Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! - Printable Version
-Shoutbox (https://shoutbox.menthix.net)
+-- Forum: MsgHelp Archive (/forumdisplay.php?fid=58)
+--- Forum: General (/forumdisplay.php?fid=11)
+---- Forum: Forum & Website (/forumdisplay.php?fid=13)
+----- Thread: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! (/showthread.php?tid=22852)
Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by MC Inferno on 03-20-2004 at 06:13 PM
How many times have you asked someone to have a look first? Let's face it, they cant be arsed, and will never be, so what we should do, is delete the thread an send them an PM to tell them its on the forum's already but dont tell them where. THEN it would give them incentive to look first, becuase it would be a waste of time to ask without haing a look!
Just a thought 
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by Mnjul on 03-20-2004 at 06:20 PM
If people don't want to help others and search the things for them, then just don't bother 
Some new comer do come out of their way to stir us up but they are the minority... (If so, why wouldn't we just set up a support database then, huh? 
)
Incidentally, all you act somewhat represents part of MsgPlus Community
That's my opinion
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by Kryptonate on 03-20-2004 at 06:21 PM
Wouldn't be verry friendly, don't you think? This forum is here to help, even if the questions were already asked before, it's not a big deal if they ask a question that's been asked before, but it is when the same question is asked over and over again in a short period of time 
. Deleting the thread and PM'ing them to say the question has already been asked before takes much longer time and more effort then just telling them in the thread to use "Search"
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by Johnny_Mac on 03-20-2004 at 06:58 PM
Haha... why not delete all the msgplus parts and just leave the spam while we're at it? If you don't like looking at it don't read the help titled threads. FFS. 
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by Anubis on 03-20-2004 at 07:11 PM
You'll find most of the post titles have nothing to do with the problem (eg. URGENT HELP and stuff like that) so while searching you can come across anything that has nothing to do with the problem. And remember the primary function of this forum is to help people.
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by musicalmidget on 03-21-2004 at 11:35 PM
quote:
Originally posted by MC Inferno
Delete the thread an send them an PM to tell them its on the forum's already but dont tell them where. THEN it would give them incentive to look first, becuase it would be a waste of time to ask without haing a look!
Or alternatively they could be driven away from a seemingly unfriendly Messenger Plus! Community, find now solution to their problem and uninstall Messenger Plus! completely.
Not a good idea.
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by Vantage on 03-22-2004 at 01:06 AM
look be a god comunuer forum dude a give them the thread and stfu
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by dotNorma on 03-22-2004 at 03:26 AM
If we delete their threads than eventually when people look for posts they wont find it , lol If you want to do something about it I'd make a page with links to threads with answers to frequant questions
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by chungster on 03-22-2004 at 04:33 AM
well its kinda hard to find some threads because the thread searcher is crap
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by WDZ on 03-22-2004 at 04:38 AM
It's a hell of a lot better than some forum search features I've seen...
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by Fraisie on 03-22-2004 at 04:57 AM
I think the search engine is fine the way it is
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by Patchou on 03-22-2004 at 05:37 AM
I agree on the fact that the forum primary function is to help people. Please, do not yell at people to search before they post; helping is repeating the same thing everyday, with a smile . And I don't have anything against the search.. at least, it works, not like in a lot of forums.
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by chungster on 03-22-2004 at 02:14 PM
well the forum searcher comes up with some things that have nothing to do with what you searched for
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by Wabz on 03-22-2004 at 05:15 PM
quote:
Originally posted by chungster
well the forum searcher comes up with some things that have nothing to do with what you searched for
I assume it searches posts for key words so unless your specific in your search you will get random stuff !!
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by WDZ on 03-23-2004 at 03:34 AM
quote:
Originally posted by chungster
well the forum searcher comes up with some things that have nothing to do with what you searched for
Of course it does... so does Google, but it has very advanced ways of sorting the results so the relevant ones are on top...
My search feature looks for the keywords you entered; same as any other search feature. If a post contains the keywords, it's a result.
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by chungster on 03-23-2004 at 05:56 AM
ya but when i search i usually search for an old thread and it doesnt come up with the thread i wanted jsut posts that have those words in it
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by Weyzza on 03-23-2004 at 06:24 AM
WDZ, can you make the minimum word length in searching to 3?
You know it is impossible to search words like "tab" and "ink."
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by chungster on 03-23-2004 at 06:31 AM
quote:and let us search msn
Originally posted by thekid
WDZ, can you make the minimum word length in searching to 3?
You know it is impossible to search words like "tab" and "ink."
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by Weyzza on 03-23-2004 at 06:35 AM
quote:
Originally posted by chungster
and let us search msn
i know that if one searches "msn," s/he will find a huge bunch of threads
but, does it matter?
people won't simply search "msn" in this forum
maybe dz can filter it
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by chungster on 03-23-2004 at 06:37 AM
maybe... but anyway the bandwith of the forums would be a lot higher if you search 3 letter words but then again i might be wrong.....
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by Johnny_Mac on 03-23-2004 at 07:36 PM
Bandwidth? 
Server load maybe.
The load would heavily be increased, however i'm inclided to agree; it'd be useful.
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by WDZ on 03-23-2004 at 09:38 PM
The issue is server load... if people could search for certain small strings, they'd get half the posts on the board as results... The search is one of the most server-intensive features of the board, so I want it to be limited.
The keyword length limit is an idea stolen from other forum search scripts.
Perhaps we should have a big list of useful/popular threads, all organized into categories, all on one page. The user could scroll through, or do a Ctrl+F, to find what they want. Anything they can't find on the list could be searched for. It would be "cleaner" than having tons of sticky threads. 4 stickies per forum is like the maximum, IMO.
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by KeyStorm on 03-23-2004 at 09:48 PM
Then simply look for "msn ". Done!
Hope this "bug" is not taken in consideration...
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by WDZ on 03-23-2004 at 10:01 PM
Whatever. 
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by Wabz on 03-23-2004 at 10:44 PM
quote:
Originally posted by WDZ
The issue is server load... if people could search for certain small strings, they'd get half the posts on the board as results...
The keyword length limit is an idea stolen from other forum search scripts.
Perhaps we should have a big list of useful/popular threads, all organized into categories, all on one page. The user could scroll through, or do a Ctrl+F, to find what they want. Anything they can't find on the list could be searched for. It would be "cleaner" than having tons of sticky threads. 4 stickies per forum is like the maximum, IMO.
Erm well perhaps some sort of FAQ question page ? Some Kind of seperate Forum with a modified page view. Or perhaps something where you can do a slowly refined search from a database . i.e. Is your query to do with the Sponsor, A Msgplus Feature, or Other Messenger related Query.
Well that proberly makes no sense to anyone but me but if ya get what I mean it'll proberly work quite well
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by KeyStorm on 03-23-2004 at 10:58 PM
I'll think the best way to improve searches is to search threads and sort the by relevance (ammount of matching posts in a thread / total posts in the thread). And, if it's a recursive query (like in the example) show announcements and sticky threads at the top of the results list. The secondary sort method would be relevance (as said before) and the tertiary (or w/e) the date/time.
Searching "sponsor" would return:
1.
http://shoutbox.menthix.net/showthread.php?tid=17940
2. [any sticky about sponsor program]
3. Descending importance,
I'd suggest to add this support-search by default and make it possible to switch back to default DESC-Date search.
Just an idea... again
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by Johnny_Mac on 03-24-2004 at 12:47 AM
quote:2 Is messy, 4 is ridiculous.
Originally posted by WDZ
4 stickies per forum is like the maximum, IMO.
quote:Wouldnt Patchous FAQ's be the solution to this, so that we can just post that link. And it adds to the already answered questions.
Originally posted by Wabz
Erm well perhaps some sort of FAQ question page ?
quote:Just from seeing this mybboard forums tuff develop I kinda have the impression the search feature has been a grey area. The devbb was way to buggy even to use. WDZ's search is good however it seems whichones is used it uses a lot of bandwidth. I don't think its as simple as re-coding the search feature itself. Maybe a solution the cause is a better form of attack?
Originally posted by KeyStorm
I'll think the best way to improve searches is to search threads and sort the by relevance (ammount of matching posts in a thread / total posts in the thread).
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by KeyStorm on 03-24-2004 at 01:18 PM
It shouldn't be easy to attack if programmed safely and paying attention to all user-inputs (like any responsible programmer should do ).
Accepting only alphanumerical chars and readig them directly from the POST_VARS header, should be enough to prevent any attack, afaik.
As for support searches I would suggest for instance not to search in T&T (it's not much data, but it is a slightly bigger haystack to search indeed) And only show the 20 most relevant threads. I think this would lower b/w along with with the fact not showing posts, but whole threads. This would dramatically decrease b/w usage (although increasing server load a bit) and would be more useful for support.
Tbh, if you look for uninstalling sponsor and the first thing you find is this post... It's not very useful. So better search by threads so we can make sure the first result will be enough.
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by CookieRevised on 03-24-2004 at 05:00 PM
The search function is good enough as it is.
The 3-character limit isn't that big of a problem at all. It only is for some special/rare cases. But then again you can use some tricks: for example instead of ink -> "ink "
Search results highly depends on what you search for. In my experience, many people search for the wrong thing, either too specific, or too non-specific.
Limiting search result to latest x threads is very bad. Many topics are old and in old threads.
Sorting on relevance/importance isn't possible without a quoting system for each post. Even then, this kind of system isn't fail-proof.
Using the Patchou's FAQ is good if it was constantly updated. Even so, it doesn't contain many plus! related problems, or isn't detailed enough for the complete n00b. Also, this messageboard contains more then just the specific plus! stuff...
Even in T&T there are (sometimes) things that you want to search for.
Creating a big FAQ is very very intensive work. Although it will be a solution for many people. But it needs to be maintained constantly by very responsible and organised people (and not too many people) who also know a lot about all the problems given and have the time to test/verify/comment/etc... Creating/maintaining such a faq is a full-time job. Don't underestimate it...
EDIT: also see http://shoutbox.menthix.net/showthread.php?tid=24...d=240412#pid240412
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by WDZ on 03-24-2004 at 05:10 PM
Hmm... 
Maybe have a "show results as" option? If set to "posts," behave exactly as it does now. If set to "threads," only show one result per thread and sort the results by how many posts within the thread match the search criteria?
I could probably* make that... sound good?
* Haven't fully planned it in my head yet, so dunno if there will be problems...
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by WDZ on 03-24-2004 at 05:13 PM
* WDZ reads Cookie's post and says
* WDZ leaves this thread.
RE: Ppl always asking questions that have been asked! by CookieRevised on 03-24-2004 at 06:37 PM
quote:Sounds very good, although sorting the results by how many posts within the thread matched (when searching for threads) should be an additional option in the sortlist then. Because for example I like to sort the search results in order of date (even with the threads).
Originally posted by WDZ
Maybe have a "show results as" option? If set to "posts," behave exactly as it does now. If set to "threads," only show one result per thread and sort the results by how many posts within the thread match the search criteria?
Maybe another feature would be searching within the search results, to narrow down the search? But then again, you can repeat the search with a keyword added... so... hmmm... never mind this...
quote:What's that suppose to mean?
Originally posted by WDZ
* WDZ reads Cookie's post and says
You not like?quote:Oi, come back
Originally posted by WDZ
* WDZ leaves this thread.