Prioritizing closed or solved topics in search

mcwumbly · April 26, 2023, 5:59pm

I’d like to work out what next steps might be for a change here given the interest expressed so far.

Currently, this is the logic:

lib/search.rb

6ae0c42c0


      
          category_priority_weights = <<~SQL
          (
            CASE categories.search_priority
            WHEN #{Searchable::PRIORITIES[:low]}
            THEN #{SiteSetting.category_search_priority_low_weight}
            WHEN #{Searchable::PRIORITIES[:high]}
            THEN #{SiteSetting.category_search_priority_high_weight}
            ELSE
              CASE WHEN topics.archived
              THEN 0.85
              WHEN topics.closed
              THEN 0.9
              ELSE 1
              END
            END
          )
          SQL

per @sam:

notice the edge case here!

At meta… given the noise on Support we tend to want to deprioritise it… once deprioritized closed ranking bonus no longer takes effect…

So something else to consider is how this plays with category weights.

I feel like an iterative approach here could be the following:

Just add a case for solved WHEN topics.solved then 1.1
Change the archived, closed, and solved weights to be multipliers of the category weight and each other.
Make archived, closed, and solved weight multipliers configurable via site settings

Maybe it makes sense to do all of these at once. Or maybe we do (1) and (2) first and wait before making them configurable. What do you think @sam?

Topic		Replies	Views
Prioritizing content more effectively in search Feature	21	5972	April 2, 2019
Should search prioritize recent topics over older topics? Feature	53	6532	August 22, 2014
Refinements to search being tested on meta Announcements search	19	4904	June 2, 2024
Boost solved search results in search Feature search	4	967	December 24, 2020
Discourse needs better search Feature search	39	2453	July 10, 2025

Prioritizing closed or solved topics in search

Related topics