Uh, interest checks = roleplays looking for players. In my mind, they are the only ones where it matters that they stay near the top of a page. Hence why I only looked at the impact of new categories upon them.

I never said they were a sign of general activity in existing roleplays. If your concern is that Advanced IC or OOC threads don't get drowned out by other IC or OOC threads... then I can't really follow your logic, there. If I am participating in a game, I subscribe. I don't ever again go through the IC or OOC pages to find it. I wouldn't even notice if it ended up on the very last page.