Author Topic: Searching the forum (Read 8811 times)

thomaskilian · « **on:** February 15, 2007, 12:57:03 am »

Hi all (esp. Sparxians),
I find myself (and obviously others too) more often in the position to answer "search the forum". There are now much much more people on the forum and many newbies do not seem to find the Search button without explicitly being noted. My question: how could the use of Search be encouraged? Would it be possible to make t more obvious and place it at a more prominent location? Or a hint when creating a new account (as some else already suggested)?

I still remember that thread from the beginning where we talked about organizing the forum and improving methods of getting info out of it. Maybe a better integration of the Wiki could help also? Any plans at Sparx to do so?

«Midnight» · « **Reply #1 on:** February 15, 2007, 03:03:54 am »

Thomas,

Not so very long ago I pondered - or the written equivalent thereof - the question of why Sparx continued to use this version of YABB when a much newer one was available, doubtless with additional and improved features.

About the only answer I received was from one of the gurus (our 'whitty' friend), that the prior upgrade had been pretty bad - loss of data and such.

Perhaps this same reasoning also applies to major changes.

The above said, I'm all with you. Search before post should become the motto here. Perhaps the New Thread function be available only on the Search Results page...

David

mikewhit · « **Reply #2 on:** February 15, 2007, 03:55:23 am »

Quote

Not so very long ago I pondered ...

Well, last June actually !

But yes, a hint for new users to Search first, ask questions later, would obviate many posts, and not just the Newbie questions

jeshaw2 · « **Reply #3 on:** February 15, 2007, 04:12:55 am »

Perhaps a technical synonym search facility would help. If one doesn't know the correct term to use, a search returns little value.

tomte · « **Reply #4 on:** February 15, 2007, 05:49:45 am »

Quote

Perhaps a technical synonym search facility would help. If one doesn't know the correct term to use, a search returns little value.

I agree, and I even think that a kind of phrase search is needed, finding posts that seem to match multiple words best.
E.g. actually I am interested in "Roundtrip Engineering incl. Renaming and or Moving Interfaces" ==> EA: "Sorry, no matches were found."
Google finds more than 300 entries - not helpfull ones, ok, but showing the technical way to go.
tomte

jjyoung · « **Reply #5 on:** February 15, 2007, 09:34:43 am »

I always try to search first and usually don't find an answer. It's not until I post and someone tells me what to search for that I have any luck.

I'd much prefer to find things on my own, because it would be faster.

mikewhit · « **Reply #6 on:** February 15, 2007, 10:03:52 am »

Currently, Google does not appear to have indexed the forum pages. However the forum admin(s) could enable this with the appropriate robots.txt settings, I believe.

You could then do a Google search using site:sparxsystems.com.au

Perhaps the hosting server could split the forum onto forum.sparxsystems.com.au, then it could be searched separately from the main site ... or maybe not ?

lkrylov · « **Reply #7 on:** February 15, 2007, 02:34:05 pm »

Here is my answer: improve search usability, damn in.

I'd rather be searching for existing answers than registering-posting-waiting-for-replies.

But how can you expect people to use search a lot if:
1. Going back from search results to search form resets all entered values (including a mandatory Max Age since last post field empty by default)
2. Going back from a post to search results shows "page expired" error
3. Search results show full posts (if Google search would show you whole pages instead of relevant snippets, would you use it?)
4. Phrase search does not seem to work very well
5. This goes to posting, but it would've helped looking for information as well: there is no way to reply to a specific message in a thread, but Quote and start a message by saying To such-and-such!!!
6. I just cannot resit this! Click on the "Notification" link between the profile and logout. Consider helpful instructions on the page: Activate checkbox to deactivate Notification on the Topic. Don't you find this amusing?

I'm new to EA, and so far my experience was quite frustrating... And hey, I hope the software behind the forum was bought by sparx, because if it was developed by the same team as EA or, God forbid, by the same team using EA as a tool... And buying it does not speak well of sparx either.

«Midnight» · « **Reply #8 on:** February 15, 2007, 02:54:28 pm »

I hear you, and I agree with you, but...

The forum is an implementation of YABB, a third-party application for just this sort of stuff.

There is a newer major version of YABB. See my post above, and search for my earlier one. [In this case it will be easy, since Mike answered (see his response above) answered my original post. He's given you the time frame in his posting here.]

What it is really worth noting though is that this is a user forum. Your opinions are valid, and valuable. However, you are complaining to us, the rest of the user community. Sparx does read this forum, but they are primarily in the business of building UML software, not writing new forum application.

That said, I certainly would like to see enhanced capability. Of the things on my wish list, fixing up the search function is pinned solidly at the top.

[Actually, several of the top positions go to various issues with search, and you've highlighted a few of the real sore ones nicely. Thanks!]

Just another 0.02 CAD for those keeping a tally,
David

lkrylov · « **Reply #9 on:** February 15, 2007, 03:25:21 pm »

Ok, I overreacted...

So, if sparx people do not read the forum (I was hoping they would) nor do they maintain it very well, is it feasible to move the user community to Yahoo Groups? At least the search is working...

see examples like http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Java_Official/

tomte · « **Reply #10 on:** February 16, 2007, 12:41:04 am »

Quote

... is it feasible to move the user community to Yahoo Groups? At least the search is working...
see examples like http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Java_Official/

Hello lkrylov,
the group you linked to looks very fine, and has the search features. On the other hand many other yahoo groups (e.g. for freelancers ...) about a year ago turned into hard to read and uggly looking "yahoo is the most important" sites, maybe because they are non-paying groups? - I do not know.

Does anybody know other forum software providing Google-like search features?

Or should the moderators just enable, allow and/or trigger Google to index the forum? And provide a Google button on all forum pages?
tomte

thomaskilian · « **Reply #11 on:** February 16, 2007, 12:44:33 am »

Quote

Ok, I overreacted...

So, if sparx people do not read the forum (I was hoping they would) nor do they maintain it very well, is it feasible to move the user community to Yahoo Groups? At least the search is working...

see examples like http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Java_Official/

Sparx monitors the forum and the really react on posts here. The EA User Group and the Wiki are already user-driven. The problem is: we have two fronts and both try to assist EA users with different tools. I know that searching the forum is a PITA. Sometimes I *know* that there was a post and I can't find it again. So I doubt that it works all times. However, really many posts could definitely be avoided by doing a search (I remember the Red Triangle and the Sort Alphabetic). So I was thinking of alternatives (like the above suggested Google robots, which seems to be an excellent an easy work-around).

mikewhit · « **Reply #12 on:** February 16, 2007, 01:30:52 am »

I may have said before (but can't be bothered to search!) how forums in general are a bit of a knowledge management problem in that relying on keyword search means that information is not always easily available if the wording in the search does not correspond to that in the relevant postings.

Paolo did try to start a kind of tagging system using F.A.Q but a proper content tagging system would help - but who would tag, with which categories, and what about all the historical stuff ?

And then would you want a proper tag-based search as well as keyword ...

Perhaps a delicio.us-style tagging system would be a good idea ?

sl@sh · « **Reply #13 on:** February 16, 2007, 04:39:23 am »

I agree with what most other posters already said: within the ~three weeks I've used this forum I tried to find specific information via the search function various time, but never really found anything helpful to my particular problem.

The only cases when I did, was when I *did* post a question and someone told me to search, using a specific keyword and user name. Even then, finding the relevant piece of information was quite difficult, since the search obviously ignored the user name I provided and the number of matching posts was overwhelming.

[edit]removed additional issues caused by temporary blindness of user[/edit]

jeshaw2 · « **Reply #14 on:** February 16, 2007, 04:54:14 am »

It would be helpful if the subject line provided a useful thread name, but it is the unknowing questioner who establishes it, not the knowledgeable respondent. Then, as in the case of this thread, the subject changes without anyone forking to a better name. Can that be improved?

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