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-Pv- · 04-08-08, 03:03 PM

Warning, this is a peeve of mine so answer is verbose...

I've been able to find everything I've searched for myself. Maybe being a programmer I'm more aware of the limitations of search engines and more creative with my search words. If I see a post where the person asking the question STATES they used search and couldn't find what they were looking for, I do not respond by asking them to use search.

I only mention the search option to people when:
1) There is no evidence in the post they have tried it.
AND
2) I KNOW for CERTAIN there is a large and detailed post or collection of posts answering the question.
AND
3) It's a frequently asked question.
AND
4) I'm feeling lazy (most of the time) and do not want to type a long answer yet AGAIN.

It really does get tiring typing out detailed answers to complicated procedural or historical background questions over and over again. Crew Management is a good example of a subject which cannot be answered in 25 words or less.

I realize the frustration of people who only ask questions and rarely answer them, but speaking for myself (and I suspect many others here who know a lot more than I) I spend more time on this forum answering questions than asking them (estimated 500/1 ratio on that) and I consider my time valuable. I would like to think the thousands of words I've typed here can be used to help more than one person per post. I would rather speak at a convention or seminar than speak with 500 people over the phone.

There is so much activity on this forum, even very active threads only stay on the 1st page a couple days before they get pushed off onto the second page. One of the frustrating reasons this happens is 10 people starting new threads asking the same question within a day or two. Another reason it happens is most people don't read beyond page one (If it's not on page one, it's old news and not helpful.) The third reason is laziness. Why SEARCH for an answer which might already exist when I can ask my question now, and get an answer now? Or, Why should I read 500 words of text to get my answer when someone could simply tell me exactly what I want to know in the next post after my question? Well actually, a person doing that might have to wait 12 to 24 hours until the right person reads the post at the right time with a real answer, not just a guess. Then you still have to wait until YOU can get the opportunity to read the result. Even though we all WISH the next post or two after our question give us everything we wanted to know, you'll learn soon enough the likelyhood of this happening every time is low. This is because the quality of the answer is largely based on the quality of the question and the availability of the person with the quality answer.

Related to this is it's more helpful to the search engine (and the results) if the questions (asking person's responsibility) and the person answering are specific and use words related to the question in their answer.

Example:
Post title: "sucks"
post content: "this game sucks"

Answer: "Why"

Response: "Slow"

This converstation might eventually morph into a discussion of hardware capability and system tweaks long after people ask for more information and the original poster leaks out the answers a few words at a time over the space of days. Unfortunately for the search engine, there is a lot of non-useful content, lowering the "score" of the results, pushing this thread way down on the list of results compared to other threads where there might have actually been less useful information, but the conversation was more specific and had less non-technical fluff, opinion, and off-topic side tangents. If the searching person put in the word "sucks" they might actually get this post to appear near the top of the list, AND they might actually find very useful information near the end of the thread. If instead they put in the words "game tweaks" this thread might appear at the bottom or not at all. From my experience here and elsewhere where I have participated over the span of 23 years, these kinds of conversations are more common than concise, focused conversations. The search engine has to sort though GIGs of this junk to find the 20 words (100 bytes) that answer your question.

In short, the search engine can be fantastic (I've found this one better than most low-cost systems) but the question and answer content so poor the engine has little to work with. Garbage in-Garbage out.

Be smart, be paitent, be creative. Realize everyone's time is valuable, not just your own.
-Pv-

04-08-08, 03:03 PM	#4
-Pv- The Old Man Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 1,434 Downloads: 5 Uploads: 0	Warning, this is a peeve of mine so answer is verbose... I've been able to find everything I've searched for myself. Maybe being a programmer I'm more aware of the limitations of search engines and more creative with my search words. If I see a post where the person asking the question STATES they used search and couldn't find what they were looking for, I do not respond by asking them to use search. I only mention the search option to people when: 1) There is no evidence in the post they have tried it. AND 2) I KNOW for CERTAIN there is a large and detailed post or collection of posts answering the question. AND 3) It's a frequently asked question. AND 4) I'm feeling lazy (most of the time) and do not want to type a long answer yet AGAIN. It really does get tiring typing out detailed answers to complicated procedural or historical background questions over and over again. Crew Management is a good example of a subject which cannot be answered in 25 words or less. I realize the frustration of people who only ask questions and rarely answer them, but speaking for myself (and I suspect many others here who know a lot more than I) I spend more time on this forum answering questions than asking them (estimated 500/1 ratio on that) and I consider my time valuable. I would like to think the thousands of words I've typed here can be used to help more than one person per post. I would rather speak at a convention or seminar than speak with 500 people over the phone. There is so much activity on this forum, even very active threads only stay on the 1st page a couple days before they get pushed off onto the second page. One of the frustrating reasons this happens is 10 people starting new threads asking the same question within a day or two. Another reason it happens is most people don't read beyond page one (If it's not on page one, it's old news and not helpful.) The third reason is laziness. Why SEARCH for an answer which might already exist when I can ask my question now, and get an answer now? Or, Why should I read 500 words of text to get my answer when someone could simply tell me exactly what I want to know in the next post after my question? Well actually, a person doing that might have to wait 12 to 24 hours until the right person reads the post at the right time with a real answer, not just a guess. Then you still have to wait until YOU can get the opportunity to read the result. Even though we all WISH the next post or two after our question give us everything we wanted to know, you'll learn soon enough the likelyhood of this happening every time is low. This is because the quality of the answer is largely based on the quality of the question and the availability of the person with the quality answer. Related to this is it's more helpful to the search engine (and the results) if the questions (asking person's responsibility) and the person answering are specific and use words related to the question in their answer. Example: Post title: "sucks" post content: "this game sucks" Answer: "Why" Response: "Slow" This converstation might eventually morph into a discussion of hardware capability and system tweaks long after people ask for more information and the original poster leaks out the answers a few words at a time over the space of days. Unfortunately for the search engine, there is a lot of non-useful content, lowering the "score" of the results, pushing this thread way down on the list of results compared to other threads where there might have actually been less useful information, but the conversation was more specific and had less non-technical fluff, opinion, and off-topic side tangents. If the searching person put in the word "sucks" they might actually get this post to appear near the top of the list, AND they might actually find very useful information near the end of the thread. If instead they put in the words "game tweaks" this thread might appear at the bottom or not at all. From my experience here and elsewhere where I have participated over the span of 23 years, these kinds of conversations are more common than concise, focused conversations. The search engine has to sort though GIGs of this junk to find the 20 words (100 bytes) that answer your question. In short, the search engine can be fantastic (I've found this one better than most low-cost systems) but the question and answer content so poor the engine has little to work with. Garbage in-Garbage out. Be smart, be paitent, be creative. Realize everyone's time is valuable, not just your own. -Pv- Last edited by -Pv-; 04-08-08 at 08:22 PM.