Describe how you use the site

This reminds me - can't the software be programmed to monitor usage sequences? For instance, one of Roberta's threads has had almost 300 hits >



> since the last post (which was mine, and the above is cut-and-paste from my "your posts" list) but nobody has actually posted anything since that date.

Is this a typical hits-to-posts ratio? Answer should only require a simple subroutine in most software queries.......

I'm usually logged on to A2K.

Since I get updates on threads that interest me, I check an update or two and then go to New Threads.

Occasionally if things are slow I'll check Unanswered Threads with an eye to Doing Something--usually "Bump" if the thread merits attention.

Note: I am only talking about category/topic/post uses right now, and haven't begun to address private messaging (which may be absent at launch and added immediately afterwards) or other parts of the site.

Ok, sounds about what I'd expected. Namely that:

- Most people (out of active users) rely on a view that is inclusive. E.g. most prefer searches that span forums and consolidate all topics.

- Most people tend to filter less even in those views. E.g. most people use new posts more than your posts.

For less active users, a less inclusive view is more common. E.g. a user who just registered to ask a question will have more use for "your topics" than "new posts".

So on the new interface, we'll probably go with:

- Access to a view of all topics. This list will not reset based on session, so you'll always have an "all topics" view.

- Access to a view of your topics and your posts (topics you posted in).

Those cover the basics, but there also seems to be the desire to maintain more manual control over a view. E.g. to be able to add/remove topics you are interested in following. So we'll likely add:

- Tags: this is going to be a way to "bookmark" threads and also organize them into "tags".

Email updates seem pretty popular as well among a small group. i.e. they use them almost exclusively even though it's a minority use pattern. I also noticed people indicating not knowing how to turn them on/off and I feel that it is because topic updates are a bit buggy and because all updates aren't very clear on how to turn off. So we'll likely go with:

- Email updates with very very easy unsubscription management. One-click unsubscribes from the email.

Because email updates are not ideal for resource use and for the user we'll also likely go with a RSS and have:

- RSS feeds for each category as well as consolidated RSS feeds. We may also add personal feeds such as "my topics" or "my posts" at some point as well.

Now people haven't talked much on an exact filter/sort/direction level of the data they want to see. For example the "new posts" shows all categories sorted by last post. The "new topics" shows all categories sorted by topic started date.

Depending on what you are trying to do, the sort order can make a big difference. For example, if you are looking for threads to participate in, sorting by thread date may be more useful than if you are looking for replies to threads you are already in, which would lend itself more to the sorting by last post.

We've addressed this by:

- Making just about any topic grid sortable by: topic start date, views, replies, and last post date.

That should allow for some more flexible use patterns while maintaining consistency across the grids.

Another problem I am seeing is that people "lose" their grids. Since most people tend to rely on the "new posts" feature that is based on their session they lose info if their session is dropped. The "At a glance" is a smiliarly filtered and sorted grid but is presented differently without grid consistency. This has resulted in many cases of people frantically trying to beat the clock and get to the topics before the list resets or avoiding logging in at all if they don't have time to parse the whole list.

I think we'll address this by:

- Making the new version's equivalent of the "new posts" mix with the "at a glance". Namely that the grid will primarily just be "all topics" and will display all topics and never go away. This way, if you log out and in the grid content is not affected.

This, however, fails to address a core issue: read tracking. Right now, there is no real read tracking. It just lists all topics with posts after your log out time as "new". So if you log in and out it resets.

Having real read tracking would be ugly on the backend, with the need to track views by user and reflect as much on the grids. I think it's too much overhead for too little gain. We could use a cookie solution, but that would have low limits and get reset easily as well.

So my big question now is this. Imagine that you have a view like the "new posts" view we currently have. Except it doesn't just list the topics with responses since you last logged on. It lists them all. That way, you don't lose any from the view if you log on and off. Ok, the question is, how much would you miss the "new" element to this view. For example if the topics with posts since you logged out are not marked with an orange icon would it hamper your use? Would orange icons that work similarly to the way they currently do (logging in and out changes them, reading doesn't) be helpful?

My current leanings are toward a grid that presents all topics regardless of logged in and logged out dates but that shows some kind of "newness" (like bold titles or an icon) that is based on a workaround like log in/out but that only resets the icons and not the grid content.

Text-search is still being defined. It's the single biggest technical challenge from a performance and scale point of view and we can't get away with the database-based solutions right now. As you can tell from recent issues with text searches not finding recent posts the word indexing tables got too big and SQL is not the right way to solve this.

Our options are:

- Google search: good relevancy ranking, but no sorting or filtering (e.g. by date or by user). The index freshness would be just ok, with topics and posts getting into the index after a week or so. The index comprehensiveness would vary and it would be hard to predict what percent of posts make it into the index in a timely manner.

One big upside is that the google-based search both outsources the resources as well as provides the most attractive monetization as the search pages can run their ads.

- Google software/hardware bundle. This means spending tens of thousands of dollars on a google search server. It would have decent relevancy ranking, and the ability to sort/filter to some degree. The downsides are that their solutions for our level of size get very expensive and the proprietary nature of them means we can't tweak as much and get feature and performance improvements.

- Build our own search engine, probably based on the open-source Lucene. The downsides are significant complexity for a feature not used that much (e.g. it will be more work than all the other grids we make but used less than any of them individually) and it's a huge challenge. But we are leaning toward this solution.

I'd like to hear more about searcher's patterns (from people like nimh especially) to think about this some more. Initially we will probably use Google for text search while waiting for the right time (after more important features are built) for our own search engine.

I would like to be able to see all posts, not just those since I last logged in. The newness factor is important though. Stuff that has changed since you last looked and/or posted needs to stand out.

The typical hits/posts ratio is 10/1. Topics being found by searchers on search engines at larger volume will have different ratios because guests decide to post at a far lesser rate than do members.

So you can have tens of thousands of hits to posts if the thread is popular on another site or search engine.

Thanks, Craven - great job you're doing here.

Yes.



Yes!

"My current leanings are toward a grid that presents all topics regardless of logged in and logged out dates but that shows some kind of "newness" (like bold titles or an icon) that is based on a workaround like log in/out but that only resets the icons and not the grid content." Sounds good to me

On updates, I don't get updates except for the odd one, say from 2004, that I might have checked wanting them on before I one day said No to updates. Plus for pms, which I just ignore, as I already catch those via the pm header.

On Search, I'd rather you take your time, even if it is another year, and do it yourself.

On my search patterns, I may search several times a week or even in a day. For example, today I posted a link on a recent but 'til today dead thread on the Megan suicide, and had to search to find the thread. Sometimes I run across new architectural/land use information since I get several of those type newsletters and post it to an old thread on a subject instead starting a new one, for example, re skyscrapers. Recently I looked for my thread on Giuliano's lemon chicken via search instead of My Topics in order to answer a thread of Boomerang's on favorite methods of roasting chicken.

I log-in first
Then go look at "Your Posts"
Then I go to "New Posts"

Since I am on and off the internet during the day, I log-out when I'm closing the net and have to log back in later.

I hate the fact that the "New Posts" are gone and I only see a few postings since I logged out an hour or two earlier. Then I have to go to "At a Glance" to see the most recent posts and threads and I don't like that layout because it doesn't tell me enough about the thread. I prefer the "New Posts" layout that tells me
Forum - Topics - Author - Replies/Views - Last Post
I depend on this view to entice me into the thread
The "At a Glance" view does not entice me at all

I never use email updates
I never noticed the Portal thingie
and I've also just discovered the Wiki thingie and trying to figger out what it is

I always forget how to start a new thread/topic since I do it so rarely but each time I have to hunt around to find the right place. It can take me some time ....

I sometimes use search ... when I have been away and I do an ego-search to see if anybody missed me or specifically mentioned/referred to me in a thread, which they don't ... (sob!, heartless bstds!)

I don't know how to use the helpdesk or find stuff or pull up historical stuff.

Re: searches:

If I've been away for a while I do a search for "soz*" to see if anyone has addressed me and respond to them before trying to catch up on everything else.

I frequently search for old posts. For example, I've been saying that I've followed Obama since 2003, but then I got an anti-war speech of his from 2002 and remembered that it had made a big impression on me at the time. I searched for keywords from it to see whether I'd commented on the speech around when he made it. I'd searched for his name already because I was curious about when I'd started talking about him. (Keyword Obama, author sozobe.)

I search for duplicates before starting a new thread.

I search for specific threads I want to add something to (recent search: Keyword floam, author boomerang).

I almost always search for posts rather than topics, though occasionally I'll plug in a distinctive keyword if I want to find a topic.

Me too, re searching for posts rather than topics, which I use only occasionally.

I try to be an adaptable Luddite, but please keep the site simple.

I almost always search for a post rather than a topic. And I rarely have trouble finding what I'm looking for. The problem arises in getting to the discussion surrounding the post. There needs to be some way to get from the found post to the actual post. There's no indication on the search what number post it is or what page it's on.

I humbly second that request, Craven.

(And don't forget us poor souls on dial-up!)

Ignore them Craven, I want to be able to use flock to blog rss feeds from twitter in my facebook igoogle gadget with a mashup to orkut, del.ico.us, picasa and youtube, so if you can't give me an api that can manipulate xml and xlst and authenticate against ldap, shibboleth or myopenid then I'll hold my breath until I turn #0000FF.


One can learn to hate web 2.0

This is war, hinge!

You know what the first casualty is, don't you Olga?

The subject field in each the found posts is a direct link to the post.

1. Home
2. Your posts
*browse through those who are not "trivia and games"
*write a post if I feel like it
3. (not always) New posts
*browse through 1-2 pages... read an average of 1 topic per page read; occassionally post
4. Back to Your posts
If bored, because of scarse interesting activity in "Your Posts" and "New Posts", and with time to spare...
5. Forums
*Check those with new activity and that interest me.
If very bored, and with more time to spare
6. Unaswered posts
*Usually read some interesting BBB contribution, seldom post
If very very bored, and with still some more time
7. Your topics
*Get to see how many views they have

(And I go back and forth "Your posts" during the process)

Hardly ever touch "At a glance" or "New topics".


I sometimes use the "Search" button: sometimes I look for a phrase; other times I look for a topic.
Usually too many threads appear.

(and orange lights are very helpful)

If a PM arrives, that's the first thing I open.

That is basically what we have now and it works fine for me. I know to check the date as well as the icon to see if anyone has posted in a thread. The icon is a quick way but isn't always reliable.


As for searching, it is usually looking for posts by specific individuals in a given time period, most often in the last month or two. There is no reason to get 3000 hits in the search from 2 or more years ago.

The other search use is to see if someone has already started a thread on a certain topic. Here again, it is usually for the purpose of a recent news story or other recent item.