Do you think it would be beneficial if the Fluther design encouraged more searching?

I totally agree with this.
I don’t remember who I had the conversation with Tim, maybe? but they agreed that it would be pretty helpful.

I agree. The search function is a bit clumsy. The “old” Answerbag had a good system for that.the “new” one is useless though Right now, the categories and search functions are not tied together. Maybe it has something to do with the Google tie-in. I’m not a programmer, so I can’t offer a fix.

@silverfly Yes.

Yes, definitely. If the fluthergods should happen to be looking for an area where improvements will be received with universal joy free of all controversy, I should think the search function would be high on the list of candidates.

Probably a good idea for sure, but why do I get the feeling people will ask the question again even if they search for it? Hm…

Makes sense to me. We had two questions about movie openings in two days and I see a lot of questions repeat within a week or two. Gives more chance to discover gems already written on the subject, and spares folks from writing the same answer repeatedly

I don’t speak for Fluther.

But most of the money comes from people searching on Google. People that are logged in don’t see ads. People from Google do. Having more redundant questions on a topic increases the odds that Google searches will lead them here and they will see the ads.

It seems like a sound business decision. It is ad free for regular users and we have to deal with repetitive questions. That is something I can live with.

I agree with @johnpowell plus if people found their answers in searching, we would have zero to none questions to play with. Even redundant questions are Fluther cat-nip for me!

Not too long ago I pestered a fairly new user about asking a redundant question (I did do my best to sound nice, though!). They made the point that asking a question again would give newer members a chance to post their own responses, since many newbies tend to stay with the most current questions asked instead of responding to old ones. I felt sort of badly for pestering them after they said that.

Maybe, in addition to a search function, if Fluther had a section that included recent activity on old questions? It might revive some good discussions from the past and give the new members a chance to chime in, too.

@ParaParaYukiko I like the idea of having a recent activity section to encourage more posting to existing questions. I find myself just sticking to the most recent questions and I frequently do spring cleaning on questions I’m following.

@silverfly me too. Only discovering older Qs by accident when I am seeking something else.
@johnpowell You are right. I never thought of that. That is how I found Fluther.

The reason I’d like an improved search capability is that I would often like to be able to find specific past questions and answers. This happens most often when I know that there’s already been a great set of answers to a similar question and I want to point to it.

Sometimes even when searching for my own posts and knowing the exact words of a key phrase, I can’t get it to come up in search results. There’s something wrong with a search function when you can search on an exact unique quote or a combination of key terms that is really there and not get a hit.

Sometimes even when searching for my own posts and knowing the exact words of a key phrase, I can’t get it to come up in search results.

Ditto.

as @stranger_in_a_strange_land @Jeruba and @RedPowerLady haved all medntioned, the on-site search engine is terrible—not only failing to find things with keywords, but even with direct quotes. I only find things when I am looking at someone’s As or Qs or by chance trying one or two keywords to see what happens. That is not good.
Bendrewim this is needed. Please do some fluthergod magic!

shrug. You’d think google would, oh, I don’t know, be competent at search.

It is on the things to fix, it’s just a huge pain in the ass because we have to implement and entirely new search system that dynamically updates and caches the data.

I just want to let everyone know that search is very hard. People on Reddit (a huge site with lots of money and developers) have bitched about search for years. It isn’t a easy fix so cut Andrew, Ben, and Tim some slack.

And it used to be a lot worse.

@johnpowell The searching on the site is fine for now. I’m just wondering in the event that someone is asking a question, a list of existing questions could be produced and you could have a choice to participate in the existing question/thread or continue asking your question.

@andrew thanks for update. glad to know it is on the list. :-)

It isn’t a easy fix so cut Andrew, Ben, and Tim some slack.

Definitely cutting some slack here. Its not even often I need to use search. If I were in their shoes it would be at the bottom of my list,lol.