Better search

• Aug 19, 2009 - 21:46

I'm not sure this is the right place for this, but sometimes as I look for certain information using the "search" function on this website, I find that unless I am exact about what I want to know and am able to select the "right" phrase, I will not get adequate pointers returned. There is often really important info contained in answers to other's questions, but even having seen it before, I often cannot recover the message(s) i want.

i suggest a sub-heading be made, selectable, on these forum pages in the same way that the "Forum" itself is selectable at the top of this page. I am struck by the usefulness of these headings when I use the issue tracker.

types of sub-headings could include
- MIDI
- Deleting
- Note entry
- No sound
- Cursor
- Preferences
- Short cuts ........

There are many and I would hope that others would add. As a matter of fact, it would be good to have an "other" selection which would allow the user the opportunity to manufacture their own heading(s).

Best regards to all, and thanks again.
Don

Comments

• Aug 19, 2009 - 22:35

Hi Don,

Thanks for posting your idea. Let's discuss it through and see what we can come up with.

Your proposal is in a way about tagging or labeling forum posts. There are two options to implement this, which can be combined:

  • taxonomy based: the website proposes a discrete list from which you choose the right topic (i.e. your proposal). Advantage is that it could be easy to find a post back while browsing through the discrete list, but disadvantage could be the list is not extensive enough and the longer it becomes, the less user friendly it becomes to select from. Also, if we would use subcontainers in the forum, then you can label a forum post with only one taxonomy term.
  • folksonomy based: each post gets another textfield in the forum posting form in which you can freely add tags. While typing, the website can auto complete the tags in order to help you use the most commonly used tags. The advantage of this approach is that it is very flexible in terms of extending the list and it's easy to browse through forum posts which are tagged with a certain tag or a combination of tags. A tag cloud or list can make it easy to browse your way into the pile of forum posts.

I personally prefer the second solution, because at this moment I don't see how we could agree on a complete taxonomy list (option 1) before it grows to long. We can also decide to use the same folksonomy way of tagging for the handbook and issues, besides the forum posts. And what's more, when you will search for a term, the result set will get another block with the most commonly used tags together with the number of subresults each one of the terms give.

As you may read, I'm all in favour of adding this, but I do know that extra options/fields/... do bring overhead or an extra barriers for new comers. Adding functionality introduces more complexity which can lead to confusion. So, we have to think things through before implementing it.

Reply

• Aug 20, 2009 - 02:29

We agree that a combination would be most effective.

I understand the perceived (and feared) complexity, but I don't believe that it needs to be so complex. For example, "search" could be the primary tag for this thread with a secondary "other" box which allows the poster to be more detailed. One need not enter more "tags", but one could.

A secondary box could allow more individual descriptions, and the primary tags could be modified as we go along, if necessary. And, with the "poster description" box, the poster will decide the appropriate tags. I believe more extensive search capabilities will help more than hinder.

Every tag would be user selected/specified. Like any concept, the post in question can be described in more and more detail.

BUT, the initial tags probably don't need to be so extensive.

I obviously was just developing it when I first proposed the idea, but let me give it some thought and perhaps propose a more detailed initial set of tags, and we can discuss it further.

As a first step, I think that at least the subject description in the initial post should be carried forward, as in the issue tracker.

All welcome!

Don

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• Aug 21, 2009 - 16:11

This is an example of the folksonomy solution, or call it free tagging / labeling.

Here is a proposal: I can implement it somewhere next week and we let it run for a while and see how it works out. Then we make a decision whether it stays or not. Seems ok for you?

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• Aug 25, 2009 - 14:24

I deployed the tagging for forum posts and bug issues. I will enable a search block for it as well, so that you can filter on the tags and see how many posts are related which each tags.

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• Sep 8, 2009 - 21:49

I cannot see a way to add a tag or am I misunderstanding?

Regards

EDIT:

I see now whereit is activated. Is there an intention to have any common flags to select from? MIDI, ubantu, apple, xp etc.

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