Forum Threads

[Admin]

Hi All

 

What are your thoughts about this General Discussion forum? We are approaching 2,000 threads and nearly 20,000 posts just in this one forum as many of the threads in here relate to the subject areas of the other forums below.

 

One of the problems with this is the searching ability of the site when you want to see posts spefic to one area all forums have to be searched just to make sure you catch the threads in this forum and the subject area forum.

 

For example searching for brakes on a Jabiru you need to search everywhere not just the Jabiru forum. This means the search returns every post that has the word brakes in it for every aircraft.

 

Not sure what we can do about this - I can move threads every day but that becomes an enormous task - is it because the other forums are setup like sub forums - should we just use this forum as a temp forum and move the threads every X days/weeks - any suggestions on how the forums can be changed to help?

 

:scratch head:

 

 

[Tracktop]

Often the subject changes several times mid thread which I guess makes putting it in one category or another difficult a times.

 

Also shouldn't need to make extra work load.

 

Maybe just work on a better search?? might be easier.

 

Ray

 

 

[turboplanner]

I think an upgraded, and simple, search capacity would do it.

 

Trying to get everyone to place their comments in the right box would be a frustrating and time consuming task, and Tracktop is spot on about multiple subjects in the one thread - and they are often the most interesting threads, because one person feeds off the other and the thread gets a life of its own.

 

 

[Guest Brett Campany]

How about putting an expression of interest out for moderators of those individual aircraft makers threads? You could have a handful of guys, who are all in the know how of the individual aircraft that can move threads from the General Discussion to that aircrafts section. It might take a while to get hold of the appropriate guys to moderate the forums but in the long run it'll take the pressure off you and Slarti.

 

Obviously these mods will really have to prove their know how on that aircraft type but also show the enthusiasm to maintain the way the site is run as a whole.

 

Just a thought anyway.

 

 

[Guest mike_perth]

As an admin of a forum myself the only way it has been managable was to do exactly as Brett ha suggested but the people you add as mods dont need to know the aircraft specifically but just have a basic understanding of - Thats a Jab question thats a Rotax etc etc really once in the appropriate section then they can then be moved ie i a thread gets moved to Jab but not under the J170 section etc then it can be moved.

 

I mod a motorhome forum and this is exactly how this works - I dont know Winnebagos all that well as I dont own one but I just move the posts to the Winnebago general section and then someone more Winnebago specifiic moves them to the correct heading from there, but I know Hino's well so I shift them to their exact location etc.

 

Im happy to put my hand up and offer my basic aviation knowledge to move posts around if that is any help.

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[turboplanner]

Trouble is that's not the way people's minds flow, and there's nothing worse than watching a subject develop, then having the thread disappear and trying to work out where it went, with a user unfriendly search system.

 

 

[sleemanj]

One of the problems with this is the searching ability of the site when you want to see posts spefic to one area all forums have to be searched just to make sure you catch the threads in this forum and the subject area forum.

For example searching for brakes on a Jabiru you need to search everywhere not just the Jabiru forum. This means the search returns every post that has the word brakes in it for every aircraft.

Conversely, one of the problems when you split everything up into a great many different forums/categories is that it becomes difficult to stimulate discussion because:

 

1. It makes the site look a bit empty.

 

2. It's hard to keep track of discussions when they are spread around.

 

I'm of the opinion that one big busy forum is better than lots of small quiet ones and that the search problem is best resolved by a better natural language search algorithm (MySQL full text search indexes work reasonably well on large datasets, or of course just direct people to google site:recreationalflying.com - except that you of course are not permitting google to index more than the 1st post I guess, but that's another topic all togethor).

 

 

[Guest mike_perth]

Trouble is that's not the way people's minds flow, and there's nothing worse than watching a subject develop, then having the thread disappear and trying to work out where it went, with a user unfriendly search system.

Though thats what the "New Posts" button is for it shows us the new posts and if people keep conversing on the subject then they will keep appearing in here so you can watch them if nothing happens in the thread then the original poster can "Bump" it with another post or if a particular thread is over then it will forever be in the section it began in or was moved to.

 

There are so many arguments for and against and we went through a similar argument and in the end decided that for the sake of cleanliness that threads would be moved to their respective places.

 

This also helps new people to the site if they have a Jab etc they can at least go straight to the Jab section and they will then hopefully see all the Jab related posts instead of searching through the General section in the hope they find the one related to Jab's etc.

 

I know its a hard one to argue and both sides have equally valid points it will in the end come down to who is willing to put in the time to either keep things tidy or leave it to get messy

 

Mike

 

 

[turboplanner]

or set up a suitable search facility

 

 

[Guest mike_perth]

Ive just tried the search function already in place - do you all really think its that bad - I just thought up a couple of threads I know I have seen in the past and did a search for them and I found them easily infact in all cases they were either the first or in the first few results. It does seem that the never ending story ends up as the first alot - becasue of its huge number of words

 

I also just tried searching for Jabiru and Wheels and only returned results with those words in the posts.

 

My only gripe is maybe as the other forum I moderate does, the search button should go striaght to the advanced search but that is only minor and because I like to have more options given to me straight up so thats really personal choice

 

Mike

 

 

[Admin]

Thanks for the feedback - I will look at it all

 

The site uses MySQL databases that to put in simple terms doesn't search very well with collections of words (strings). For example if you search for Tecnam brakes you will get every post that has either Tecnam or brakes in it instead of only posts that have both words in it or the actual phrase "Tecnam brakes". The MySQL search is also limited in that it only considers words of 4 characters or more.

 

This is why I have used the Google Search search that is in the blue horizontal bar across the top. That search is far more powerful but as said it will only search the first post in each thread - for it to search every post is another story.

 

The forum search accessible by the clear horizontal menu that is displayed at the top of each forum and thread is the MySQL search which will only search the area that is displayed - for example:

 

Forums main page - searches all forums

 

Forum threads page - searches the threads and posts only in that forum

 

Posts page - searches only the posts that are in that thread

 

However this search also has the option of an Advanced Search which is displayed as a link when you click the search link in the area menu bar.

 

So in summary there are 3 searches:

 

1. The global site search down by the Google Search button on the blue menu

 

2. The area specific quick search down by the Search link in the section menu

 

3. The advanced search for a section by clicking the advanced search link in the area specific search

 

Thanks again for your comments!

 

 

[Jabiru Phil]

I have been guilty of inserting in the wrong category.

 

I always seem to have a problem here.

 

Ian, perhaps a paragraph or two on how to insert a thread would help a lot, it would me.

 

Just a thought.

 

Phil.