Your topic is similar to... should be based on Topic Title or Message Body

(Dave McClure) #1

Continuing the discussion from Google Search Results are not good:

The “similar” topics popup seems to only be strongly based on the topic title you choose, but it only pops up after you start composing the message.

It shouldn’t require both the topic title and the message body. Either should be sufficient to start telling you what you’re writing may be similar to something else.

If you start with a title, it’d be better if it popped up as you’re typing the topic title, like it does in the search box. That way you can hop around to those topics to see if they really are similar before you start typing your message…

If you start with writing the body, it should pop up while you’re composing (some folks might not pick their carefully worded title until they have their full idea composed). Currently it ignores the contents of the message body altogether.

(Jeff Atwood) #2

Agreed, it should use the body too for matching similar topics (based on other first posts). That was always the intent. We just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

(Jeff Atwood) #3

I believe this now uses both title and body to match? Can you confirm @eviltrout?

(Dave McClure) #4

I can confirm that it uses the title and body to match.

But it would be much better if it used either to match even if the other was not filled in yet. Here were my tests:

  1. :white_check_mark: title content used to match (if body has contents)
  2. :white_check_mark: body content used to match (if title has contents)
  3. :x: : no matches for body content if title has no content
  4. :x: : no matches for title content if body has no content

screenshots

(1) :white_check_mark: title content used to match (if body has contents)

Screen Shot 2015-06-29 at 10.59.56 PM.png1268×976 274 KB

(2) :white_check_mark: body content used to match (if title has contents)

Screen Shot 2015-06-29 at 11.00.35 PM.png1266×966 274 KB

(3) :x: : no matches for body content if title has no content

Screen Shot 2015-06-29 at 11.01.11 PM.png1150×830 109 KB

(4) :x: : no matches for title content if body has no content

Screen Shot 2015-06-29 at 11.01.27 PM.png1120×794 103 KB

(Kane York) #5

mercantile bombardment

I believe it’s like that to reduce the number of requests? But it could just use a 1-second debounce instead.

(Jeff Atwood) #6

It is intentional that we only display matches when we have both title and body. We should probably change it to match if we have either or both @eviltrout.

Note that the matches will shift around as you enter more content, though.

(Sam Saffron) #7

Keep in mind, this is probably one of the more expensive queries we have that runs regularly, the more fancy we add the more expensive it will get.

We should do some science to see how frequently it even helps. Is saving creation of a new topic in say 0.2% of cases make it valuable ? We need stats here to even decide how much effort we should be investing here.

(Dave McClure) #8

Stats would be great. I’d want to know:

  1. How often do people click on any of the links?
  2. How often do they abandon their new topic afterwards?
  3. What do those numbers look like over a similar time period after making the suggested changes?
(Régis Hanol) #9

This has been fixed.

Title still is required.