1645870 - individual newtab stories targeting prefs for spocs or recs

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Firefox :: New Tab Page, enhancement)

Description

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

We have an issue with v2 personalization where new profiles with no history can show limited number of stories on newtab.

Mostly this is due to the result of the personalization being negative, and below the min score.

The easy fix is to control spocs and recs, and if they are personalized or not, based on individual prefs.

I propose:

// System pref to allow Pocket stories personalization to be turned on/off.
pref("browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.discoverystream.recs.personalized", false);
// System pref to allow Pocket sponsored content personalization to be turned on/off.
pref("browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.discoverystream.spocs.personalized", true);

Comment 1

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

[Tracking Requested - why for this release]: I'm working on an hoping to have a reasonably sized patch that can fix this by eod.

Hoping to get an uplift, because it would impact a study we wanted to do.

Comment 2

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

Attachment: Bug 1645870 - individual newtab stories targeting prefs for spocs or recs

Comment 3

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

To test:

1. Create a new profile.
2. Set browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.asrouter.devtoolsEnabled to true
3. Open about:home#devtools-ds
4. Click "refresh cache" wait a second or 2.
5. Click "expire cache" wait a second or 2.
6. Click "trigger idle daily" wait a second or 2.
7. Click "trigger system click" wait a second or 2.
8. Open a new newtab

Expected: Newtab should be showing 7 rows of stories.

Comment 4

[Scott [:thecount] Downe]

Comment on attachment 9156834 [details]
Bug 1645870 - individual newtab stories targeting prefs for spocs or recs

Beta/Release Uplift Approval Request

• User impact if declined: UX impact to an upcoming study
• Is this code covered by automated tests?: Yes
• Has the fix been verified in Nightly?: No
• Needs manual test from QE?: Yes
• If yes, steps to reproduce: To test:

1. Create a new profile.
2. Set browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.asrouter.devtoolsEnabled to true
3. Open about:home#devtools-ds
4. Click "refresh cache" wait a second or 2.
5. Click "expire cache" wait a second or 2.
6. Click "trigger idle daily" wait a second or 2.
7. Click "trigger system click" wait a second or 2.
8. Open a new newtab

• List of other uplifts needed: None
• Risk to taking this patch: Medium
• Why is the change risky/not risky? (and alternatives if risky): Medium sized code change, in low impact areas of the code.
• String changes made/needed: none

Comment 5

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/f527c3d9dd7f
individual newtab stories targeting prefs for spocs or recs r=gvn

Comment 6

[Cosmin Sabou [:CosminS]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/f527c3d9dd7f

Comment 7

[Cosmin Sabou [:CosminS]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/f527c3d9dd7f

Comment 8

[Timea Cernea [:tbabos][inactive]]

Verified-fixed on latest Nightly 79.0a1 (2020-06-15) on Windows 10x64, Ubuntu 16.04 and MacOS 10.13.
Following the steps in Comment 13, we now have 7 rows displayed in a new tab.

Waiting for uplift to verify further.

Comment 9

[Julien Cristau [:jcristau] (back August 18)]

Comment on attachment 9156834 [details]
Bug 1645870 - individual newtab stories targeting prefs for spocs or recs

approved for 78.0b8

Comment 10

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/rev/aee6c4227034

Comment 11

[Timea Cernea [:tbabos][inactive]]

Verified-fixed on latest Beta 78.0b8 on Windows 10x64, Ubuntu 16.04 and MacOS 10.13 with the same expected as in Comment 8.