Hey all, testing a new section under tracks called 'Hot' which is basically trending but on a shorter time frame. Hoping that this will help surface new liked tracks that may otherwise fall through the cracks. Right now we are only showing 1 page for 'Hot' and will likely leave it at that or add it as a filter to newest but in general filters/dropdowns don't get used as much. Let us know what you think. We expect this to help shake up the "trending" list.
The only reason why trending gets so many views is because it is the first track that people see. Basically the tracks are clickbait. If you want people to see the hot page, then make it the first thing that pops up when you go to the home page. So add a tab that says hot and make it the first one.
The thought behind trending was that majority of players would want to see the "best liked" most recent tracks, and it turned out to be true a lot of players visit the trending to play those newly liked tracks that they haven't played before if they don't have time or feel like exploring the other categories. We are trying to get the balance of # of plays / site visibility that a newly liked track / trending track gets while highlighting new tracks, what we don't want to do is have a well liked track fall off after a day. Currently (depending on the pace of new likes) a track can stay up on the trending page for about a max of 2 weeks which seems like the right balance for a track that an author put a lot of time into, if you disagree let me know. Landing players on featured would create a very static home page that I am not sure would be a good default, it would show off the best detailed but replacing something that is intended to raise the visibility of new liked / potentially featureable tracks would be preferred.
Another problem is so many people either don't vote or downrate great maps because they are "hard" and not push the up button to win.
Once players improve that will likely change, but just make sure you are voting and encouraging others like yourself to do the same!
There are a lot of horrible tracks getting on "Hot." I've been watching all day. Maybe up the amount of likes a track needs to get on that page. Tracks with 2 likes are getting on. Then again, 90% of new tracks are horrible. IDK
It is a tough problem, putting a cap of 5 likes for example may hide those good tracks that get a couple quick votes. Will have to see how a couple more decent tracks impact Hot, newness of a track is weighted far more in "Hot" than it is in "Trending" so expect to see a lot more daily movement in "Hot"
