented' list of articles on the front page?

This topic was created by quitequick .

  1. quitequick

    What happened to the 'Most Read/Commented' list of articles on the front page?

    What happened to the 'Most Read/Commented' list of articles on the front page?

    It was my main means of navigation and now its gone.

    1. Roger Varley

      Re: What happened to the 'Most Read/Commented' list of articles on the front page?

      Yes - +1 to bring it back. I too used it as a major navigational tool - particularly the most commented.

  2. Wild Bill
    Thumb Up

    +2

    It was great for dipping in and out of content on the site. I mainly read for the comments so like being able to find 'hot topics' quickly.

  3. Janko Hrasko
    Thumb Down

    feature overboard!

    extremely useful feature that used to set elReg from the competition is now gone...

    fail

    1. Dave Lawton
      Thumb Down

      Re: feature overboard!

      Do not like Spotlight, which appears to have replaced it.

      Please bring back 'Most Read/Commented, it's much more useful.

      Time for a restore/backout me thinks.

  4. MNB
    Unhappy

    I thought my crappy phone browser was acting up...

    ... but no, the powers that be have actually killed it. I'll file this change alongside the all the other UI freakery of late, like Metro/Modern/Notro (whatever the $%^&* it's called this week).

    Ho Hum. Is there a special "retro" section where us luddites can go to get the "Most Commented" whilst we are moaning about the rise of mechanical weaving looms?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Most Read / Most commented...drove insignificant amounts of traffic.

    We want to showcase articles with longer shelf life than breaking news stories. Hence Spotlight.

    Most Read is not a great indicator of organic traffic, at times - it may simply be showing a Reddit raid., or a Stumbleupon surge.

    Although the traffic is not significant for most comments. We are interested in showing people where the conversations are taking place. Currently, most comments algorithm is flawed - and needs to be given some loving. We'll try to figure out how to best do this.

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: Most Read / Most commented...drove insignificant amounts of traffic.

      Suggestion: Drop incoming non-organic traffic IP addresses on the floor as useless. Don't even bother ACKing them. Pretend you don't exist when it comes to their address space.

      Works for me ... Spam by any other name is still spam.

      1. jake Silver badge

        Re: Most Read / Most commented...drove insignificant amounts of traffic.

        My comment @06:08 got me about 50 "thumbs down" in under an hour. Around midnight on Friday evening (West Coast time, 8AM Zulu).

        I don't believe that there were that many induhvidual folks who actually read my commentardary, much less bothered to stick their thumbs updown in that time-frame.

        I can't be arsed to figure out which part of my back-log it is down-voting this time ... bottom line is that "thumbs" are completely useless. So is commentardary, but once in a while I learn something from a commentard. I have never learned a single thing from "thumbs".

    2. quitequick

      Re: Most Read / Most commented...drove insignificant amounts of traffic.

      Shame. Most read/commented gave a clear indication (so long as the code works properly) of where the interest in the reg community is. 'Spotlight' appears to give a clear indication of where the reg's interest is.

      The BBC news website manages to maintain a 'Most Popular' set of links. Can't be rocket science, can it?

  6. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. Dcope
    Thumb Down

    Put it back please...

    ... Title says it all really, the comments are what makes the site, and it didnt take that much space.

    Whos bright idea was this neways, i sense to many fizzy pops while drawing up this idea, obviously dosnt use the site from a readers perspective.

    The reg's unique selling point has been buried.

  8. RichL
    FAIL

    Re: Put it back please...

    The lack of Most Read/Most Commented brought me to the forums for the first time to find out what happened to it.

    Please restore it, keep Spotlight if you must, but it was my preferred way of navigating.

  9. Wild Bill
    Thumb Down

    I'm finding I'm spending a lot less time on the site than before as a direct result of the lack of Most Commented. My boss is probably happy about this but not sure that's El Reg's intention. Wonder whether the behaviour of other users will show a similar pattern.

  10. Ouch
    Mushroom

    Most commented

    Ok most read maybe be a pain to admin but most commented ! Please can we have it back ?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Most read/ commented

      We have restored both for now - BUT - I am not sure for how long.

      Most read / most commented do not produce much traffic - and it is questionable if most read produces any new traffic.

      BTW The bottom of the front page has a link called Most Read - showing the 20 most popular stories in the last 24 hours.

      1. Dave Lawton
        Happy

        Re: Most read/ commented

        Drew, thanks for this, I really missed it.

        Any chance of having it above Spotlight, rather than beneath it, please ?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Re: Most read/ commented

          It is above spotlight - on front page only

          1. Dave Lawton

            Re: Most read/ commented

            Not for me, it's at the bottom on the front page (Firefox 3.6.10 on Suse 11.3).

            At the top, above Spotlight, is 'Click here for your daily newsletter'

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Man, that is an old version of Firefox

              OK, that is an unusual combination - a tiny fraction of one per cent of our readership. So I am not going to OK a bug hunt, sorry.

              But I see you have an old version of FF there. Any chance of updating and see if that makes a difference?

              Update: On second thoughts - it is now at bottom of front page for me too, so don't go changing on our account! We'll see how we get on here for a few weeks before we go changing anything.

  11. quitequick

    on second thoughts...

    Since the demise of most read/commented I have read a lot more articles not about Apple... which is nice. How about the inclusion of an optional Apple filter in all things reg?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: on second thoughts...

      No apple articles in the current most read / most commented.

      1. quitequick

        Re: on second thoughts...

        Beg to differ, currently 2 out of 5 or even 40%.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Re: on second thoughts...

          Things do change, you know!

  12. Dave Lawton

    Coloured Hyperlinks

    Nice to see that this is now back in it's proper place on the front page - thanks.

    However, it does seem to have a problem with the hyperlink colours not changing when clicked on.

    Could you fix this please ?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I think we can put this on to do list

    1. Dave Lawton

      @Drewc

      Any chance of this moving towards the top of the list please ?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @Drewc

        The most read / most commented box was restored a few months ago - and is on the top rhs of the page. Are you thinking of something else?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @Drewc

        I know this is simple change - but our devs are rammed. It will be a few weeks.

        Drew

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    reset once a day

    Glad to see most read/commented is back.

    But it seems to be reset once a week on a Monday morning, if I'm not mistaken. By the end of Monday/Tuesday, the list is pretty much set for the rest of the week. I can imagine there is therefore an argument to say that most read/commented is perhaps driving readers to those articles preferentially, even if more noteworthy articles are subsequently published during the week. I presume this is something El Reg would not ideally want.

    So why not reset it once a day? Would be better for us (me) and for you (El Reg).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: reset once a day

      This features the most read articles of the previous 48 hours - it updates every hour. Except on a Monday or a public holiday, Most-reads are rarely more than 36 hours old.

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