diff --git a/frontend_tests/node_tests/activity.js b/frontend_tests/node_tests/activity.js
index 8f9e78995c..220f6b00ff 100644
--- a/frontend_tests/node_tests/activity.js
+++ b/frontend_tests/node_tests/activity.js
@@ -854,7 +854,7 @@ run_test('initialize', () => {
         scroll_handler_started = true;
     };
 
-    activity.has_focus = false;
+    activity.client_is_active = false;
 
     activity.initialize();
     clear();
@@ -863,7 +863,7 @@ run_test('initialize', () => {
     assert(!activity.new_user_input);
     assert(!$('#zephyr-mirror-error').hasClass('show'));
     assert.equal(page_params.presences, undefined);
-    assert(activity.has_focus);
+    assert(activity.client_is_active);
     $(window).idle = function (params) {
         params.onIdle();
     };
@@ -878,7 +878,7 @@ run_test('initialize', () => {
 
     assert($('#zephyr-mirror-error').hasClass('show'));
     assert(!activity.new_user_input);
-    assert(!activity.has_focus);
+    assert(!activity.client_is_active);
 
     clear();
 
diff --git a/static/js/activity.js b/static/js/activity.js
index c1c3d0b3f2..25f87a04b5 100644
--- a/static/js/activity.js
+++ b/static/js/activity.js
@@ -16,14 +16,17 @@ var ACTIVE_PING_INTERVAL_MS = 50 * 1000;
 exports.ACTIVE = "active";
 exports.IDLE = "idle";
 
-// When you start Zulip, has_focus should be true, but it might not be the
-// case after a server-initiated reload.
-exports.has_focus = document.hasFocus && document.hasFocus();
+// When you open Zulip in a new browser window, client_is_active
+// should be true.  When a server-initiated reload happens, however,
+// it should be initialized to false.  We handle this with a check for
+// whether the window is focused at initialization time.
+exports.client_is_active = document.hasFocus && document.hasFocus();
 
-// We initialize this to true, to count new page loads, but set it to
-// false in the onload function in reload.js if this was a
-// server-initiated-reload to avoid counting a server-initiated reload
-// as user activity.
+// new_user_input is a more strict version of client_is_active used
+// primarily for analytics.  We initialize this to true, to count new
+// page loads, but set it to false in the onload function in reload.js
+// if this was a server-initiated-reload to avoid counting a
+// server-initiated reload as user activity.
 exports.new_user_input = true;
 
 var huddle_timestamps = new Dict();
@@ -163,7 +166,7 @@ function mark_client_idle() {
     // When we become idle, we don't immediately send anything to the
     // server; instead, we wait for our next periodic update, since
     // this data is fundamentally not timely.
-    exports.has_focus = false;
+    exports.client_is_active = false;
 }
 
 exports.redraw_user = function (user_id) {
@@ -265,7 +268,7 @@ function focus_ping(want_redraw) {
     }
     channel.post({
         url: '/json/users/me/presence',
-        data: {status: exports.has_focus ? exports.ACTIVE : exports.IDLE,
+        data: {status: exports.client_is_active ? exports.ACTIVE : exports.IDLE,
                ping_only: !want_redraw,
                new_user_input: exports.new_user_input},
         idempotent: true,
@@ -302,8 +305,8 @@ function focus_ping(want_redraw) {
 }
 
 function mark_client_active() {
-    if (!exports.has_focus) {
-        exports.has_focus = true;
+    if (!exports.client_is_active) {
+        exports.client_is_active = true;
         focus_ping(false);
     }
 }
diff --git a/static/js/message_list_view.js b/static/js/message_list_view.js
index 0bfa7c8ed3..e7f47db2f8 100644
--- a/static/js/message_list_view.js
+++ b/static/js/message_list_view.js
@@ -939,7 +939,7 @@ MessageListView.prototype = {
             return false;
         }
 
-        if (!activity.has_focus) {
+        if (!activity.client_is_active) {
             // Don't autoscroll if the window hasn't had focus
             // recently.  This in intended to help protect us from
             // auto-scrolling downwards when the window is in the