I've made a decision on the new algorithm and it's pretty simple. It will be the latest updated stories at the top but only for stories with five subscribers or greater. Just five people have to think your story is worth following to get included into the Trending section. Since the goal was to ensure that spam stories and nonsense stories don't make it to the front page and those stories don't normally get subscribers, this should have the desired effect while still allowing the majority of people to get their stories on the front page. I think I got too hung up on using the most popular algorithms other sites are using when I should've just made one more appropriate for AFF. I think this change should satisfy most of you.

As for the previous "popular today" algorithm, I still think that has value in providing quality content. I'll keep that as one of the options under the Popular section.