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A 'has This Been Asked' Button


jay dh
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when a new topic is created, to have a button next to the topic title to try and match what the new topic is, this button would show any topics with the same or similar title

may cut down a lot on repeated topics

Jay

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thats a good idea - especially for new people who arnt used to the boards - and the first thing that they get is some snotty reply saying

'use the search function!'

I would be very put off by that if id just signed up!

So i think this would be useful to prompt them to use the search function in a nice way! ;)

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if people cant be bothered to search BEFORE they go through the effort of making a post, what on eart makes you think they will doi it afterwards?

and - if this was introduced - they have still made the post.

net gain - zero

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I agree with Matt regarding the button. I don't see how it would be any different to search and if people don't use that then they woudn't use the button.

Also, the forum is based on a standard Invision Power Board, so it's not that easy to add extra features unless Invision add them. IPB is by far the best board IMHO and I use it myself for other forums, but wouldn't try to customise it too much.

But your comment about newbies is a good one Tegan. Newbies don't know about search so they don't use it; then a comment about using search seems unwelcoming even though it wasn't meant that way. I try to at partially answer the question then suggest they use search to get more info.

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thats what i meant - when i first started using forums i didnt know what was 'acceptable' and a lot of others dont either , i didnt know what the search function was!

i think its very rude when people just say 'use the search function' , it gives the site a bad name and doesnt do anything to encourage people to come back!

Surely there has got to be another way to prompt them to use it

if they dont know about it how are they supposed to use it??! <_<

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but tegan - surely the problem is the existing members attitudes, and not the boards...

perhaps we should encorage the members when faced with a newbie asking a common question to be polite - perhaps mention the search function (in a nice way) and even provide links to an appropriate search or topic...

just my 2 cents...

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but tegan - surely the problem is the existing members attitudes, and not the boards...

perhaps we should encorage the members when faced with a newbie asking a common question to be polite - perhaps mention the search function (in a nice way) and even provide links to an appropriate search or topic...

just my 2 cents...

yes that is part of the problem, however a prompt before posting would cut out a lot of that situation altogether :yes:

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yes that is part of the problem, however a prompt before posting would cut out a lot of that situation altogether  :yes:

you would like thr forums to prompt you before every post "Have you searched for this" - every time?

that would drive people insane in 15 minutes

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give newbies a polite *nudge* on the search button

members with more than 10posts a general 'use the search'

a regular, 'ban em' :lol:

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but tegan - surely the problem is the existing members attitudes, and not the boards...

perhaps we should encorage the members when faced with a newbie asking a common question to be polite - perhaps mention the search function (in a nice way) and even provide links to an appropriate search or topic...

just my 2 cents...

That seems the most sensible way in my opinion too. :thumbsup:

Oh and Matt's right. You're positng about a new mod to your car and the forum software asks if you've performed a search to see if it's been posted before! :rolleyes:

It may as well ask you "have you gone senile?" or "are you a goldfish?"

No thanks.

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I agree with Tegan though and I've said this before, its just so incredibly rude to a new member to post a reasonable question and then get told to "Do a search", its just so discourteous and I cringe everytime I see it, because my way of thinking is, if that person is anything like me, then they wont come back again and we have just lost a member through sheer ignorance!

A post that says "Have you searched etc etc" I dont think would remedy it all, however I think people need to get off their high horses and actually be polite to newbies, maybe answer the question and politely put "This has been posted previously, might be an idea to do a search next time!"

It costs nothing to be polite in this world, just because you have 5000 posts does not make you smarter than someone who only has 1!

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yes that is part of the problem, however a prompt before posting would cut out a lot of that situation altogether  :yes:

you would like thr forums to prompt you before every post "Have you searched for this" - every time?

that would drive people insane in 15 minutes

No i want people to get off their high horses like Em said and actually 'think' before they post a nasty comment like 'do a search' and anything 'The management' could do to help this would be useful instead of thinking along the same lines!

Oh and Matt's right. You're positng about a new mod to your car and the forum software asks if you've performed a search to see if it's been posted before! 

It may as well ask you "have you gone senile?" or "are you a goldfish?"

did i say anything about regulars? erm no didnt think so :rolleyes:

iirc i said newbies ;)

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yes that is part of the problem, however a prompt before posting would cut out a lot of that situation altogether  :yes:

you would like thr forums to prompt you before every post "Have you searched for this" - every time?

that would drive people insane in 15 minutes

No i want people to get off their high horses like Em said and actually 'think' before they post a nasty comment like 'do a search' and anything 'The management' could do to help this would be useful instead of thinking along the same lines!

Oh and Matt's right. You're positng about a new mod to your car and the forum software asks if you've performed a search to see if it's been posted before! 

It may as well ask you "have you gone senile?" or "are you a goldfish?"

did i say anything about regulars? erm no didnt think so :rolleyes:

iirc i said newbies ;)

Yes, I know you did. The point I was making was that any poster would be subjected to the same feature (unless it was optional and would therefore be ignored by many... like the search feature itself!). So, a person posting for the first time ("Hi everyone, this is my first post here") would get the same "problem".

I'd still maintain that a polite recommendation to try a search would be better as Fidgits said. I usually just do the search myself and provide the links. Surely that's all it needs?

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From the first post though - jay suggested a 'has this been asked button' - so just having a button next to the other buttons surely couldnt annoy you?

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From the first post though - jay suggested a 'has this been asked button' - so just having a button next to the other buttons surely couldnt annoy you?

Oh, no, of course not, Tegan. I'm not sure how it would work though. It would have to be a pretty clever piece of software, with thesaurus and parsing to actually work. I think that's sometimes the problem when people have done a search and not found anything. So, they come back, ask the question and then get the "do a search" reply that, I think we all agree, is rude. What they search on is critical.

Just to show what I mean, I've just gone off and done a search for "+buzzing +dashboard" in the Yaris forum and the only result was my own "thank you" thread. I then tried "+ buzzing +windscreen". Same result, my own thread! This thread was a thank you for the help I'd received in other threads!

Only when I searched on "+rattling +windscreen" did it come up with three results and I'm pretty sure there were others.

Still, if it can be made to work, go for it.

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Is there any way we can remove the four character minimum on search terms?

I find that's a problem as quite a few terms like MR2, N/A, Mk2, Rev3 etc, etc simply can't be used.

I imagine the limit's imposed to reduce load on the server? In which case perhaps it can't be helped, but it would be nice if it could be changed.

Cheers, Tony

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yeah it can be annoying to find nothing when the search is done - i guess that down to the software etc - it might help to make the search function more usable - but that again is down to the technology - something i know very little about unfortunately :)

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the 4 character search is a restriction of the technology.

we use full text indexing, to allow rapid searching of the topic titles and bodies.

the DBMS itself then constrains the minimum search string to 4 characters

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the 4 character search is a restriction of the technology.

we use full text indexing, to allow rapid searching of the topic titles and bodies.

the DBMS itself then constrains the minimum search string to 4 characters

Thought that might be the case, but being only 50% geek I wasn't sure. :D

Oh well, worth a try.

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If a member can see that a post is by a newbie, then a polite nudge in the direction of the search tool can be helpful. I'll admit - I didn't even see/think of it when I first joined and getting flamed immeadiately was quite rude and gave me the wrong impression.

Rather than jump in and type "Use the Search tool" a quick search yourself and a link to the previous thread can be really helpful (Em, I know you do this somtimes) to new members and encourage an up to date discussion if the question wasn't answered originally.

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  • 1 month later...
if people cant be bothered to search BEFORE they go through the effort of making a post, what on eart makes you think they will doi it afterwards?

and - if this was introduced - they have still made the post.

net gain - zero

i forgot i did this post...

the idea is they click on the 'has this been asked before' button after they type in a title for a new post but before they complete and make the post.

and the one they started to write is kept underneath the results in case there is no match

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On other forums I use

Newbies weren't allowed to start new topics/threads ........ you could only reply to threads

And you had to reach a number of posts before you could post a new topic

This might help cut down on the number of new people asking the same questions again, as they will have to look for a relevent thread and ask there question in there if it hasn't already been answered!

Kills two birds with one stone!

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hmm, i think that could also backfire, it would have to be a very small amount of posts to make before being allowed to start a new one, probably about 5

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