Topic: opinion on 2 suggestions

Hello,

I'd like to know what the inmates think of the following suggestions.

* is it possible to put a Search form on the home of the Asylum ? That way, everybody will be more leaned to search for related threads than when the Search form is another click away. When we think of it, most websites have a search form on their homepage for a reason : people use them. I think it could be helpful on a forum like the Asylum.

* this idea comes from smonkey in Standards tips, so here goes the post I left there.

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smonkey said:
I think the next version of the asylum should have an automated 'related/relevant posts' feature so that in each thread it links to similar threads (making use the search indexes I would assume) - just a thought tho

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Wow! that's an excellent suggestion. All the the links to the related posts/thread could be at the bottom of the pages, in a separate DIV. These related posts/thread could also appear in the FAQ.

Actually, marking a link as "related post/thread" could be as easy as adding a * after the [ url ] UBB code. The problem of updating the "related post/thread" table when a post is added, edited or removed could be solved by using a counter, and updating it accordingly to the changes made in the post. And to delete the records once their counter hits zero.

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(Edited by poi on 08-20-2004 00:05)

The search form isn't a bad idea - where would we put it though?


As for the related links thing:
I don't get the url code thing... you can link with [ number ] or with ->linkword already.
And if you click a title, it finds all (up to 50 or so max) asylum pages that link to that page.
That works for threads, faqs, patient files (useful to find a user's latest posts).

How would you expect the system to actually find the related pages around here?

so long

->Tyberius Prime

Glad to see that after all the work done, you're still open to suggestions.

For the (Quick) Search form I thought to something like :



I fear I've been unclear about the related links Actually, these links would be added by the inmates themselves.
To make the whole process smooth for them I suggested to add an optionnal parameter ( a star, to notify the particular interrest of that url ) at the end of the [ threadId ] UBB tag. On server side when a message is modified, the [ threadId ]* UBB tags will be added in an associative table to keep track of related threads. That table could be helpful in several places : of course in the threads themselves, but also in the FAQ to give more pointers and show which threads are related to the ones already given in the FAQ, and finally in the Search results to weigh the results ( a bit like a PageRank ) and guide the user to similar threads.

So ? did I failled to explain the concept one more time ?

I think so... I don't see how this is majorly different from the current 'back link' thing.
Hit the title, see what links here (and therefore obviously is related, somehow).

PS: wouldn't it be confusing to have to things labled 'search' in the same row?

(Edited by Tyberius Prime on 08-21-2004 00:52)

Thanks to GreaseMonkey : site-specific (DHTML) extension for Mozilla, the tiny Search form is available.

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Tyberius Prime said:

PS: wouldn't it be confusing to have to things labled 'search' in the same row?

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I am inclined to agree. Personally, I think it begins to clutter a very clean and balanced page. But, I am a very big fan of simplicity.