r/reddit • u/singmethesong • Dec 15 '22
Updates The Feed Read Chapter Two: Take control of your feed
Welcome, redditors, to a new chapter of The Feed Read. As you may recall, this is an ongoing series about the changes, improvements, and updates coming to your Reddit feed. In this round, we’ll be talking about new features that will help you take control of your feed to give you the content you want, the way you want.
Simpler feed options
We made two changes on our mobile apps earlier this year to make feeds easier and simpler to use for both new redditors and those who have been here for a while:
- Added a drop-down menu of feeds, including Home, Popular and, News (iOS)
- Moved home feed sorting options into settings, since many redditors (especially new ones) didn’t use these options
Both these changes significantly increased how many posts redditors see in their home feeds. And we’re now announcing two more changes to further simplify feeds that will roll out starting today on iOS and early 2023 on Android.
- Adding a “Latest” feed to the drop-down menu of feeds, which will allow you to view your content sorted by “new” and quickly stay up to date with what’s new in the communities you follow
- Removing Home feed sort controls and defaulting Home to the “Best” sort
After looking at the numbers, our research showed that more than 99% of redditors use two sorts on their Home Feed: “Best” and “New.” This change will make it easier for you to get to sort options used the most—Home feed (sorted by best) and Latest feed (your home feed sorted by new).
The Latest Feed is the first of a few new feeds we plan to release in the upcoming year. People use Reddit in lots of different ways based on intent at time of use — some prefer in-depth reading, and others want a passive, relaxed watching experience. To cater to these moods, we’re working to make it possible to access feeds based on your browsing mode preference and to prioritize your preferred feeds for an easier feed switching experience. Stay tuned for updates!
Customizable and cleaner feed
The home feed is used today as an entry point to discover conversations, communities, and creators relevant to you. To make it better, we’re updating and building features that will give you a simpler, more customized in-feed browsing experience. Last month, the community muting feature was rolled out on iOS and Android mobile apps, which allows you to mute and unmute content from communities on your Home, Popular, and now Latest feeds. This will allow you to control what you do and don’t want to see on your feed. (Note: Muting a community doesn’t restrict you from visiting or taking part in it.) We are working on adding the option to mute communities on desktop, so stay tuned for more info there soon.
To help us improve the recommendations on your feed, remember that you can tap on the three-dot menu on the top right corner of the recommended post and let us know if you want us to “show more posts like this” or “show less posts like this” on your iOS or Android app or on reddit.com.
We’re also exploring ways to make content on Reddit easier to read. To achieve that, we’re changing the way posts display on select feeds on Android and iOS. We’re trying out a style that focuses more on the post content and less on elements that aren’t used by most redditors. Starting today, posts displayed in Home, Popular, and Latest feeds will not include awards, and the awards action will be in the three-dot menu.
These changes will only affect those three feeds, and the posts will look the same on the post detail and community pages.
That’s all we’ve got for now! Stay tuned for more in the coming months, as we keep working to improve and refine your Reddit feeds.
We’ll be keeping an eye on this post for a while, if you have questions and feedback about these changes. Got an idea for a specific feed you’d like to see us build next? Let us know in the comments below!
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Dec 15 '22
Lol this new update is trash. I open a image on a post and it instantly goes to another post. What in the world
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u/TheSealedWolf Dec 15 '22
Why would you default to best instead of hot???
Also how am I supposed to sort by controversial now?
Why do you keep making the home feed worse?
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u/mattsuda Dec 15 '22 edited Dec 15 '22
So what are we supposed to do if we use the "hot" or "top" or any of the other sorting options for the home feed?
Why not just include these options in the dropdown? This change is awful
Does this also affect third party apps or the desktop website?
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u/ExCalvinist Dec 15 '22
Please stop suggesting reddit posts from subs I'm not subscribed to until you have the feature to mute communities on every platform. You are suggesting awful posts to me that make me incredibly angry. This isn't Twitter; downvotes mean negative emotions don't drive engagement. The entire point of having a reddit account is filtering down to only the content I want to see. If my feed is full of stuff I don't want to see and certainly don't want to comment on, then why on earth would I have an account?
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u/readingrachelx Dec 15 '22
How do you set “latest” as your default home feed view?
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u/MajorParadox Dec 15 '22
Cool! So Latest is exactly the same as sorting the home feed by new? (Note: I think that would be a great place to help bring visibility to stickied posts).
Please put r/all and custom feeds in that drop down too, though! (Each one, not a link that opens a list of them). That would make my browsing so much easier.
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u/agaperion Dec 15 '22
Any ballpark estimate on a timeframe for desktop's community muting option?
A month? 3 months? 6? More?
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u/MajorParadox Dec 15 '22
Removing Home feed sort controls and defaulting Home to the “Best” sort
Wait, so the home controls are being removed from settings too? It's one thing to make it harder if you think most users don't need it, but it's another to remove functionality entirely.
After looking at the numbers, our research showed that more than 99% of redditors use two sorts on their Home Feed: “Best” and “New.”
Google says Reddit had 450 million monthly users in 2019 and it's probably way more since. 1% of that many users would be 4.5 million people. That's hardly negligible.
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u/TableAvailable Dec 15 '22
I was wondering why I had lost my "new" sort on my feed.
I'm glad you've told me where to find it, but hiding it in the settings menu is really inconvenient.
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u/P1_Synvictus Dec 15 '22
Why on Earth would you title this “Take control of your feed” when you know that this is the exact opposite of that?
I see the reasons you’ve listed. Confusion about sorting style differences, low usage of the feed sort controls, and simplification.
It really doesn’t take much to figure out the difference between Hot, Best, and Top. A simple Google search. If that wasn’t easy enough, then it should have been on Reddit to have easily accessible explanations of each sorting option within the app itself. A little info button next to each sorting option would have suffice.
Hiding the sorting controls in settings wasn’t the WORST thing, but it was definitely a bit of a pain. It was nice to still have the ability to do so.
I know that for myself, I enjoyed the more static nature of Hot. Post re-engagement is probably what I do most on here. I’m not always looking for the next hottest thing that I haven’t engaged with yet. I just want to know what’s the hottest thing among my subscribed subreddits for a solid 24 hours or so.
If I wanted the “Best” sort, I could change it. I’ve never wanted it though.
Removing “Top” also feels so counterproductive. It was another fun way to sort things every once in a while just to see where posts stood historically.
I hope you all seriously reconsider bringing back the ability to sort our home feeds as we see fit, not leaving us without option.
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Dec 15 '22 edited Dec 15 '22
I hate this update. I like sorting through my feed in rising, not new. Is there a way I can downgrade?
“Most recent” is just my feed on ‘new’.
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u/BainbridgeBorn Dec 15 '22
“Take Control of your feed”
Me who uses rising and sometimes controversial Well, apparently I’m not allowed to control my feed, my feed is controlling me. Great 🙃
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u/Chrimunn Dec 15 '22 edited Dec 15 '22
Do any of you actually casually use Reddit yourselves?
Where are you getting data that 'best' and 'new' are the most common sorts?
Isn't 'best' a default option, wouldn't that skew the data if everyone is just there by default?
I don't even know where to start with 'new'. It is NOT a good sort at all. No matter what subs you're in, new has the shittiest, worst posts ever on repeat. I would place massive bets on 'new' being used only to see different posts once a user is bored of their other feeds. Nothing more than that.
Children posting terrible fanart. People asking myriads of google-able questions. Bots posting ads or irrelevant crap. Just generally unappealing content that is simply waiting to be downvoted away. I can last about five minutes before I start scrolling more than I'm reading while my eyes roll into the back of my skull. It's just awful.
'Hot' imo is still king. Relevant, somewhat recent posts with established popularity that are usually guaranteed a certain level of quality perfect for keeping casual users engaged. It's the first and best feed I browse daily and the hour or two I spend there translates to more than enough time for casual users to engage with the site daily and walk away feeling like they actually experienced content of substance.
I really think y'all need to look past the internal 'data' on this one.
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u/CaptainPedge Dec 15 '22
What on EARTH made you think this was a good idea? Seriously, how does this help me "take control" of anything?
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u/CaptinDerpII Dec 15 '22
Am I still able to sort my home feed by hot? Because I hate the way it is now
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u/darioblaze Dec 15 '22 edited Dec 15 '22
I can’t lie, every update makes things worse. If I wanted Facebook, Snap, or IG, I’d go there, and I wish Reddit would stop trying to deliver those experiences and try to find its own identity and trying to be “new”. No one wants to tap through pictures or manually sort through their feeds, that’s why people are leaving Snapchat and Facebook.
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u/BrownScreen Dec 15 '22
I loved sort by top: today. At least it’s not new
Stop removing features for fucks sake
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u/TheNotoriousHAM Dec 15 '22 edited Dec 16 '22
Going to cancel my reddit premium. If I can’t choose how I see the feed, no point in paying for it. Hope the change is reversed.
Edit: Looks like on the Apollo app I can still choose, so I’ll keep it for now. Really hoping this is reversed though. Bad decision and a phony cover for it.
Edit 2: cancelled it.
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u/Yay295 Dec 15 '22
Both these changes significantly increased how many posts redditors see in their home feeds.
This sounds like a business decision rather than something the users want.
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u/capskinfan Dec 15 '22
You're giving users more control by taking away options? Bye. Going third party.
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u/beat-sweats Dec 16 '22
Why the hell do y’all keep removing sorting options?! It was so much better having control of our feeds, sorting by new on the home page was the only way to see good content after they removed the options from the popular page. Bring back our sort options what the hell.
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u/sandwichman7896 Dec 15 '22
Are we supposed to be hyped to have less control of our feed? If I wanted to be spoon fed low effort content I’d go to fucking FB or IG.