"Hot Topic" markers on Restaurant & Bar pages

[Melanie Wong]

Wondering what the algorithm is for designating some records as hot topics. Commis in oakland and Lers Ros in sf are examples.

On first glance it seems misleading to designate non-discussions as "topics" and to me, continues the confusion over where to post and/or look for information. But maybe I'm missing something.

[Chris VR]

Yeah, I was scratching my head looking at a record that had no reviews and a few incorrectly linked discussions. When I clicked to "see all discussions" it went to a search page that was bringing up results from 2004, 2005, 2008.... Not very "hot", IMO.

[Melanie Wong]

Maybe this is a clue, since no one from Chow is paying attention to this conversation. I've noticed that the google results that pull up the R&B pages have a tag line:

"Mentioned in X Chowhound discussons in the past 3 months"

Maybe the algorithm goes by the number of discussions or reviews in the last 3 months.

I also think that Chow is doing itself and the chowhound a community a disservice by having the cut-off point be 3 months. While it depends on the restaurant, I think that info that's 6 to 12 months old is usually still valid.

[rworange]

I had no idea what you were talking about until search results showed B restaurant as a hot topic. I didn't follow the link since I have problems with search. I can't open search results in a separate tab so didn't want to waste the time trying to access that ... still ... B Restaurant? The Sunday supper was mentioned in the Chow Digest. Could these be linked to that?