Topic list is a question about a distribution, not about a value, and treating it as a value is what produces the confident wrong answers.
Second pass at: The topic list is dense — is that deliberate? I have a specific reason for asking rather than idle curiosity, and the context is below.
Posting a small dataset on topic list. It is mine, it is uncontrolled, and the method is stated so it can be discounted appropriately.
What I would like is not agreement but a second dataset collected by someone with no stake in mine. If one exists I would rather read it than argue for this one.
Staff answer. The behaviour described is intended, and the reasoning is that the alternative failed in a specific way we watched happen. Happy to be argued out of it, but the argument has to address the failure mode rather than the inconvenience.
The rule of thumb is fine; the edge cases are where it earns its keep.
Coming back to the opening post, because the follow-up matters more than the original answer.
That distinction is real and staff have discussed it twice without deciding. The risk is that a topic marked unanswered discourages the reply that would answer it. If anyone has seen it work elsewhere, say so — that is the missing evidence.
I am aware this is the third time this month I have made this point.
Adding a reference point for topic list. Mine is a single case, collected without controls, and I am posting the method alongside it so it can be discounted appropriately.
Topic list is a question about a distribution, not about a value, and treating it as a value is what produces the confident wrong answers.
I had written a reply contradicting post #6 and deleted it. Here is what survived.
Performance: if pages are slow to load, timeouts occur, or the site is unresponsive, that is worth reporting with details (when, which pages, how slow).
I would treat the number as indicative rather than as a measurement.
Confirming post #6 from a second method, which matters more than confirming it from a second person.
Suggestion rather than complaint: the vendor pages carry a review date, and topics do not. A topic that has been read by a maintainer recently is a different thing from one nobody has looked at since 2024.
I have separated what I observed from what I concluded, which does not always happen.
What I can speak to on topic list is narrow, so I will keep it narrow rather than generalising from it. Beyond that boundary I do not know.
On post #8 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.
Feature request framed as feedback: the category list is long enough that a first-time reader cannot tell which four categories carry most of the traffic. A count next to each would fix that without changing anything structural.
Counterpoint on topic list, offered without confidence: the same observation is consistent with a much duller explanation, and nobody has ruled the dull one out.
Worth separating two things that post #12 runs together.
On topic list I would separate what is worth knowing from what is worth acting on. The first list is long and the second is short, and conflating them is how threads get heated.
Reporting rather than recommending, on topic list. What happened is above. Whether it should have is a different question and not one I am qualified to answer.
Seconding that. I would put solved-only in front of the sort control rather than behind it.
A modest claim, modestly supported.
I read the earlier replies on topic list twice before writing this, because I had assumed the opposite and wanted to be sure I was disagreeing with what was said rather than what I expected.
Post #17 and I disagree about the size of the effect, not about the direction.
Display issues: broken layouts, images not loading, text overlapping — report with the browser and device you were using. Display bugs are platform-specific.
That is the honest state of it as of this week.
Taking post #21 at face value and following it one step further.
I disagree with the framing of topic list above, and I think it is a substantive disagreement rather than a terminological one. Setting out why, so it can be checked.
The reasoning depends on an assumption that is doing a lot of work and is never stated. If the assumption holds, the conclusion follows. I do not think it holds generally.
Worth separating two things that post #21 runs together.
Two things can be true about topic list at once: the mechanism is plausible and the evidence for the size of the effect is thin. Most of the argument here is people defending the first against attacks on the second.
This follows post #25 rather than contradicting it.
I keep a log for topic list specifically because my memory of it turned out to be systematically wrong in one direction. Six weeks of notes cost nothing and settled it.
Not a bug, but worth saying: the moderation log is paginated at twenty-five entries and there is no way to filter it by rule. Being able to read every R6 action in sequence would be genuinely instructive.
Before the thread moves on from topic list — what is the sample size behind the claim? I am not being difficult; I have seen the same figure quoted from an n of four and from an n of four hundred.
That would also be the fastest way for a new member to understand what R6 actually catches, which is narrower than people assume from the text.
I would rather say I do not know than round it up to an answer.
Picking up post #29: that is the part I would want checked first.
Feature request framed as feedback: the category list is long enough that a first-time reader cannot tell which four categories carry most of the traffic. A count next to each would fix that without changing anything structural.
The conclusion is tentative; the arithmetic underneath it is not.