Forums > Social Discussion > How to help HOP provide better search results
Login/Join to ParticipateHoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom
Oh Malcolm! you clever clogs!
An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind
Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife
"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian
HoP's Barman. Trapped aged 6 months
4,437 posts
Location: Staines, United Kingdom
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
An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind
Give a man a fish and he'll eat 4 a day hit a man with a brick and you can have all his fish and his wife
"Will's to pretty for prison" - Simian
just lost .... evil init
2,474 posts
Location: Adelaide, Australia
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
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourself, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous and talented? Who are you NOT to be?
veteran
1,228 posts
Location: on the wrong planet, United Kingdom
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.
You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.
Green peppers, lime pickle and whole-grain mustard = best sandwich filling.
just lost .... evil init
2,474 posts
Location: Adelaide, Australia
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
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourself, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous and talented? Who are you NOT to be?
comfortably numb
2,676 posts
Location: The countryside, Australia
Excellent work Malcolm.
.All things are beautiful if we take the time to look.
still can't believe it's not butter
6,978 posts
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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.
Laugh Often, Smile Much, Post lolcats Always
15,417 posts
Location: South Wales
Written by: malcolm
Just thinking that people might not know what "OK" means.
Especiallly if english is not a first language (like me)
I always thought that "ok", "bigmac" and "coca-cola" were the world most widely recognised words.
my bad... Malcolm:
EDITED_BY: Unnamed Cutie On Front (1117196499)
3,638 posts
Location: Brum / Dorset / Fairy Land
Wonderful
Geologists do it in the dirt................ 
enthusiast, but not enthusiastic
367 posts
Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
oooh!!! power!!!!
just kidding.........
You can't fall off the floor, but sometimes you need a chair to reach the cookie jar.
big and good and broken
7,330 posts
Location: lunn dunn, yoo kay, United Kingdom
thank-you malcolm - excellent solution
cole. x
"i see you at 'dis cafe.
i come to 'dis cafe quite a lot myself.
they do porridge."
- tim westwood
had her carpal tunnel surgery already thanks v much
4,145 posts
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland (UK)
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.
"vices are like genitals - most are ugly to behold, and yet we find that our own are dear to us."
(G.W. Dahlquist)
Owner of Dragosani's left half
HOP Mad Doctor
13,925 posts
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA
This thread is 'Very informative.'
-Mike
Certified Mad Doctor and HoP High Priest of Nutella
A buckuht n a hooze! -Valura
Carpal \'Tunnel
6,942 posts
Location: London, UK
woot
excellent idea
back
9,232 posts
Location: NYC, NY, USA
Thanks Malcolm!
Well, shall we go?
Yes, let's go.
[They do not move.]
with added berries
1,365 posts
Location: Manchester, England (UK)
Thanks! Will make life a lot easier. I agree about the abreviations, they can bo very confusing!
Great idea
Live like there is no tomorrow,
dance like nobody is watching
and hula hoop like wiggling will save the world.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,136 posts
Location: Warwickshire, United Kingdom
Written by: Malcolm
Deleting old "Social Chat" threads will also happen once they have not been replied to in a long time.
Is this a disk space issue or to speed up/stop them showing in searches? If it's todo with searches, can you just disable it by default when searching all forums?
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,533 posts
Location: Hampshire College, MA, USA
Beutiful idea! I'll rate this thread as "Very informative"
-James
"How do you know if you're happy or sad without a mask? Or angry? Or ready for dessert?"
just lost .... evil init
2,474 posts
Location: Adelaide, Australia
maybe instead of having
ok
incorrect
not useful
infomration
very informative
having
5 - Very informative
4 - Informative
3 - Useful
2 - Not useful
1 - Incorrect
that way by rating the options in order it will be more intuitive to people who speak less english and dont understand all the words.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourself, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous and talented? Who are you NOT to be?
old hand
845 posts
Location: Adelaide, Australia
But Ben, what about all the other words which didn't make it onto your list?
Slicing the Loaf as we speak.
I need it..... Trust me!
*slou?
6,555 posts
Location: Adelaide, Australia
i thought i was going mad when i saw that before.. thinking.. "i swear that wasn't there before.."
good idea Malcom!
Returning to a unique state of Equilibrium
3,289 posts
Location: Adelaide, South Australia
positive forward looking Pyro: nice work Malcolm! and good suggestion about the sticky index posts Cole - that sounds like a good idea.
Bitter Pyro: so years ago I was shouted down for being a 'do a search or else it will stuff up the search engine fascist'. People are now whinging about the lack of relevance in the search engine. Yeah good one guys. And now that Ive relaxed a bit on the duplicate posts thing (although Ive locked and deleted several of these in the past two weeks) we are being told we arent doing our jobs. Which way do you want it guys? more moderation and less freedom? or more freedom and less moderation? either way the mods cop it.
--
Help! My personality got stuck in this signature machine and I cant get it out!
Carpal \'Tunnel
3,533 posts
Location: Hampshire College, MA, USA
Can I just ask a question really quick?
What exactly does this rating system do? I can see what I rated a thread, but I can't see what anybody else rated it. Is that someplace I missed? Does it affect the order of the search results?
-James
"How do you know if you're happy or sad without a mask? Or angry? Or ready for dessert?"
Self-Flagellation Expert
3,414 posts
Location: Bogged at CG, Australia
are threads that are already old going to be deleted as well? It'd probably help things if all the locked threads like the music ones, coloured flames and such were fully deleted automatically.
"beg beg grovel beg grovel"
"master"
--FSA
"There was an arse there, i couldn't help myself"
--Rougie
with added berries
1,365 posts
Location: Manchester, England (UK)
I agree, I think there are quite a lot of threads lurking that could do with deleting, although I don't know how you could do it automatically. But then I don't really know about these things.
To the mods - don't worry about the things people say, you do a grand job that the majority fully appreciate, just remeber, you can't please all of the people, all of the time!
Sparky- no you're not meant to see other peoples results, the ratings are just to establish which threads are relavent and which aren't so the most relavent and useful ones will come up when searching and the repeats and uninformative ones can be removed. That is how I understand it anyway. You are meant to be able to see how you rated the thread however, it will appear where the submit once was.
I have a question, how do you report a post when you find a repeat or one in the wrong place? Is there no easy button to do this, or would that cause too many problems, maybe you could only let those with a certain number of posts to do it, like the ratings thing.
Also good call on the fire topics thing- changing it to 1000 views, its much more sensible, instead of every topic having it! (although a bit depressing to see all the flames have gone from my threads!
) edit-on second thoughts, maybe take the 1000 down to 500, as its abit excessive and its only really the social chat games and introductions that seem to get flames, or even 700 or something -edit-one last thing, is there anyway of having another button, where you can rate a thread at the same time as posting, as its really fustrating to type a message, rate the topic and then loose what you've just written (I keep forgetting about it otherwise), and most people will return to the forum, rather than view their post, so are less likley to rate the topic. Just a thought.
Feel free to disregard the above as neccesary!
EDITED_BY: pricklyleaf (1117498459)
Live like there is no tomorrow,
dance like nobody is watching
and hula hoop like wiggling will save the world.
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
9,232 posts
Location: NYC, NY, USA
Written by: MiG
are threads that are already old going to be deleted as well? It'd probably help things if all the locked threads like the music ones, coloured flames and such were fully deleted automatically.
Or maybe have the default search engine "Search Unlocked Threads".
Thanks again Malcolm!
Well, shall we go?
Yes, let's go.
[They do not move.]
9,232 posts
Location: NYC, NY, USA
Wait, I'm confused, what does rating a thread do?
I think it'd be helpful if the rating showed up when someone does a search.
I just searched "Colored Flames" and, of course, got a ton of threads. If I could see the ratings, I could go to a good one first. Maybe the search engine could sort by rating.
Just throwing stuff out there because I'm excited by the good ideas.
Well, shall we go?
Yes, let's go.
[They do not move.]
just lost .... evil init
2,474 posts
Location: Adelaide, Australia
nice idea nyc, i think it might take a while for the rating system to be effective with the results it gives, as only a few threads would have recieved ratings so far. from what i understand the threads where rated before by mods/malcolm but we couldnt see it so those ratings that have been made probably wont have had much of an effect yet.
this does pose an interesting problem with new relevant threads not showing up on the search engine if they havnt been rated much but have fallen off the threads on the first page displayed (i for one dont read more than the first page) perhaps the rating on the search engine could be a function of time?
maybe all the old ratings need to be reset?
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourself, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous and talented? Who are you NOT to be?
Self-Flagellation Expert
3,414 posts
Location: Bogged at CG, Australia
perhaps if a thread is new (< a month old, or something), and unrated, then it should go at the top?
Or, better, have two columns- rated threads, by rating, and unrated threads, by time or something.
"beg beg grovel beg grovel"
"master"
--FSA
"There was an arse there, i couldn't help myself"
--Rougie
9,232 posts
Location: NYC, NY, USA
Another random idea...
Have only a few people have access to the rating system.
I don't care if it's me and others or not me and others. There are plenty of people who's opinion I'd trust.
Maybe a "Moderator Approved!" stamp on the title... or "Durbs Recommended" or even a "Veteran's Suggested Thread"... whatever...
I think I'd feel comfortable rating the c*lored flames threads and the hula hooping threads whereas obviously someone else would cover the staff threads.
I'm all for anything which helps but doesn't make more work for the mods.
Well, shall we go?
Yes, let's go.
[They do not move.]
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