Why people don't search...
 

Dear Mods,

I've been noticing a high volume of new threads being started pertaining to the same existing questions and topics apparently without the OP searching first:


How much is an LS1 conversion?

Why does the rear end clunk?

How round is a rotor?

Why does a triangle fit in a circle?

What's the best 900 hp street turbo?

Why does my car always get pwnd when I try to drift?

What if I want to put a 12A into my FD to represent old school?

How do I start a build thread and still have a non-running half gutted shell after 3+ years?


Since we all like performing upgrades, I would recommend that the "Search" button receive the following modifications:


Green instead of red

Pretty font

one last thing... *BIGGER*


Hopefully making the "Search" button less invisible will reduce the number of new threads asking for things like pics of all-season 195's stretched on 15x14s.


Feedback and other suggestions are welcome. Thanks for your consideration.

^^^
+1 on the suggestions.

I inquired years ago about making a "have you searched?" prompt prior to allowing the member to post a new thread.

It would add an extra five seconds to anyone posting, but I think it would make some others think before posting a new thread.

I think people can find the search button...but can't find energy to use it. Or use it and when they see it draws up 3 pages of posts...just give up.

You could make 1/2 the page a search button and people will still post the same stuff. After 10 years...that's my view of it.

Search button
 

Being a member for just better than a year I remember well the frustrations with the search button .. Indeed the problem is not that new members don't use the search service but this search service is like all others , in that it compares words in threads with search words typed by the user and more often than not , I would say maybe 90 to 95 % of the threads that come up have absolutely nothing to do with what the user wants to know so they come in frustration looking for help and more often than not the new user is pushed away so to speak to have another go at good old frustration .. IMO a moderator needs to be appointed in that area for interception and DIRECTION of repeated requests rather than us the members ,discouraging them from taking part . In the beginning I found it frustrating to not find help when needed and now a year later I know where to go, in what areas and who knows what and who just thinks they know .. everything goes great now , I love this forum :)

I like this suggestion.

Also reducing the number of new threads regarding the same topic might actually give 10 valuable thread results versus currently you get 100 miscellaneous useless hearsay thread returns when you hit "Search." So don't search and just hit "New thread."

Perhaps some of the useless threads (noobs talking smack, replies giving advice on the best camshaft for a 13B, or pleading to be hated on for their dune-buggy wheel "fitment") can get deleted, reducing the number of irrelevant search results and reduce the load on the rx7club.com server which has historically been one of the slowest-responding sites on the internet.

Over the last several years I've learned a lot from the forum, that is, after having read and sifted through an aggregate 75% misinformation and back-and-forth of whatever nature. With over 30 Moderators on this site, it really only takes the effort of one of them reading this to help improve the site in this manner to all our benefit.

^ Wow that sounded good, didn't it. (Read below.)

Totally agree. Nothing's gonna change.

Some forums when you try to post a new thread it actually automatically throws search results up from your thread title that you have to scroll through before you post. It would be nice to have a system like that. That being said, cleaning up a LOT of the banter and archiving more useful threads/posts will be helpful to all as well.

It could help, just changing the font, size, and color of the button. But people would still be "newbs" and get "pwnd" by the other members that get pissed because they dont search. I'll give ya a +1 because it would be worth a shot though :)

Good idea Mario III ,,Possibly there could be an easily accessed area for the weary travelers to seek a bit of help from one of the mods or members after a reasonable search time by the new member. ( there must be a way to track new members to see if they are actually searching or not ). without actually interfering in the operation of the main areas . IMO it is the biggest and most persistent problem on this site . Happy to be here. Gerald m. :)

Random replying and bumping
 

... just to increase post count. More reasons for the forum's latency and the number of search complaints.

Case in point - this guy (posts #8 through #10):

https://www.rx7club.com/showthread.p...9#post10973319

Thanks. I took care of those an other posts that he made. We do have this problem, but we try to counter it. For instance, most will do it to get to the classifieds. Before we approve an ad, we will check other posts by the OP to see if his post count is legit. If it is like this guy, the ad isn't approved and all of his posts go away.

We set up post count requirements to help with the spammers and such, but we also try to have some flexability for a legit new member to introduce himself and ask/answer technical questions (such as in the new member section). We have to pre-approve new threads that these guys make in the new member section or classifieds, but we can't really do that for replies, so we just have to catch them as we go.

People who post just to increase their post count make more work for themselves (we will delete these when we find them) and will attract the wrong kind of attention.

If members see this going on, just click the "report post" button and a mod will come and clean up the mess. This really helps us as we try to cover as much ground as possible, but there are too many threads out there to catch them all on our own.

I think you guys are being way to fanatical about this. What is the problem with someone asking a question about something already discussed.

A) Every so often we have a completely new population of users that have never HAD the discussion and god help us if anything new happens in the world that might make us look at it a bit differently.
B)Post count has NOTHING to do with knowledge about rx-7's or how to use a forum.
C)Many of the topics "already discussed to death" are total crap with maybe 1 or two posts in a sea of... crap that is useless.

For gods sake let the new folks have their discussions just like we did way back in the day. Saying you cant have the same conversation over again with completely new folks having the discussion is absolutely retarded.

Rehashing things also give vendors a NEW place to match their services and products to NEW users. If I went back to selling my services and products on this site I would be very discouraged about your "Go Search" mentality. I assume this place generates revenue, would it not be in the forums best interest to give vendors a revolving door to answer the same question over and over with the latest insight and tech?

You guys are just looking at this all wrong IMHO. My 2 cents…

^^Why not just bump the old thread (that was found after searching) and let the 'new crowd' go to town in the original thread?

This says it all, but were all guilty at one time or another:

http://forum.mql4.com/c/forum/2010/1...searchbmq8.png