Is it better to start a new thread or search for an existing one?

Start a new thread or bring up old one? | PriusChat

The irony of the above link is so tasty, I just want to scream!

 

Admit it, you were too lazy to type the I.

 

I thought new threads would help generate more page views and more ad revenues for the site. silly me.

 

That is pretty funny. But I think this makes my point (by the way, it's my post that is quoted in the original post). I think the OP's failure to do a search on this topic is probably the reason why starting a new thread is OK. It (maybe) generates new information, new opinions, and maybe changed opinions.

But to the OP, why didn't you search for the old thread and just tack on to that one? Or even if you did search, why did you decide to start a new thread anyway?

Mike

 

If the forum operator really wanted people to search before posting they would have implemented something like a knowledgebase tool that searches for your answer before making a new thread.

KANA Web Self Service - High Quality Service Experience 24x7 :: KANA

 

Organizing a hierarchy that meets everyone's goals and objectives would be a task for Sisyphus. An approach I've come to admire is Google News ability to select areas of interests by weighting them. This makes it easier for me to find articles:

• Top list: World, U.S., Technology, Science, Health
• Middle list: Auto, Solar Power, Space, Physics, Elections
• Not on list: Business, Entertainment, Sports

So what I would like is user assignable, Dewey Decimal-like, for each forum. Upon creating a new account, each forum would have a default assignment, possibly looking exactly like we have today. But the user would have the ability to change the ranking, essentially tailoring PriusChat to meet their needs. For example:

• 1.0.0 News & Newbies
  • 1.1.0 Toyota Prius Accesory Shop
  • 1.2.0 Newbie Forum
  • 1.3.0 Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News
• 2.0 Toyota Prius v Forums
  • 2.1.0 Prius v Main Forum
  • 2.2.0 Prius v Technical Discussion
  • . . .

So I might change it around:

• 1.0.0 Toyota Technical
  • 1.1.0 NHW11 Technical
  • 1.2.0 ZVW30 Technical
  • 1.3.1 NHW20 Technical
• 2.0.0 News & Newbies
  • Prius, Hybrid, EV and Alt-Fuel News
  • Environmental
  • Toyota Prius Accessory Shop
  • . . .

What I'm suggesting is to allow us to tailor the order of PriusChat forums to meet our goals and objectives. 'Gear heads' will easily find our peers to chat with . . . 'Advocates' will find their arenas . . .

Well that is what I would want. But going back to the "Have you stopped beating your wife?" question of this poll, my answer is "it depends."

1. Is it a subject I want to find other posts? . . . use search at the top level
2. Is it the political pillow forum, Fred's House of Politics, then even the subject line is an assertion.

It didn't take long to figure out that the subject line is all that mattered as there were few, if any, actual exchanges of information. Like the "Have you stopped beating your wife?" question, the subject lines were often an assertion that was disconnected from the body of the post and often ignored.

Bob Wilson

 

The ones that hurt my head are when the headline is a distinctly different question than the first post, and you are left wondering which to answer.

 

I prefer a free form that allows threads and posts to be tagged with attributes.

When the original post is being processed (while typing), the algorithm first assigns "tags" based on content, then displays recent posts that have the same "tags", and if the match is over some threshold, the post is appended to a thread rather than creating a new thread.

A "thread" simply becomes a chronological ordering of posts with like "tags".

tags would let something like "12V battery replacement" span generations, while specific instructions for a gen1 could be hidden from someone only interested in gen3 and pip.