Search vs Index

J_Mac wrote on 8/21/2003, 12:42 PM
I apologize if this has been posted previosly but, having been a daily lurker in this forum, you notice repeat posts on the same topics, with accurate responses from many of the same responders, with the same responses. For example, doing a Search returns; plug in =15815 posts,; plug= 4969 posts; free plug in=596 posts. Unfortunately many previous posts do not provide the specific info someone may be looking for, i.e., where can I get free plug ins. The mere volume of Search hits (index=461), almost encourages the seemingly wasteful repeat posting of a question posted just a few days ago, because time is valuable to each of us and it is easier to post and get e response, then spend your weekend reading hundreds of posts hoping to locate your answer. It's human nature. I'm not talking about refining search, through better phrasing etc., but wondering about an Index system that would reduce the info to its essence somehow, make it more readily available, and increasing the speed and efficiency of retreiving the info from the vast common knowledge contributed to this forum thus far. Like Steve Covey preaches, begin with the end in mind. How to get there, I don't have the talent, or skill. Any ideas, or thoughts? John

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 8/21/2003, 2:12 PM
Its a common problem in forums and newsgroups. People claim they 'don't have time' to search, yet the same people expect someone who already has answered the question fifty times before, to waste their time to answer again JUST FOR THEM. Ditto for reading the manual or using the online help, most people rather not.

Perhaps a FAQ would be helpful, then again maybe not. Same problem. If a FAQ is too brief and only answers a handful of the most common problems it is of little benefit. If you make the FAQ comprehensive then you'll get the "I don't have the time to read it excuse" again.

Been there done that. Several years back I spent a couple of months putting together one of the most comprehensive FAQ's on HTML Authoring. It was about 180K, just text. It got lots of hits, and I got lots of emails asking the same questions covered in the FAQ, which told me human nature being what it is, people rather ask then research themselves.

The trouble with indexing a forum with thousands of threads is you're going to get a lot of chaff with the wheat, so same old problem.

Maybe you're not aware that SoFo does have some articles they've written in house. Scroll up to the top under support, check out Knowledgebase.

One possible solution would be a a seach engine that sorts the returns in a weighted format so hopefully most of the time the order of the hits returned has the most appropriate answers at the top. Such systems can be done, takes lots of work and time, but there is some software out there that can help a lot.

An example of such a system is below. Just enter firewire and see how the responses are ranked.

http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/common/search.html