Should Fluther archives be better organised?
The same questions seem to keep coming up and this is because it isn’t easy to check what has previously been asked. It would be better if Fluther was organised into discussion areas in which themes are categorised to avoid duplication and where everything remains live. Fluther ideally should grow like a coral reef. What do you think? Or has this been considered before!
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As new waves of people join, it does seem like the same questions get asked which makes it tedious for some of us older Jellies. However, the new people have a right to ask thier questions. I do find it hard when a similar question has just recently been asked. I think improving the search function would help greatly or perhaps – and this may be too sophisticated – an algorithm could be devised that would show you sibling questions before you post a new one. I’m not for a total redesign of the site; there have been enough changes of late.
I agree that the search feature isn’t the easiest to use. A user once mentioned that he thought the Google™ in the box meant an internet search. Fluther is my only experience with a Q&A site. Do you have any examples of how other sites manage it or recommendations on how to make it better?
Not all of the blame for duplicate questions should be put on the search feature though. There isn’t a tutorial for new users to point them there before posting a question. Some questions are worthy of reposting. Some may sound similar, yet are asking for different information or perspectives.
I think the topic feature seems to get better and better. The fact that you can now search by user, and there are topic searches both based on you interest and the google toolbar, we’re set.
A way to avoid duplicates would be a sort of auto-complete feature, where the system suggests a previous question if it thinks you might be asking the same one. No idea how difficult to implement that would be, though.
Yeah, we’re just now working on an improved version of search. It should go along way in improving the duplicate question issue, along with the updated topics.
@bob_ We’re working on that, too…
@ben What about a BlackBerry app?
@bob_ Not coming imminently. We are going to try to make the mobile site more accessible from all mobile browsers, so hopefully that will help. If you can get mobile Opera for your blackberry, i.fluther.com should work pretty well.
@bob_ Yeah, they are the same.
Yes, I bet if a computer expert who was willing to donate his time to program it correctly they wouldn’t say no. In the meantime, the paid employees probably have it on their very, very long list.
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