Search then ask ..

[mw3230]

Is it just me becoming a little less tolerant or is there a growing tendency for people to ask questions on the forum as a first step to finding the information, assistance, product, route or whatever it is they want, rather than conducting a couple of straightforward searches on the forum itself and perhaps Google (where the information sought is all to readily available)

Just wondered ..

[Mick F]

I think there is a growing tenancy, but this is commensurate with the number of members we have and also, the amount of threads and subjects.

I wonder whether the sheer size of this forum is swamping out the newbies' questions?

We have over 11,000 members and 24,000 topics. These numbers are growing steadily. Are we victims of our own success?

[Si]

Yes, in the olden days, when we were all still whipper-snappers, there was a lot less info held on the forum, so an question was much less likely to be a repeat of previous ones.

But yes, it can be a bit annoying when the same question comes up time and again - I know that these people are new and unused to the forum so don't mean any harm by it, but it's only human nature that you can get a bit tired of giving the same answer over and over again, or repeatedly doing the search for the old threads and adding linking them into the new one (luckily TC's encyclopedic knowledge of the forum does this for us quite often )

From a mod's point of view it's also a little trying when the same topic is running over more than one thread or more than one board as this just leads to people returning to the other thread and thinking that the mods have removed their comments (which are still happily where they left them on the first thread) and then getting all upset about it. Hence I know that I might seem overly fussy about keeping topics to one thread, but there is a good reason for it - it's less work and agro for us

[mw3230]

I might be expecting too much of the technology here but if I was to carry out a search on Google, as I type I am offered suggestions based, I guess, on the information Google knows it has access to (or perhaps on previous searches). Is it possible that the forum could be developed in a similar way so that the input of certain search terms into the subject field or the search box would generate pointers to already existing threads, possibly answering the posters' questions.

There must be IT type members who can throw some light on this?

Mick - 24,000 different topics or 24,000 threads many of which are duplicates? In any case the statistics you provided highlight the point, thanks

[Edwards]

Also some of the new people might think asking a question a good way of beconing involved.
The Tea Shop is not always the first thing they see.

[kwackers]

I might be expecting too much of the technology here but if I was to carry out a search on Google, as I type I am offered suggestions based, I guess, on the information Google knows it has access to (or perhaps on previous searches). Is it possible that the forum could be developed in a similar way so that the input of certain search terms into the subject field or the search box would generate pointers to already existing threads, possibly answering the posters' questions.

There must be IT type members who can throw some light on this?

Mick - 24,000 different topics or 24,000 threads many of which are duplicates? In any case the statistics you provided highlight the point, thanks

You can use google - in this way.
string site:forum.ctc.org.uk

Will search this site for the given string.

so:-
"search" site:forum.ctc.org.uk

will search this site for the string "search", all the usual google things apply, plus you can also use partial sites - so search all .org.uk's for example.

I've just discovered the word "puncture" occurs 717 times on this site (718 now!)

[gaz]

.

[thirdcrank]

There is a note at the head of the different sections of the forum, which includes a request that people search first, which was my doing. The number of posts which begin with a mention that a search has been unsuccessful sometimes makes me worry in case people have been deterred from posting.

I find that the forum's search facility is not as clever as it looks. Some of the stuff I manage to retrieve is the result of an inspired guess of a key word. Also, as I stick my neb in on a lot of subjects, that helps the memory.

I suppose there also has to be scope for a subject being chewed over again, otherwise we might as well publish it all as a book and go home. Some questions, especially technical stuff, probably have only one, unchanging answer, but there are plenty more where innovations occur.

I'd agree with si that it's an irritation to have two very similar threads on the go at once. That is sometimes caused by cryptic subject lines.

[kwackers]

Odd, I just tried that and I got 737 punctures. Not personally you understand, neither was it a number of punctures in a single jumbo jet.

Does this mean that 19 new punctures have been recorded on the forum since 4:08pm?

Unlikely - but google does say "of about" rather than claiming absolute figures.

It's worth pointing out google modifies its search based on previous searches, so a lot depends on what you tend to use it to search for in how it orders and how many hits it gets.
I find the site: part of google very useful, it allows the use of google on individual or groups of sites - obviously it assumes the robot can reach all parts of the site.

[Si]

I might be expecting too much of the technology here but if I was to carry out a search on Google, as I type I am offered suggestions based, I guess, on the information Google knows it has access to (or perhaps on previous searches). Is it possible that the forum could be developed in a similar way so that the input of certain search terms into the subject field or the search box would generate pointers to already existing threads, possibly answering the posters' questions.

There must be IT type members who can throw some light on this?

Mick - 24,000 different topics or 24,000 threads many of which are duplicates? In any case the statistics you provided highlight the point, thanks

As I understand it further development on the forum is up in the air at the moment until we know what is happening ith the new CTC web site, so apart from a bit of maintenance and hosting there doesn't seem to be any money for owt else. I've requested further info on this but am still awaiting a reply. Fonant might know better.

[fimm]

There is a note at the head of the different sections of the forum, which includes a request that people search first, which was my doing. The number of posts which begin with a mention that a search has been unsuccessful sometimes makes me worry in case people have been deterred from posting.

I think those 'sticky' forum posts are a good idea - not everyone is familiar with forums and forum etiquette. I have used the "I've searched and not found" comment if I am asking a question that I think might have been asked before to make it clear that I have searched but not found an answer - to me that is again forum etiquette.

More generally, it depends what sort of forum you want to have. I've said before that I'm a member of several forums. If you come onto one forum I use and ask a question that gets asked a lot you'll probably get a fairly short response, with a link to one of the FAQs or articles if appropriate. They actually set up a "Starting Out" forum because people were asking newbie questions and getting abuse, when they were in fact genuine questions. Do the same thing on another forum and you'll get a response along the lines of "Hi Thirdcrank, and welcome to the forum", and some useful and friendly advice (possibly including the suggestion to do a search), even if you are the nth person to ask that question this week. (There are things I like about the first forum, and things I dislike about the second, but in terms of welcoming newcomers, the second wins hands down.)

[EdinburghFixed]

You can either have duplicate topics or you can put people off using the forum - that's what it boils down to.

Part of the problem is that as "answerees", it may be obvious to us that the same question is being asked, but the novice may be genuinely unsure as to whether another topic is relevant to them, even if they have searched and read it.

For example - I'm currently trying to buy a sleeping bag. (I actually put a generalised post up in the tea-room here but am also looking on more relevant sites) - even after reading a couple of thousand words on one manufacturer's "knowledge base" site I still felt the need to email them for individual advice. Perhaps once I am the owner of two or three specialist bags it will be obvious to me how to translate answers to previous questions to my own circumstances, but at the moment I have no way of knowing.

So someone who comes on asking what sort of bike to use for *their* commute, has no way of knowing that advice on anyone's else's commute will probably lead to the same conclusions, though it seems obvious to us.

Finally, a lot of forums have a policy against resurrecting "dead" topics from days of yore - so even though it might seem sensible to pop an extra query on a bike review thread from 2007 that you're looking at used, people often don't do it.

[Si]

So, you are saying that you enjoyed it when we had five h*lm*t threads on the go at the same time in one section of the forum then?

Luckily the current version of the forum lets us merge threads. This helps to keep things a lot more orderly. And, of course, it means that when a newbie posts a question that has been done to death, their post doesn't just sit there unanswered, giving them the feeling that everyone is ignoring them. Instead they get the post moved to a relevant place where they get the answer they want, and they get a welcome to the forum explaining what has happened to the post. Well, in theory.

[fimm]

So, you are saying that you enjoyed it when we had five h*lm*t threads on the go at the same time in one section of the forum then?

Was that aimed at me, EF, or just in general? I have to say I don't rememder the occasion - maybe I wasn't around at the time...

I do see your point; but suppose someone came on here and posted something along the lines of "I've just started cycling and I'd like some advice on whether I should wear a helmet or not?". Now regular posters might well run screaming from their computers, but would you rather the response was "Troll 0/10" which you might well get on my forum number 1, or "Hi XYZ, welcome to the forum. Helmet wearing is actually quite a controversial subject, and has been discussed on here quite a lot. Here are some links to some threads..." I know which I'd prefer...

(Please, please, please, can we stay off the subject of h*lm*ts? It is just an EXAMPLE, OK? An EXAMPLE.)

[meic]

There must be plenty of occasions when you dont know what to search for, until you have the answer to your question.

I have seen a few threads and thought, I answered something like that not long ago. So I just pass it by thinking "well somebody else can have the pleasure of answering that one", if they dont do so then I can think again but normally someone else does answer it when I dont feel like.

In another way it does tell us something useful, we are learning which questions are so popular that they just keep coming up over and over again.