Actually Jeremy, at the moment I'm happy with just 1 email per day. I think 25 posts per email is a good number, any more than that and I risk being swamped (because I want to try to help all 25 people!)

We need more people signed up to this - 25 people doing 25 problems is 625 problems solved, but 250 people solving the problems........we could end up with 0 0 replies!

If it seems that we are it and no one else wants to join in then yes, 2 emails (50 problems - yoinks) per day would be a good idea. But if we can get more people signed up, it wouldn't be quite so necessary. (Right now, there are 12339 0 reply posts - blimey!)

XavierP,

The problem is that the same 25 threads go to everyone.

--jeremy

Aaah. In that case, I withdraw my earlier comments. Unless, of course, there is a way to randomise the threads we receive so that we should all get differing ones.

Is that possible?

I'm in it, this is a great idea.... Out of all the ideas that everyone suggested here, the one I like the most is the one about signing up for different forums, I hope this goes well and we will have this option in the future.

/me signed up - though think eventually it shouldnt be same threads for everyone

What does everyone think now that this has been live for a little while?

--jeremy

Don't know how else to put this and believe me I love this site and want it to live forever, but: the search function here is *extremely* limited/basic/elementary, seems to me there needs to be an "advanced" search option so's we can home in on posts that we actually know something about, I personally don't need nightly email telling me about unanswered posts, I'm here every single day anyway and always go through them, what I *would* like is some way to search the unanswered posts for some that I can actually be helpful to.

Maybe have a "No Replies Email" Section in the options. In there users can opt when or if they would like to receive these emails, how many threads they would like in the email (with a limit of course), and from what forum section(s) they would like to receive from.
I am new to this forum, and like it so far. Questions asked on this forum range in difficulty, is there a way to view questions which have been rated as difficult to solve? Or is there even a way to rate qestions?

Also was wondering if there is like an xml version of forum threads. I could make a little deamon which would read this xml file every 10 mins or so and pop up a message with new posts and a http:// link to the thread on this site. Saves all those clicks on the refresh button.
-Dave

I'm in. Great idea

I am with akaBeaVis on this issue, I am not good enough to answer all posts so will not be joining the email group. I do however, have some arrogant perceptions of my understanding of grub, partimage and mdk so of course have been trawling thru some searches.

So what aka is saying I hope, is search for subject "your fav subject" and "zero replies"

sidetrack 1

I do think it is excellent the field of most recent searches. That should clue us to maybe an expanded forum list. Expanded into groups like

recommended sites dox sites and in my biased view, break down hardware and general into more categories.

eg hardware can become.... video card drives optical drives etc

IMHO it will make searching easier as well, sometimes I don't use the search but just trawl mdk (etc) but the breakdown forum topics will make it easier for all.

And I am sure you can find lots of hits if KERNEL and KDE GNOME etc will make it easier for people to post to.

well yes the forum will look messier and some duplicate posting are bound to occur, but they do already. The reason for this post is to help people so thats end of rant

exactly.

I'm saying the same thing: I don't know everything about every corner of every Linux distro I use, but what I *do* know, I know intimately, and I want to leverage that knowledge into something larger, something that benefits linux and the community at-large, and thanks to LQ.org that is a reality. It's all part of my *secret* master plan to help increase Linux market share and get manufacturer driver support on the CD that comes in the box just like other OS users get. So I cruise these forums looking for someone asking something I know the answer to.

Being able to directly target those unanswered posts that are in my particular sphere of knowledge shortens the time I have to spend cruising the 0 replies pages and increases the time I can spend answering and researching those answers. As we all know, not every poster with 0 replies posts in the correct forum or uses anything informative in their post title. An advanced search would really be nice...

I'll be honest: I never tell anyone to RTFM, I never post links to the answers and tell the person with the question to check google next time before posting. My sense is that for some of these posters, LQ *is* their google and their man page and their last hope before giving up and reclaiming their linux partition for some nifty windows utilities from PC magazine.

umm, don't mean to inflame aka, and your points are very valid. I disagree in the minor area of post web links. I think links to web page dox or web page other user board q&a saves cutting and pasting and saves bandwith and makes the reply easier to read, I agree wholeheartedly that the intention of the reply is to help the poster I just minor disagree with some of the means.

eg someone says RTFM versus
here is a link to the online manual versus
editted manual to suit the poster

At first look aka's idea helps the poster, but, as here's where I think we still agree, eh? the meno paradox is asking the correct question based on how limited knowledge so aka may spend 5 minutes using a text editor to make up a terrific reply and find the poster then says there is another problem. umm, I am guilty as charged, the poster may see the answer in the link or find the error was unrelated to the original post. They learn but we have spent too long on one post.

To save time to maximise more posts answered I vote for links. end of rant

I like it - the only thing I find annoying is that occasionally I click a thread link and get redirected to a page which says:
Now since we can't delete our threads all I can assume is that the mailbot isn't faithfully reproducing the thread links. 'Cos it can't be me, can it?

Otherwise, I like the 0 replies email. With ref to the replies above, I can't see that it would be useful to be able to rate a post on difficulty - half (or more) of the threads I would rate as difficult would be rated as easy by, say, a Mod. plus, who would rate them? You would need an extra layer in place where we post a thread, a mail is sent to that forum's Mod and it is rated. Then the thread starter writes an email to the Mod complaining that their thread was rated 'easy' when they want it to be rated 'difficult' and the Mods end up not moderating. Anarchy and riots ensue and Jeremy gives up and joins a monastery

I am happy with the site's search function - if there was a way to home in on particular threads we would end up missing others. Don't forget, a large percentage of threads are called "n00b alert", "please help" or that old favourite "Urgent -.......".

true, but wouldn't it be *nice* to be able to search the actual text of the message instead of the title? I'm not picky and I'm here regardless of whether that occurs or not, but I have a few search terms in mind and some boolean combinations I'd like to try...

Thanks for the feedback everyone, let me address the issues. XavierP, what most likely happened if you got that error is that two threads were merged. I can also delete threads, but to be honest I only do it in the extremest of cases.
As far as the search goes, I agree it can be improved (and I am always looking for suggestions on how to do so) but to be fair it is one of the better ones I have seen. Having a zero reply checkbox for the search is actually on the TODO, but the functionality is there now. To use grub as an example:

In "Search for items including these words" put grub
then, under "Sort Results By..." select number of replies and the "in ascending order" radio box. You'll now get a list of threads with the word grub in it with 0 replies right on top.

Keep the feedback coming.
--jeremy