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Doomed GitHub Trending page may be saved

GitHub had planned to axe the page that lists hot projects and developers due to low usage, but the company is reconsidering in light of community feedback.

GitHub is having second thoughts about discontinuing its Trending page, which lists repositories and developers gaining in popularity on the popular code-sharing site.

GitHub recently made plans to deprecate the page based on telemetry that showed low usage. Usage of the page had stagnated even in the face of the growth in GitHub users. 

The company also noted that the data pipeline that powers the page has proven problematic to maintain. However, after reviewing the community feedback, GitHub is re-evaluating its decision to remove the page and is exploring other options. A decision is expected before the end of September.

User feedback on the deprecation plan has shown that Trending is “clearly a much-loved feature by the people that do use it,” GitHub said in a community discussion post late last week. 

Commenters were pleased with GitHub’s decision to reconsider. 

"I also really appreciate the trending page; and I appreciate that the team is taking another look at it,” GitHub user ahayworth wrote. “I’m certainly sensitive to the difficulties of maintaining oft-brittle ETL pipelines, but I do hope that a lower-maintenance alternative could be found.”