Large amount of threads left unanswered...

topics like "confused n00b" :: you're so confused you can't type out a topic? Hullo? I skipped that one.
"Is it still supported?" :: skipped it
"Error messages" :: what error? trying to delete a file? problem installing? smartd throwing errors in your log files? Apache/httpd hack attempts in the log file? Program not launching? If you couldn't bother to type a relevant topic, I won't be bothered to read the thread
"Red Hat Linux 6.0" :: what about RedHat Linux 6.0? Why should I care? It's >6 years old. Upgrade. Yesterday.
"linux + java" :: what about Linux and Java? Problems? Praise? Looking for programs? Problem installing the JVM?

I mean, really. It does not take a whole lot of effort to at least vaguely describe the topic in a one-liner header.

And yes, I used to search and then post the links along with a line saying "if you'd searched for 'foo and bar' you'd have already found these answers at {time of original post}" but it only serves to make search less and less useful as long as duplicate topics are allowed to remain on the messageboard without being merged.

I'd like to reinforce the point that just KimVette made:

"it only serves to make search less and less useful as long as duplicate topics are allowed to remain on the messageboard without being merged".

I believe that messages left on this site without any sort of vetting make this site much more cumbersome to use if not less useful.
What do you think?

Regards all

I think there needs to be a drive for good thread titles- perhaps haveing user demerits for bad titles. Like the "contributing member" thingy, it could be a "sucky thread titler" title.

anyway. Isn't search a full text search? and, KimVette, you have to look at the forum it's posted in- sometimes a newbie feels that that is enough to fill in the title info.

titanium_geek

This is a PS to 2 my earlier posts.

First - to jeremy: You say "We don't want to delete posts.." but I disagree.
I disagree because posts of the type that I am talking about DELETING, ie those from posters who have already found
a solution to their problems or are too lazy to respond to repeated emails, are no use to anyone here.

You come across a post that is six months old and says "How do I do XYZ?" - What does one get out of that?
You don't know whether the post is still valid ie if the poster still has a problem, so you can't be sure you're not
wasting you time attempting to answer it, BUT it comes up in your searches for solutions to YOUR problem,
and just gets in the way.

Leaving such posts on the website makes you lose time
- by increasing the search time
- by causing you to read a useless post. and
- by potentially answering posts that will never be useful to the poster
What is to be gained by leaving it on the site? I can't think of anything positive.

Second - KimVette makes a valid point about collecting or somehow ordering the posts into generic categories.
Whether we can rely on the poster to be disciplined enough to select category headings that are
- understandable
- consistent and
- relevant to the topic,
is another issue!
But this brings me to another site improvement issue that I've mused about for a little while...
The site authors could easily generate a set of key words, put them into a dictionary and then grep each post
and add a metadata line at the end of each posting, which lists all the words used by the poster that exist in the dictionary.
Then we ( read you) should implement a metadata search, which would look at only the added metadata information.
This search would yield information on what the poster is ACTUALLY talking about, rather than what his one-line-header may say.
This CLASSIFICATION method would, once implemented, be automatic, quick, add little overhead to the site AND make searching
for relevant posts much more accurate, IMMHO.

What do you think ...Jeremy, KimVette? Others?

I really like the clasification idea- but the search searches the text of the post anyway. I think this is akin to XavierP's 0reply parties, where experts for "Nvidia" attack all 0replies with Nvidia in them. ( or "Whatever" experts attack all 0replies with whatever in them. ) This is a bit more specification then the subforum categories- networking gurus usually hang out in "Linux-networking" and slackware gurus in "Slackware" etc- etc- but this is a more focused "attack"

titanium_geek

My 2 cent feedback on Slack1_more's comments:

1. Deleting threads -- in theory, your arguments make perfect sense. In practice though, how precisely would anyone be able to correctly determine whether or not a thread was useless? There is no foolproof algorithm that can make this assessment, and consequently the only way to make the determination would be to manually inspect each and every thread. With over 1.7 million posts on LQ (and counting), trying to comb through each and every one of them would be a monumental task.

2. Classification -- LQ already has a classification system, which are the various forums. In my opinion trying to building a parallel and/or competing system to classify threads would only make the site harder to use, and would complicate the Search results.

Overall, in my experience the success of any given thread rests almost entirely with the original poster. Threads that clearly describe a problem, have a meaningful title, and are posted in the correct forum, almost always receive plenty of attention and helpful suggestions. In contrast, poorly worded threads with hopelessly vague titles that are posted in an inappropriate forum won't have as good of a chance of being resolved - not because of any shortcomings with LQ, but simply because the original poster didn't want to take a few extra minutes to compose a better post, or do a Search for existing threads. As such, trying to modify how the site operates to compensate for those posters who choose not to follow the posting guidelines would not produce any real benefits.

From my standpoint, the unavoidable reality with any forum site is that it depends on the members themselves to follow the rules, and to post in accordance with those rules and guidelines. Unfortunately, not everyone does, and therefore over time it's inevitable that some amount of clutter will accumulate. While I agree that ideally it would be great if useless threads would simply disappear, the practical reality is that it would be unlikely that a reliable, automated system could be developed to make that happen. Of course, and as Jeremy always says, LQ always welcomes any and all suggestions on how to make the site better. -- J.W.