How to help HOP provide better search results

Dear all,

I have added a rating system (previously hidden)
So users who have over 50 posts themselves can rate a thread.

I ask that those people should visit threads that they think are informative or very informative and rate them highly. Best to highly rate the information page rather than a thread that has multiple links to other pages.

If you come across a thread that should be deleted please either click the notify moderator button for immediate removal or rate the thread as "bad" so it can be automatically removed by a program I will write later.

The rating selector can be found at the bottom of the page just below the "Extra information" area or just above the quick reply form.
Also in the "Extra information" box is printed the current rating of the page (the Average of everyones votes).

The following forums have been exclude from the rating system
"Social Chat" and "Introduction"
Deleting old "Social Chat" threads will also happen once they have not been replied to in a long time.

My next project is a change to the post new thread page.
Page one will ask for a title of their thread
Page two will search topics that have an informative or very informative rating which have a similar topic
then display those results
with suggestion for the user to first check those threads before continuing to make a new thread.
below that will be the usual post new thread forms etc

I will not implement for a while until there are enough ratings in the system.

Hope that all makes sense and thanks for all the help and suggestions in making HOP a better place.

Regards

Malcolm

Oh Malcolm! you clever clogs!

And Malcolm there has been a thread about doing searches already, maybe you should do a search

Thanks for your endearing patience on this topic

could i suggest to speed up searches having several rated lists for common terms such as

contact staff
3bt weave/3 beat weave/3 bt weave (and other such variations all falling under the same category)
lynx
mullen
hyperloop
wibble
steve/steves move
glow staff
coloured flames

etc etc

this would also make it simpler for searching to see if a new post has already been answered by searching for matching keywords in the post made with the lists of highly rated posts.

when new terms are formalised a mod could click an add term button so that a new list is generated

having key terms would make it possible to write a script to search and match existing threads for mergining/deleting purposes rather than having to do it manually.

what would be cool for increasing the articles section is a sticky thread at the top of the page for discussion clarification video links etc of a topic which then gets edited into an article and the sticky then deleted. im sure theres more than enough ppl who would be happy to do it, also this would mean that commonly asked questions could then be linked to the correct article by the title search for new posts, with the added bonus of newbies being able to find the information they want without have to sift through all the other random social comments

I've found a UBB template for the FAQ online.

Should have an example by the end of the day (it being 4:30am now, and time to sleep) I'll have a go at adding stuff on the rating system as far as I'm able.

can i also suggest moving the thread rating bit to above where the quick reply is so that everyone who doesnt read this post will see it as if i hadnt read this thread i wouldnt have noticed it

Benjamen,
Great ideas

Just thinking that people might not know what "OK" means.
Especiallly if english is not a first language (like me)
Better alternative to OK?

Excellent work Malcolm.

ratings systems rock and are a direct approach to that problematic info overload that you kinda get on the internet or during a medical procedure.

Wonderful

oooh!!! power!!!!



just kidding.........

thank-you malcolm - excellent solution




cole. x

Great work Malcolm, thanks

I think ok is quite international so it should be fine.

My suggestion would be to encourage people to write out the words in the title cause when I was a newbie on here I was quite confused by btb ttn and stuff like that even though I could do some of them; I'd NEVER have searched for abbreviations and would've double-posted instead.

This thread is 'Very informative.'

woot
excellent idea

Thanks Malcolm!

Thanks! Will make life a lot easier. I agree about the abreviations, they can bo very confusing!

Great idea

Beutiful idea! I'll rate this thread as "Very informative"