Thread Indices

[fatsramsey94]

A few years ago I ran into a forum (the Sergio Leone Web Board) that employed an index for all the various topics that arose (in this case it was for cataloguing movie-specific threads on their off-topic section). It was a reasonable way to minimize the number of threads with the same topic, and I think it might be a good idea for this forum.

Any thoughts or criticism?

[mjzee]

Can you provide an example URL so we can see this concept in action?

[fatsramsey94]

Certainly.

http://www.fistful-of-leone.com/forums/index.php?topic=5827.0

[Dan Gould]

Welcome to the board. Please take this in the spirit in which it was intended: Get to know the board and the people before you start making suggestions about the decor.

[fatsramsey94]

Point taken; sorry if this came off as arrogant.

[Jim Alfredson]

Not sure how to implement that here without doing a lot of man-hours finding and linking / combining all the threads. While I always appreciate ideas on how to upgrade the board and also which threads to combine, I really don't have time to do the kind of work involved to index the entire site. Afterall, we have over 1,000,000 posts.

[fatsramsey94]

Not sure how to implement that here without doing a lot of man-hours finding and linking / combining all the threads. While I always appreciate ideas on how to upgrade the board and also which threads to combine, I really don't have time to do the kind of work involved to index the entire site. Afterall, we have over 1,000,000 posts.

I understand, thank you for your time anyways.

[jeffcrom]

And I find some pretty interesting old threads by accident while searching for something specific.

[king ubu]

How about tags? If they can be activated easily (which I don't know of course) that might be good. For instance to find the most interesting Pete Brown discussion hidden in the... what thread was it again? The Hemphill "Dogon A.D." one?

[Guy Berger]

I actually like the idea of an index for threads, though Ubu's idea of tags (if feasible) would be even better and easier to implement. The search function is, in my opinion, cumbersome to use and not always useful.

Anyway, welcome aboard!

[king ubu]

Tags would allow to "index" (in a way) off-topic things, too... and they could be added by any registered user (though if that's so, there might be some clean-up work necessary... on the other hand if only moderators could put in tags, that would be of little use, as it would mean much work or not make a big difference).

But again, that's only an option if Jim can just check the "use tags" feature somewhere!

[Jim Alfredson]

The latest version of this forum software actually supports tagging and it's searchable. But it does away with the topic descriptions (ie, the second line in topic titles). I can certainly upgrade to the latest version, but in another thread about the loss of topic descriptions, I got the impression that people didn't want that.

The good news is that Invision did not delete the topic description column from the main database and there are third party programmers / add-ons which restore it, but they cost money. Kinda silly to remove a feature and then have people charge you to get it back.

Personally, I think tags are more useful than the second line, but I do notice that the second line is used a lot around here.

[Dan Gould]

Is this tagging for posts as well as thread originators? Because you could go crazy with the tags and then really make searches even less effective. For instance someone could make a tangential reference to another musician in a thread on someone else. Now when someone searches by tags for the tangential guy, he gets main discussions about him plus tangential comments buried in another thread. Is that really helpful?

[king ubu]

I'd say yes, Dan!

If you want the main threads, do a title search (or do a search via google, putting in "[search text] site:organissimo.org").

If you want to find "hidden" discussions (such as the Pete Brown one I mentioned - I once had to look for it and it drove me crazy... thought I'd remembered in what thread it was, but it took me a while...), you can go via tags.

Of course the funny guys amongst us (me included) might add funny one-liners instead of artist names, albums, sensible keywords etc... but I'd still think it would be most useful!

[jostber]

The tag feature over at WeenieCampbell is a great way to find information on favorite artists and other stuff:

http://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/index.php?page=tagsindex

[king ubu]

Ahem, sorry Dan - seems I mis-read: the way I understand it, there'd be tags underneath each thread (not for each post).

Everyone (not just a thread originator) can add tags.

[Jim Alfredson]

Well, I'm totally down with upgrading the software. I just paid for the yearly license, which means upgrades are free (and free installation).

[king ubu]

Well, I'd be all for it, but then the loss of thread subtitles might indeed be bothersome to many as well.

[Guy Berger]

Hmmm, I really like the forum subtitles. But I like the idea of tags too. Tough choice.

[Jim Alfredson]

Like I said, the topic description column is not deleted from the database upon upgrading. There are third-party solutions to add displaying them back into the software, but they cost money (around $20 or so). I'm thinking we can upgrade, see if we like the addition of tags vs. lack of topic descriptors, and if we want we can pay to add them back in. Sound good?

[king ubu]

Sounds great - assuming it's a one-time payment for the add-on, that is... no need for you to burden any additional on-going cost!