First of all I’d like to welcome all the new users here, the LTT video really brought some new influx! I know that a lot of you have questions, e.g. regarding an AMD CPU or a bigger chassis.
Many of those have been discussed before though and the forum becomes quite confusing if there are three separate discussions on the same topic.
I’d merge some of those myself, but at the moment only the Framework Team is able to do so and they are busy with shipping orders and keeping the servers alive.
So please do a thorough search in the appropiate category before creating a new topic and don’t disregard the “Your topic is similar to…” window when you do create one, thanks!
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I think this forum system is using Discourse. My suggestion is a systematic approach to improve this user experience, that is to use a topic template that guide users, printing a text to explain “Please search for your topic before opening a new one” when clicking s a “+ New topic” button. It’s like an issue ticket template on GitHub.
I guess Framework can use the feature by customizing Discourse. Though I have not used the feature, I just found it.
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Yes there are definitely a LOT of similar topics.
And Welcome everyone!!
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You know you have explosive growth when the “please use the search function” post appears. 
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That’s a great idea. As soon as one of us has a spare moment, we’ll add that topic template!
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Actually, there is a “Your topic is similar to…” box that shows up after you enter a title. I think folks just have to learn to look at that!
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It might just be me, but I think this feature could be unreliable. I just tried creating a topic regarding AMD CPU options and did not at any point get notified on the right hand window that this may be a duplicate. Maybe someone could try the same to be sure?
I just tried it myself, and it eventually showed up with similar posts when I put in the subject “AMD CPU” but I had to wait like a full minute just looking at the screen until it popped up. It might be under a heavy load, and not be able to search the list of topics very quickly.
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In theory, yes, folks have to learn it. But in reality we have already seen it still doesn’t work well, and that tells us we need to change something to make folks notice it. The pre-fill text is a good way, because we, at least I have experienced the usefulness of the issue and pull-request template on GitHub.
I experienced RubyGems project’s pull-request template works for people to check necessary tasks before sending a pull-request. So, here is an example I suggest. The <!-- ... --> is not to print the text actually after posting.
<!--
Please ensure the following tasks are checked before posting.
* Search for your topic to check if a similar topic exists from the search button at the right top. If you find a similar topic, please consider posting there rather than posting a new topic.
* something.
* something.
-->
Yes, I think that could work. The “similar to” functionality will hopefully return to being useful once load decreases a bit more and we have some time to optimize database performance. I would like to test that out first, and then switch to templates if it isn’t working.
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All right! Thank you for your consideration.
I think it’s good idea for the topic template to include this link: Community Guidelines in the context. I would like to ask you on a poll.
Did you recognize this forum has the Community Guidelines including how to start your topic (thread) before your first post?
- Yes
- No
0 voters
If we see more “No” than “Yes”, that shows this forum system needs to be designed to guide users in a better manner.