A plea for....forum search first?

[GregFreeman]

As a follow up to "A plea for full words", what about a plea for a forum search before asking a question?

NI forums themselves even help by FORCING you to search before letting you post. I admittedly am guilty of this on one or two occassions, but another post on how to "set a control value programmatically" has pushed me over the edge.

Answers are everywhere for these incredibily common questions. Another is "passing data between threads". Spare Ben from needing to post his action engine link...again.

Just a bit of effort please, then if you still can't find your answer, post-away.

That said, is there a board or thread for "Common Questions"(maybe I should search?). If not, that may be my next suggestion to the forum.

[RayFarmer]

but you dont have to read any of the found posts!!!

As for the "Common Questions" good idea but I can see what will happen, users will latch on to that thread and start posting querys to common questions, "...but what if my sink is green, can I still use it in the same way...."

regards

Ray Farmer

[GregFreeman]

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Ray Farmer wrote:

but you dont have to read any of the found posts!!!

As for the "Common Questions" good idea but I can see what will happen, users will latch on to that thread and start posting querys to common questions, "...but what if my sink is green, can I still use it in the same way...."

regards

Ray Farmer

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True, but maybe it can be a locked thread. If people have an idea that they feel should be added, then NI must add it and "normal" users cannot post to it. I think I'll start a discussion about this on another board and post a link to it here.

[GregFreeman]

Link Here

[altenbach]

It goes both ways.

The problem with forced searching is that we often find something added to a year(s) old thread (that is already marked as solved) with some entirely new problem that might share a few title words.

Maybe there should be soft barriers. For example:

If a user tries to add to a thread that has not received and posts in three months, the composition page should have a red header:

Warning: You are adding to a very old thread. Please make sure you comment is still relevant. To post a new question, click here. 

 If a user tries to add to a thread marked as solved, there should be something similar to the following:

Warning: You are responding to a thread that is already marked as solved.  To post a new question, click here.

Of course there are many reasons to disregard these warnings ("it took me a year, but i finally found the solution", "this solution is incorrect, here's a correct version", etc.), but it will nudge the clueless newbies to the correct action. 

[tst]

I've suggested multiple times (first time, almost five years ago) that the forums should have a FAQ. If the search query contains certain tags which are associated with the page, the top of the results should prominently show This may have been asked before. Is this what you want?, with a brief description of the actual question an explanatory text. This exists to a degree with KB articles, but they don't show up in forum searches and don't do it well enough.

[Ben]

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for(imstuck) wrote:

As a follow up to "A plea for full words", what about a plea for a forum search before asking a question?

...

 Another is "passing data between threads". Spare Ben from needing to post his action engine link...again.

...

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Ding ding ding ding ding ding....

And we have a winner!

"for(imstuck)" has correctly answered the question "What the hell was Ben thinking when he wrote those Uber-Nuggets?" by identifying them as FGA (frequently given answers) that are just waiting to be edited and added to the official FAQ page.

So when we will see this FAQ page ?

About the same time as someone figures out to turn Lithium into a non-conductor.

Ben

[Darin.K]

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Ben wrote:

About the same time as someone figures out to turn Lithium into a non-conductor.

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According to a Nature article I once read, it is theorized that Lithium will transform into an insulator at a pressure of about 80 GPa.  To put that in perspective, atmospheric pressure is about 100 kPa or 15 psi.

[GregFreeman]

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According to a Nature article I once read, it is theorized that Lithium will transform into an insulator at a pressure of about 80 GPa.  To put that in perspective, atmospheric pressure is about 100 kPa or 15 psi.

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Create your own black hole? There's an app for that.

[Ray.R]

[KIDDING ON]

Maybe use a modified sarcasm  algorithm that would provide some thread suggestions as you type the question. 

[KIDDING OFF]

Actually, it would be more like what Google does when you type a topic for search and it automatically provides the top searches with what you have typed so far.