Please do a search

I have noticed that lately there seems to be an abundance of duplicate threads popping up, due to the fact that people dont bother to do a search or dont refine the search enough to find the threads.

There was a thread that was started the other day that had 5 duplicate threads. I mean thats really a waste of time and resources on the board.

Please guys take the time to do a search, its incredibly frusterating for the people who have been here for a while to see the same threads pop up all the time, and very confronting for a newbie to be told to do a search.

Thanks!! Youse rock

there should be a window that pops up when they press the 'New Thread' button

Have you done a search?
|Yes|.........|No|

If they click no then they are Not Allowed and taken to the search page.

Of course then that'd be interfering with the silliness and game threads if people are honest and after a while people would get used to the reminder and just click yes automaticly. Something would be good though. An extra search button beside the new thread typing box perhaps (I know there's one right at the top of the page but people get used to thier homey web architecture. Even an arrow to it might help.)

This post makes me want to start a new thread telling people to do searches. Just to annoy you, Valura. *giggles*

Nah I'm kidding. Well said

Yo.

If there was some clever script writer, instead of having a "have you done a search yes/no" frame - a quick auto-search on your proposed thread title would be cool. Say you wrote a title called "How do I get green fire?" then it could automatically run a search and point out the top 3 relevant results saying "do these answer your question?"

But yes - do a search kids. It keeps us old-skoolers happy

*giggles* well done flid, well done *pats flid on the back*

What would help a lot more for people doing searches for topics is if the people posting the threads put titles on the threads that were actually about what is in them rather than cryptic titles.

i do agree in general do a search, and it can be a little anoying seeing the same threads pop up over an over again, but this community has been around for years and their are sooo many new people joining every week, so an old topic to us may be a nu one to someone else, in short if your asking for advice on sonthing do a search, if it is a topic of intrest ehy not bring it up.
This hole militant do a search thing can be precieved as unfriendly and unwelcoming.
Well thats what i think anyway

I agree with Skully, cryptic titles sometimes suck. I've done so many, many searches on this site into glow poi and glow toys to find reviews and info, but I'm sure there must be more on this site about it I haven't seen because the threads don't always fit into the search criteria. Grumble grumble.

I've been tempted a few times to start a new, definitive thread for glow toys to pull all the info into one place, but don't want to annoy anyone so I haven't.

I feel like this is one of those things that those who'd be guilty of it wouldn't pay attention.

Like those signs in front of open doors that say "Please go around and enter the building though the security checkpoint."

Hey, what kind of music do you all listen to?

*ducks and runs*

It's acutally even more annoying because now, when someone DOES do a search, they'll get this AND every other redundant thread.

If some poor soul does a search on C*lored Flames, they'll get 3000 redundant threads.

I personally think excessively redundant threads should be deleted so they don't end up in the search engine.

We've all made that mistake at some point, including myself. I wouldn't have a problem if one of my mistakenly redundant threads was deleted.

But I'm wacky that way...

everyone that makes a thread about searching uses the colored flames example. I think you should be original and use a different example, that way you will always find a thread about searching when your searching.

I've found that the search function is really bad at resurrecting the thread I want, though...

some kind of site policy on 'good threads' would be nice, even if there was no duplicate check installed on new posts.

simian's tangles thread was an excellent example of what could be done but for it to be of any use to those searching for information, i think it needs to be supported more.

like having sticky threads for searches, or even better a 'common searches' thread made sticky at the top of each section.

if i knew that my work would be preserved, i would happily construct some threads collecting together the useful links about a particular subject but as it stands, effort like that is quickly lost to the boards and finding even threads that just contain good links requires a good search with correct use of accurate search terms (i.e. they are just as hard to find as the others if you don't already know that it is there).

but i realise these ideas require changes to the site or at the very least, a definite change in the organisation of the threads in the forums and that is for the site admin to decide, not us.


cole. x

I was thinking that would be effective as well.

Back in the day we started doing articles but haven't seen many of those lately.

You can lead a horse to water but apparently, you can't make him do a search before posting.

Put them in the staff moves section, no-one ever posts in there anyway so they'll stay at the top

Could we have posts like that added as replies to Dom's Welcome and FAQ stickied thread?
I'm not keen on the idea of having them all sticked because we'd end up with loads of them, but having them all in an obvious and easily found place would be great.