This morning I noticed that all topics that have had a reply within the past 2 hours or so have a HOT! badge. That's a lot of topic. This badge used to be reserved to topics that had gotten something like 5 replies within the past few hours... can't remember exactly but it was rare when something was HOT!.

Even a topic that had only 2 replies within 17 hours!

I searched my ACP but couldn't find where to adjust this.... or is it this "Popular now" setting?

Was this recently changed? If that is it, what defines "trending"... a number of replies + number of visits perhaps? Or are all topics that have gotten a reply within the past 200 minutes considered "HOT!" now?

Hot topics would display exactly what you add there. So if you add 200 minutes, it would show anything which has been active within that time. Trending is a little different

2 minutes ago, Marc said:

Hot topics would display exactly what you add there.

I'm sorry.... what I add where exactly? The topic setting I shared mentions trending which you say is different so I'm confused.

Also there seems to be more going on than just recent activity, number of views, or number of replies?

Edited June 13, 2025Jun 13 by David N.

Sorry, I should clarify. When I say its different, I mean its not defined by the setting itself. The setting defines which trending items show up. So it will only show items as being hot, if they are deemed to be a trending item within the time you set. There are a lot of things that could define an item as trending, from whether or not people are viewing it, or its getting a lot of replies etc.

1 minute ago, Marc said:

Sorry, I should clarify. When I say its different, I mean its not defined by the setting itself. The setting defines which trending items show up. So it will only show items as being hot, if they are deemed to be a trending item within the time you set. There are a lot of things that could define an item as trending, from whether or not people are viewing it, or its getting a lot of replies etc.

Ok so was this set of things that define an item as trending changed recently?

I wish I could understand better why for example on my screenshot I have:

• Topic #2 = 3 replies, 64 views = not trending

• Topic #9 = 3 replies, 35 views = trending

I would need the actual topic links to have an idea of what it might be there. As mentioned in the link above

---

Replies: most valuable ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Topics that receive replies are the clearest sign a piece of content is trending.

Reactions: valuable ⭐️⭐
Your members are engaging with other members’ topics and replies. That’s great in helping to decide what is trending, but ultimately we want members to comment.

Views: somewhat valuable ⭐️
Visibility is important and plays a role in deciding whether a content item shows in the Trending Content section. 

Just now, Marc said:

I would need the actual topic links to have an idea of what it might be there. As mentioned in the link above

---

Replies: most valuable ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Topics that receive replies are the clearest sign a piece of content is trending.

Reactions: valuable ⭐️⭐
Your members are engaging with other members’ topics and replies. That’s great in helping to decide what is trending, but ultimately we want members to comment.

Views: somewhat valuable ⭐️
Visibility is important and plays a role in deciding whether a content item shows in the Trending Content section. 

Thank you Marc for your help on this. I sent you the links of these two specific topics by PM.

There were also the following things changed in recent versions

• In 4.7.18 this feature didn't work for you because it relied on Trending data that wasn't available for some peoples plans

• In 4.7.19 we made some changes so plans without the real-time trending features could still utilize the hot/popular topic badge, this also included adding the setting you're screenshotting to control the time period where the topic is marked HOT if it has trended in the last X minutes.

In reality, 200 minutes is probably quite high. Unless you consider content to have been spoken about within the last 3 and a quarter hours to be hot topics. If so, they would be relevant. Both the topics sent are recent topics, and have been replied to multiple times, one in the last 200 mins. Anything with less than 3 replies is excluded entirely, so those items would indeed be relevant

49 minutes ago, Marc said:

Both the topics sent are recent topics, and have been replied to multiple times, one in the last 200 mins

And yet the one with the most recent reply wasn't HOT! ... while the one with the older last reply and about half the views was HOT!.

Looking at the info you posted, I suppose this must be because it had a couple more reactions.

Thanks for explaining all that. The 200mn choice was for the earlier working system where I was able to specify a number of replies to trigger this badge. I guess I have to change it now.

Bear in mind it will be recent views too, so it may actually have been viewed more recently on one than the other.

1 hour ago, Marc said:

Bear in mind it will be recent views too, so it may actually have been viewed more recently on one than the other.

Ah good to know. Thanks again!

4 hours ago, David N. said:

This morning I noticed that all topics that have had a reply within the past 2 hours or so have a HOT! badge. That's a lot of topic. This badge used to be reserved to topics that had gotten something like 5 replies within the past few hours... can't remember exactly but it was rare when something was HOT!.

Even a topic that had only 2 replies within 17 hours!

I searched my ACP but couldn't find where to adjust this.... or is it this "Popular now" setting?

Was this recently changed? If that is it, what defines "trending"... a number of replies + number of visits perhaps? Or are all topics that have gotten a reply within the past 200 minutes considered "HOT!" now?

Previously, there was a setting where you could stipulate the number of posts within a specified time period. That changed at some point. There are other threads on this same topic you may want to search.

8 minutes ago, My Sharona said:

Previously, there was a setting where you could stipulate the number of posts within a specified time period. That changed at some point. There are other threads on this same topic you may want to search.

Thanks, I suppose I missed the change when it occurred, and didn't noticed it until this morning where the 10 top topics were all HOT! on my forum.