Idea gotten from here
Look at the Trending page, in Explore. It's platformers and animations. Every time.
What about all those unique projects on Trending? Oh wait, they are nowhere to be found. You have been tricked.

The trending page should be changed to have unique projects. It would be much better if it showed random projects with over 50 loves. That way it isn't just the same 2 types of projects all the time.

Support for random projects with over 50 loves (I suggested that).

But trending is what the community likes, and if the community likes platformers and animations, it'll be there. Not saying I don't want more variation, I'm all for that, but I think it's more what the community likes right now.

Support (I already stated my thoughts in the linked discussion, trending needs an overhaul)

mtech22 wrote:

But trending is what the community likes, and if the community likes platformers and animations, it'll be there. Not saying I don't want more variation, I'm all for that, but I think it's more what the community likes right now.

However, since the trending page is all animations and games, the community is forced to like them as it's hard to find anything else, and creators are forced to make them because those are the things that get popular, so we end up in a vicious cycle with no escape.

mtech22 wrote:

But trending is what the community likes, and if the community likes platformers and animations, it'll be there. Not saying I don't want more variation, I'm all for that, but I think it's more what the community likes right now.

On the surface it looks like it's fine, but read through the linked discussion. The system works very poorly. Remixes with little to no loves get higher on trending than the original project, resharing is super common, nobody is even sure of how it works, and projects that SHOULD be trending (such as Super Mario for Scratch 4) aren't simply because of the weird system.

Right, we should overhaul the trending page, not remove it.Think how much better it would be if it were filled with unique games such as Topological Space or or really cool games on my favorite list. I think if it were to be improved, it'd actually be an indispensable place. It's just that generic platformers, random animations, clickers, and the occasional relatively cool 3d game, are what fill up the page, and resharing and unfair remixing/project copying often help them get there. Should the Scratch Team change that, and somehow incentivize original projects, I think there would be no reason the remove the Trending page.

gosoccerboy5 wrote:

Right, we should overhaul the trending page, not remove it.Think how much better it would be if it were filled with unique games such as Topological Space or or really cool games on my favorite list. I think if it were to be improved, it'd actually be an indispensable place. It's just that generic platformers, random animations, clickers, and the occasional relatively cool 3d game, are what fill up the page, and resharing and unfair remixing/project copying often help them get there. Should the Scratch Team change that, and somehow incentivize original projects, I think there would be no reason the remove the Trending page.

The suggestion is more about changing it than removing it.

One of my thoughts for changing the trending page is that projects that gain 100+ loves in a few minutes (those are usually reshared projects) get marked as “Trending-NFE” for a few days. That means people can't reap the rewards of resharing for a little bit. That's an idea.

gosoccerboy5 wrote:

One of my thoughts for changing the trending page is that projects that gain 100+ loves in a few minutes (those are usually reshared projects) get marked as “Trending-NFE” for a few days. That means people can't reap the rewards of resharing for a little bit. That's an idea.

It would be much better to fix the cause of the reshare exploit (Scratch remembers the date when the projects was last shared, not first shared).

This is gonna be unpopular (“the point of scratch is to encourage remixing!”) but I think remixes should have certain restrictions on Trending. It's not fair if someone works really hard on something, then a low-effort remix (or even a no effort remix) gets higher on explore than the original. So, I think remixes should in general get lower on trending than the original project. (Excluding remixes by the original creator)
I do see a problem with that. That might encourage project copying, so..

Maximouse wrote:

gosoccerboy5 wrote:

One of my thoughts for changing the trending page is that projects that gain 100+ loves in a few minutes (those are usually reshared projects) get marked as “Trending-NFE” for a few days. That means people can't reap the rewards of resharing for a little bit. That's an idea.

It would be much better to fix the cause of the reshare exploit (Scratch remembers the date when the projects was last shared, not first shared).

That's also a good idea (probably a better idea). But the thing is if someone shared a project, unshared it, then decided to work on it years later, it would probably never get on trending because of its original share date.
Well, that's actually unlikely. You're right.

But we could safeguard against that by checking if the last share date (before the most recent one) was over a (certain threshold) ago. If the two share dates were far enough apart, Scratch would count by the most recent share date. Even the most fame hungry people wouldn't unshare, then wait at least, say, 3 months before resharing.

gosoccerboy5 wrote:

Even the most fame hungry people wouldn't unshare, then wait at least, say, 3 months before resharing.

You'd be surprised.

Well, the threshold could easily be raised to 4, 5, 6, 7 months.

What if there was a separate number that would count views, but would be reset when the project is unshared?

If you don't like “generic” animations and platformers, then don't look in trending. It just an algorithm that shows what people are interested, and it just so happens that these projects are popular.

I find this as a very nice feature! Even though it may have “unoriginal” projects, it's interesting to see what's the cats meow right now.(Bad slang, but you get what I mean…)

I'm sure lots of people would be disappointed to see the trending page go, including me.

Maximouse wrote:

What if there was a separate number that would count views, but would be reset when the project is unshared?

By seperate you're implying that there should be a normal “total” view count, and a “since last shared” view count?

gosoccerboy5 wrote:

Maximouse wrote:

What if there was a separate number that would count views, but would be reset when the project is unshared?

By seperate you're implying that there should be a normal “total” view count, and a “since last shared” view count?

Yes. The total view count would be shown to viewers, the since last shared one would be used in internal calculations.

PrincessFlowerTV wrote:

I'm sure lots of people would be disappointed to see the trending page go, including me.

Would you also be disappointed if it had random projects?

PrincessFlowerTV wrote:

If you don't like “generic” animations and platformers, then don't look in trending. It just an algorithm that shows what people are interested, and it just so happens that these projects are popular.

I find this as a very nice feature! Even though it may have “unoriginal” projects, it's interesting to see what's the cats meow right now.(Bad slang, but you get what I mean…)

I'm sure lots of people would be disappointed to see the trending page go, including me.

fdeerf made a good point.

fdreerf wrote:

mtech22 wrote:

But trending is what the community likes, and if the community likes platformers and animations, it'll be there. Not saying I don't want more variation, I'm all for that, but I think it's more what the community likes right now.

However, since the trending page is all animations and games, the community is forced to like them as it's hard to find anything else, and creators are forced to make them because those are the things that get popular, so we end up in a vicious cycle with no escape.

PrincessFlowerTV wrote:

I find this as a very nice feature! Even though it may have “unoriginal” projects, it's interesting to see what's the cats meow right now.(Bad slang, but you get what I mean…)

I sure do love when every third project is “(Insert Noun Here) - A Platformer”

I'm 99% sure the majority of people right now are tired of these generic games. They aren't even what's truly trending!- resharing (as stated) but also, more popular projects that should be trending aren't (as I already said with Super Mario for Scratch 4). The system prefers those generic platformers and animations and doesn't let you see what people truly care about anymore.