Ptvolly

Since the search function is such a huge benefit to this site, and is often pointed out to new users when they ask a question.. What about getting rid of the "useless" posts?

I mean the ones where you do a search for say "drill mod", and you get 20 some posts that only say "do a search".

This would certainly help when searching. I know it would be ALOT of work for somebody, even I would be willing to do or assist (and no, I do not want to be a moderator).

Brains

iTrader: (7)

Yeah, that would definitely help the accuracy rate of the searches, but definitely be a TON of work for someone .. We'd need a team of post readers for sure!

XLR8NSS

iTrader: (4)

jrp and ACW could take care of it I bet. They love to do stuff like that.

ACW

Who, me?

If this 'tidying up' were to be done, since 'deleting' doesn't actually remove stuff entirely, might be better to do something else with 'em... ideas:
- move to the 'removed threads' section
- make another 'removed threads' section, or subsections under each forum, for the threads being removed just for this reason
- merge them together (either all together or just the redundant ones)

XLR8NSS

iTrader: (4)

I think just "soft deleting" them would be fine. Once they're deleted the search feature will not pick them up even though they are still visible to some. You can remove them completely but, that has a tendency to kill the site so don't remove threads completely.

I don't think even you would want to take on this task. Do you realize how HUGE this "tidying up" would be.

ACW

Just putting out some ideas on how it theoretically could be done.

Definitely an enormous task, definitely not interested in attempting it by myself except maybe in this forum which is very small compared to others

I think I'd favor merging or moving over the 'soft delete' since that would reduce the clutter for everyone

jrp

iTrader: (16)

if i was a super mod and had the power to merge, soft delete, move, and edit threads beyond my 3 forums i'd take a gander at it.

Pro Stock John

iTrader: (34)

You raise a good point, but that could be very labor intensive. One thing I do want to do going forward is to make all threads over a year old just read-only.

jrp

iTrader: (16)

DAMN good idea. would cut down on the regergation of those old threads of people who dont look at the dates.

Ptvolly

Does this keep them from coming up when a search is done?
Like I said before, I realize something along these lines could potentially be a HUGE undertaking, and I don't know what all it could entail, I just know how frustrating it can be to search for something, read 30+ threads and still not have an answer so I figured I'd throw it out for you all that know.

I guess along with what Pro Stock John said, is there a way to mark a thread that hides it so it's not longer included in a search? Again, I don't have any type of solution for my own question, but even if it means being a "search researcher" I'll forward tons and tons of threads to a moderator that could be "locked out"!
Thanks!
Dennis

jrp

iTrader: (16)

honestly when search works i've never really had trouble finding the information i need, i've never had to wage through more then a half dozen threads to find my answers. but i can understand there are those who do. are you narrowing down your searches? that helps as well, getting 250 threads back can seem daunting but you can cut them down buy target searching.

Ptvolly

I've tried narrowing on most of them, and it is getting better. When I first started on the board though, when search is probably the most needed function, I didn't really know how to narrow them because I didn't really know exactly what information I was looking for!!
It's easier for those of you that already have knowledge of things to narrow your search.
I'm not crying about the site, I love it and have learned more and spent more money because of what I have learned than I ever thought I would! If it's not time/effort/money feasable it's no big deal, just a suggestion.
Thanks!
Dennis

Brains

iTrader: (7)

We have roughly 2.6 million posts in the database right now. I don't know anybody in their right mind that would want to even attempt reading a tenth of those to determine what is relevant and what is not Even if you were to attack it at the thread level, you're still looking at just shy of 300,000 threads.. There's a LOT of info there...

Making older threads read-only helps every-day server loads, but it doesn't help with search -- you still have to look back over an index of 2.6 million posts. The database server does a pretty darned good job of indexing this large chunk of data, but it has to battle serving content to the typically 600 to 800 online users as well