Off Topic Indexing System

[maziwanka]

there's a lot of interesting and perhaps random threads in this forum but i was thinking (and this may have been already suggested) that ppl should post threads in a systematic way so that searching can be a lot easier.

its kinda similar to how people use YAGT or YACT, but we could make them a bit more complex but still intuitive. that way you can search for topics like [News][Middle East] etc. before making a post to see if it was a repost.

i havent thought of how to go through with this in too much detail, but there are a ton of programmers on this site and i think we could all come up with something useful.

the key though, is to make it simple and useful (something where you don't have to scroll through an entire list of codes in order to post a thread).

if this had already been thought of and shot down, then all good. i guess im just slow to these things. i just hate the search feature and it's still buggy.

edit: what about putting the tags in the Topic Summary? less of a change and seems to fit in there more.

edit 2: maybe another (better?) idea is to refine a list of categories (this would take some time) and have tags implemented in the next version of these forums (applied to ATOT, obviously). that way we could have index searching, etc. i'm not a programmer and i have no real experience in fusetalk development, but im just thinking of ideas.

 

[neutralizer]

You mean like tags/keywords for each topic?

 

[mugs]

That would be nice, but it wouldn't work because it would require effort.

 

[maziwanka]

Originally posted by: neutralizer
You mean like tags/keywords for each topic?

yea. like for YAGT [YAGT], but there would be levels.

example from OP:

[News][ME] - 3 dead after bombing

or

[Religion][Christianity] - why does everyone hate on christianity.

i dunno, something like that - so that searching would be much easier.

 

[maziwanka]

Originally posted by: mugs
That would be nice, but it wouldn't work because it would require effort.

touche mugs, but is it really that much harder to write [YAGT] instead of YAGT?

also, there are so many yagt, they could be broken down into subcategories...

i mean there are a ton of possibilities (again, we would have to keep it simple so its intuitive).

 

[dullard]

The fact is, that people here are lazy / drunk / arrogant / high / rude / etc when posting. You'll never get more than a handful of people to select the correct tags. The rest will purposely choose the incorrect tags or whatever is the default tag.

Then you'll get 100,000 copies of Nik stating that each thread in Off Topic is in the wrong sub-category. Every other post would be about the incorrect sub-category, about the like/dislike of the sub-categories, or about defending the sub-category it is listed under. It is like the "wrong forum" replies but 100 times worse.

In an ideal world, at best it may be a semi-useful search aid.

At worst, we'll have tons of problems, no one following the terms, a search that still doesn't work well, and fragmentation of the Anandtech forums. It is bad enough with all the forums we have now. If you don't know exactly what the thread is about, you get a more mixed audience reading the thread. I like a more mixed audience; it promotes better and more responses. Heck, as it is I click and read many threads that I know I wouldn't under your system. I'd confine myself into just a narrow band. That is just human nature.

Instead, lets just have the Anandtech search function work properly! The "title and body" actually means "Body and NOT title". Thus, the search is basically useless. A simple programming change should be done to fix the logic or at least label it correctly.

 

[minendo]

Originally posted by: dullard
Instead, lets just have the Anandtech search function work properly! The "title and body" actually means "Body and NOT title". Thus, the search is basically useless. A simple programming change should be done to fix the logic or at least label it correctly.

The advanced search is useless as well. Damn thing has not indexed in months.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: minendo
The advanced search is useless as well. Damn thing has not indexed in months.

I was talking about the advanced search. I never use anything but the advanced search because the simple search is even worse.

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: minendo

Originally posted by: dullard
Instead, lets just have the Anandtech search function work properly! The "title and body" actually means "Body and NOT title". Thus, the search is basically useless. A simple programming change should be done to fix the logic or at least label it correctly.

The advanced search is useless as well. Damn thing has not indexed in months.

Fusetalk's search function has always been subpar, but now it's pretty much useless.