Lighten the load

[Kath-H]

The top participants in the testing sub-forum  just now:

Yesterday I was allegedly the top participant, which is definitely not so. Hover over someone's profile and you see recent threads - but they are rarely the most recent. 'More like this' is wildly inaccurate.

I just get the feeling of wheels somewhere grinding and groaning, trying to calculate all this stuff and keep it up to date. I think we need to strip this system down considerably to where the software can cope. I'm not seeing much in the way of slowness but a number of people are - can't we put the extraneous fluff out of its misery and concentrate on the essential functions?

Eg the current 'More like this' by this post:

It just doesn't work and must waste 'fuel' somewhere in the effort to come up with sensible entries.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

jhabrix wrote:

After posting my message i ran two searches:

1/ bob peters fluff

The first returned one result - based on a message in this forum:

http://forums.adobe.com/click.jspa?searchID=307155&objectType=2&objectID=1932201

Yup, that one worked because in his message dave had included bob's name in the text of his post.

                               

Search Results

( 0 )

Your search for "bob peters fluff" returned 0 results.

Try a less restrictive search, make sure all words are spelled correctly, or try different keywords.

Until dave did that, there wasn't a single post that included all thre key words in the main body of text.

[JayJhabrix]

Doesn't matter, as they weren't within quotes, it should have returned results containing 'bob, 'peters' and 'fluff'... With weightage given to all three in sequence, any two in sequence, all three isolated, any two isolated and any one isolated... in that order.

That's the way it should work... and that's the way any decent search engine works... Except this can of excreta

JJ

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

dave milbut wrote:

the point is i shouldn't have to…

I'm in no way, shape or form justifying, approving of or apologizing for the search engine.  Just pointing out stuff that makes it fail.

[JayJhabrix]

Ramon...

Basically, it boils down to a very simple fact:

These new forums have a most unholy aroma about them:

1/ There is no NNTP support

2/ The interface is 'clunky'

3/ They are abysmally slow

4/ Users have to keep logging in as though this were Fort Know or The Bank of England. (In the old forums my log in was good for months... as long as i didn't clear out my cache (cookies and temp files). Just looged into Experts Exchange after five months... no asking for logins or anything...
5/ The search is even worse than before

6/ The point system is a joke and has no relevance to anything... whether the price of fish or caviar

7/ For a new, updated system, it doesn't even take you to the latest posts in a thread... at least the earlier one did that.

8/ Unsw., unsw., unsw...One can really go on and on

JJ

PS: Above rant is, obviously, not aimed at you!

[Kath-H]

It feels to me like something aimed at a very different kind of user group. Say, people in some kind of corporate environment, so they are probably all using the same browser (although apparently it's not good in IE??? I wouldn't know).

People in say advertising or marketing - so they'd sneer at a lack of eye candy and fluff but be impressed by the hover-over profiles and such.

People all in roughly the same business, so 'More like this' would work, unlike here where a post containing the word 'camera' might be just about the forum camera icon and not remotely related to stuff in the PS Elements forum.

People who don't get into long discussions, so going to the last post generally *would* take them to the last thing they read.

People who have no need to post code, or attach non-image files and have them show up quickly.

People who all use the same email client, in the same way.

People who don't need to do much searching (not sure who they would be )

People who'd be stumped on how to display an image unless they had a 1-click solution, could never grasp the way to make a 'short link' or simple text formatting because, well, they know about marketing or something like that. Happy to live with Arial because it looks fine to them, and the really picky ones can just use the drop-down every fluffykittens time.

People just using the forum as a way to stay in touch about work, not to have any kind of serious discussion about software.

People nothing like us

[Kath-H]

Oh, and they don't need the breadcrumbs at the bottom because they only go to one place at a time. And their discussions never go to more than 2 pages, so they never even notice the back button issue.

And if they are just setting up the next meeting, why on earth would they need newsgroups?

Nope, we are not the target audience.

[Kath-H]

Oh yes, and they are accustomed to some kind of Pavlovian reward system, so they really, really care about points and who's the top participant

[Claudio_González1]

Kath, as a non native English speaker, I can't even understand what is meant here by "top" participants.  At first, I thought it meant those with the largest number of posts, but no, they aren't. Then I thought they were those with the most useful answers, but no, it's not that either (blatantly obvious in some cases!). Then I said to myself, they must be the most recent posters, but no: I have never seen my name in any of those lists, not even in the forums in Spanish where sometimes there are no new posts for a couple of days. So I'm completely baffled: my reason tells me those names must be at the top of some list, but I am unable to find any logical list that fits the names I get.

As to the "More like this", in many cases the list seems like a bad joke.

I vote for eliminating both lists.

[Guest]

top participants means "the cool kids" obviously!

[Claudio_González1]

dave milbut wrote:

top participants means "the cool kids" obviously!

No, it's not that either. Too often, I have seen your name in the list.

[Guest]

No, it's not that either. Too often, I have seen your name in the list

you wound me sir.

[S_D_A_]

ROFL Good 1 Claudio.

[Phos_four_dots]

You're not alone, Claudio.

I've looked at "Top Participants" box and tried to understand what "Top" is supposed to represent, and I have no idea.

Even if it was explained to me, I still wouldn't care. It means nothing to me, I find it an annoying waste of space and "fuel" as Kath so aptly put it. I wish it didn't exist.

Same with "More like this." I seriously doubt that Jive has been able to come up with a semantic A.I. that can dredge meaning & context out of random keywords, and apply them as parameters for searching and listing other posts which are relevant. Maybe by luck some posts or threads will come up that will lead a user to find an answer, but I'm going to guess that 97% of the time that won't be the case.

Again, it wastes CPU resources, and takes up space that would be better used for tightening up the general layout of the forum.

[Guest]

Again, it wastes CPU resources, and takes up space that would be better used for tightening up the general layout of the forum.

and that's the biggest reason for turning those "features" off...

[Guest]

When can we have the old reliable forums back?

[Guest]

From my observations it appears that Top Participants is based on getting points in that particular forum.  Not your total points, but recent points.

But just a guess from what I have seen.  Would be interesting to see how Jive has it programmed.

[Kath-H]

Popular Discussions as well - I've noticed in a few forums I've visited, this means 'recently active discussions', not the ones with the most posts. Well, we can see that from the list, can't we? Let's have these time-wasting, pointless twiddly bits abolished, gone - balayés (Piaf fan here).

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

Kath-H wrote:

balayés (Piaf fan here).

Why would anyone need to be a Piaf fan to know how to use a broom?    I'm a Piaf fan too, but I wouldn't want to identify her with a broom.

[Kath-H]

Ah, but I typed in the same joyful tone she sings it

[Phos_four_dots]

curt y wrote:

From my observations it appears that Top Participants is based on getting points in that particular forum.  Not your total points, but recent points.

But just a guess from what I have seen.  Would be interesting to see how Jive has it programmed.

Look at it this way:

A bunch of us have spent time thinking about this. We're reasonably smart and perceptive. We can't figure it out, or come to any consensus.

That tells me that the title of "Top Participants" is meaningless. The relevance of that list shouldn't be dependent upon an explanation by John C. or anyone else.

Having a longer title would be bad form. Having to add a full sentence or more to that box to explain what that list of people means would be ridiculously bad form.

And for whom is that list of people supposed to carry any weight? Without knowing exactly what "Top Participants" refers to, we can't know the answer.

Does it mean busiest posters? Irrelevant.

Does it mean posters with the most points? Irrelevant.

Does it mean posters who have gather the most points recently? Define "recently" in this context. Would changing the value for "recently" make any difference? Irrelevant.

Does it mean most active participants in a particular forum? Irrelevant.

Does it mean most recently active participants in a particular forum?  Again, define "recently." Again, Irrelevant.

So I'll ask for an explanation from John or anyone else in a position to know:

"What does "Top Participants" mean? How is that widget supposed to add value to the experience here, either for the regulars, or for the casual visitors just looking for an answer or posting a question?

If those two questions can't be answered with 2 simple sentences, then I say the "Top Participants" widget is more useless than even mere appearances would indicate.

[MichaelKazlow]

If we are wasting so many CPU cycles, maybe we should make the argument that the forums are unnecessarily contributing to global warming. Of course here we are referring to the GUI, not the content which may contribute to global warming in an entirely different manner

[Guest]

What does "Top Participants" mean?

It means "posters upon whom the Great Flying Spaghetti Monster has smiled".

I'm amazed that you have to ask!

[Kath-H]

Any system that has me as *the* top participant in the testing forum definitely needs its bumps felt.