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I see from this answer that the "Your Communities" area in the top bar menu is only supposed to show the top five sites that you participate in, based on reputation. Below this are all the rest of the sites, in alphabetical order.

However, with the old top bar menu (which you can see on Area 51), the communities at the top were all the sites that you had more than 101 reputation in, even if there were more than 5, followed by the rest of the sites in alphabetical order.

I actively participate in more than 5 sites, and it would be really nice to have them all up at the top. Is there a reason why the "Your Communities" area is limited to 5 sites?

Alternatively, if you don't want to expand the "Your Communities" area (perhaps because it will push the search box down too far), could you order the "More Stack Exchange Communities" area to have all the rest of your sites on top, in order of reputation, followed by the ones you don't have accounts in?

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  • Having only 5 frustrates me as well.
    – starsplusplus
    Commented Feb 21, 2014 at 16:33
  • In fact, it's not even the top five: it's the top four not including your current site or any meta sites (Area51 seems to count as meta as well).
    – starsplusplus
    Commented Feb 21, 2014 at 16:39
  • Related support request: MultiCollider / Site Switcher not showing all sites that I have accounts on
    – Ilmari Karonen
    Commented Feb 21, 2014 at 19:30
  • Since it's now possible to manually re-order & add new sites in the community list, should this be marked as [status-complete]? Or alternatively, should it be rephrased to "Option for more than 5 top sites", since manually editing the list means that the top sites are no longer automatically arranged by reputation.
    – Stevoisiak
    Commented Apr 28, 2017 at 15:25
  • @StevenVascellaro The first part of the question (having more than 5 sites in "Your Communites") is not really applicable anymore, since they decided to make the section customized. However, the last paragraph (ordering the "More Stack Exchange Communities" by rep instead of alphabetically) is still a feature-request of mine.
    – Ben Miller
    Commented Apr 28, 2017 at 15:28
  • @BenMiller Makes sense. I found this feature request because I'm looking to see if it's possible to have more than 5 communities listed, but still have them auto-sort by reputation. I wanted make sure it wouldn't be a duplicate if asked.
    – Stevoisiak
    Commented Apr 28, 2017 at 15:31
  • @StevenVascellaro Sounds good to me. I'd rather have them sorted automatically by rep with more than 5 sites. I use the custom list, but I'd rather see it automatically updated when I start getting active on another site. If you want to ask a new question, feel free. The premise of this question is out of date.
    – Ben Miller
    Commented Apr 28, 2017 at 15:50

1 Answer 1

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We're working on letting you customize the sites that appear in "Your Communities". The default for non-customized lists will still be 5 sites, but you'll be able to choose which sites show up there and add more than 5, if you'd like.

The reason why it's limited to 5 sites is that we had to pick a number for the initial roll-out; showing all sites where you have an account is overwhelming for the people that have more than about 10 (you just wind up with a lot of scrolling, which is why we introduced the search box and capped the number of sites pinned at the top). Picking the top 5 by rep is a pretty good way to generalize which sites people are interested in navigating to most often, but it was always intended to be a temporary measure while we built in customizability. It didn't make the list of requirements for the MVP version of the new top bar, but don't worry, this feature is actively being worked on and will roll out soon.

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  • That sounds good, but is there any chance that we could get the "More Stack Exchange Communities" ordered by reputation, instead of alphabetical? That seems like an easy solution that shouldn't be controversial and would solve the problem for most people, I would think.
    – Ben Miller
    Commented Feb 21, 2014 at 16:52
  • @BenMiller That would work for a lot of people, but it fails at two use cases: 1) people who have lots of accounts with 101 rep, and 2) people who like to read content on sites but not create an account. Making "your communities" customizable gives greater flexibility, I think. If you want all your sites pinned, go for it. If you want 10 sites, some of which you have accounts on and some of which you don't, go for it. If you only want top sites by rep, you got it.
    – Laura StaffMod
    Commented Feb 21, 2014 at 17:02
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    I don't think it would fail for people who have lots of accounts with 101 rep. On the contrary, I'm much more likely to want to click on a link for a site where I have 101 rep than a site where I do not have an account yet. If it was ordered by reputation first, then for ties (including 101s) ordered by alphabetical, that would be great, and I wouldn't even need the customization. Or, you could order them the way the old bar was ordered, and only sort by reputation the sites where you had a greater than 101 reputation. If I want to pin a site, that is what browser bookmarks are for. :)
    – Ben Miller
    Commented Feb 21, 2014 at 17:07
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    I guess my point is that it might not be a perfect solution for everyone, but the purely alphabetical sort that is in right now is only useful for Academia and Amateur Radio aficionados.
    – Ben Miller
    Commented Feb 21, 2014 at 17:23
  • @BenMiller I have an account on every site in the network. Definitely don't want to see an extra 100+ rows in the site switcher. :)
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Feb 25, 2014 at 3:26
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    @AnnaLear You already have 100+ rows in the site switcher. And no matter which sites you interact with the most, number 6 on your list is Academia and number 7 is Amateur Radio. Wouldn't it be nice if those were the 6th and 7th sites that you were most involved in?
    – Ben Miller
    Commented Feb 25, 2014 at 3:53
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    @BenMiller I don't think it's possible to find the number of sites that would please everyone. I'm personally pretty content with 5, you're clearly not, and there's probably more people out there who would pick something else entirely. This is why we're rolling out the ability to customize the list that Laura mentioned. That should hopefully be a suitable compromise.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Feb 25, 2014 at 5:12
  • @AnnaLear I think you are missing the point. You already have all 100+ sites in the site selector, as does everyone else, no matter how many accounts they have. Doesn't it make sense to sort them in a meaningful order, instead of the completely arbitrary order they are in now?
    – Ben Miller
    Commented Feb 25, 2014 at 5:20
  • @BenMiller No, I see your point.The thing is, you're trying to bolt the purpose of the "your communities" section onto the "more communities" section, and that's just not going to mesh. We'd rather make "your communities" more flexible.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Feb 25, 2014 at 5:24
  • @AnnaLear I still don't understand why both can't happen, but I thank you for listening.
    – Ben Miller
    Commented Feb 25, 2014 at 5:28

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