Faq

[Gregsyuk1]

Hey,

I have been on these forums, for almost 18 months now and have seen the same questions cropping up, as i'm sure many of you have too.

Well my opinion is, apart from ignorance and haste, the main reason for this is the search function. Although usually very useful most of the time, I feel it lacks a component that could compliment it's usefulness.

When you search "permit" and nothing else you get this:

Showing results 1 to 25 of 500

Now, this is quite a lot of threads for a (new) user to sort through, especially when some of the thread titles are ambiguous/seemingly non-related and there can also be upwards of 50 replies.

So what I propose is someway of adding an option to the OPs first post that allows the OP to acknowledge that their primary post has been answered.

e.g.
"tick here if your question/enquiry has been answered"

This can remain unticked all the while they are waiting for a suitable response. And when they have their answer and tick the box, this is shown in the thread title (by a tick? or thumbs up?) on the search/forum pages. This will allow other users to see that their questions got an answer and would help other users use the search facility more effectively.

I haven't looked at too many of the finer details but I would think that Mods would also have the power to render a thread "answered" incase of members forgetting/going AWOL etc.

Also, could there be an option for an archiving of these "answered" threads, which can be referred via a sticky.

If a new user has under 15 posts for example then a pop-up box could promt them "have you checked the archives for an answered question <insert link>"

I reaslise for some of the big, frequently discussed topics there are large stickies that have been put together by members, and theseare obviously quite useful! So i think the two can work together quite well to reduce the amount of clutter from repeated questions.

I hope you get the gist of what I'm saying here, and let me know if you think theis is a good/bad/ugly idea.

I have to say at this point that I have no IT expertise, so have no idea how easy this would be to implement!

Thanks,

Greg

[peachy]

Surely the word "permit" could relate to many things in Switzerland? I think you can get pretty close to your answer if you are more descriptive in your search.

For example search for "dog permit" and you'll get 28 results (not all relevant actually).

Google also works well:

"site:englishforum.ch permit"

[Gregsyuk1]

Yes, true. I use "permit" as I tried to search "B permit" which is not allowed. Admittedly It was a very loose simulation of what a new user may do.

[Gregsyuk1]

Another example is "sim card" or "sim only" or prepaid phone"

i was sarching for these this morning to find out about a Sim-only phone deals..there are 25-80 results for the various searches.

All have some relevance as the search has brought the key words up, but I don't know if the answer i need has been given. Once i have eliminated the seemingly obvious posts that won't help, i still have a good number to sift through.

Thanks for the response though...its not a polished idea by any means!

Hi Greg,

You've certainly made some valid points, and you're not the first one to notice that the search function isn't always that useful. I found an old post of mine (from shortly after I joined the forum, almost two years ago) where I said pretty much the same thing as you.

	Quote:
	I agree that people who ask obvious questions should be encouraged to look for answers, but (sorry to step on some moderators toes here) the search function isn't actually that helpful. For example, the other day I was trying to find litespeed's entry on half-price train passes, and separately searched for "train pass" and "half price", but had no luck. It turns out that the entry is called Fact Sheet #2 - Swiss Railways, and I could only find it by browsing through the Transportation/Driving forum index. More to the point, I only even eventually found it because I knew it was already in the forum somewhere.

In fact, since then quite a lot of work has gone into making it easier to find pertinent information in the forum. Users now have the ability to add tags to threads, which can make finding information a lot easier. However, as gooner said, they don't seem to be used much.

For common topics there are also sticky threads. In fact, there are even very detailed sticky threads on how to use tags and how to search effectively. Have you seen these?

To be honest, I think changing the structure of the forum in the way you described would require a lot of work, and seems a bit unnecessary given that there are already quite a lot of tools in place to make it easier to find information. Perhaps the easiest way to improve your search results is to become a better searcher. mark's sticky is an excellent resource, and even though you might think you know all there is to know about searching, there are some useful tips and tricks in there that just might help you find what it is you're looking for. (And keep in mind that sometimes info you're looking for might not even be in the forum: google is your friend!)

Best,

Heather

PS-With regard to your other thread, I've been to 'all 26' and think it's totally worth the effort. Enjoy the ride!