# A new SIMILAR THREADS feature



## bearded

Hello
In the German forum, starting this morning there seems to be a new feature, namely whenever one begins to reply to any existing thread post, a list of ''similar threads'' appears - as if you were a thread starter.  I think such a feature is useless - and I frankly find it a bit annoying. What do others think - and Mr. Kellogg...?  Thank you.


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## JClaudeK

bearded said:


> I frankly find it a bit annoying.  What do others think


 I fully agree.
"annoying" and useless.


See here the   list of ''similar threads'' appearing






What for


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## DearPrudence

I saw it appear last night personally, and was about to thank Mike for it 
Actually, thanks to it, I see that it had already been implemented and discussed:
Similar threads - not
As mentioned in that thread, as it is conveniently placed at the bottom of the page, it is easy to ignore if you don't find it useful, isn't it?


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## bearded

DearPrudence said:


> thanks to it, I see that it had already been implemented and discussed:


I find it useful when I start a new thread - but not in an already existing thread. Before starting a new thread, one should already have checked what precedes.


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## Sowka

bearded said:


> I find it useful when I start a new thread - but not in an already existing thread. Before starting a new thread, one should already have checked what precedes.



I agree. In an existing thread, this is not very useful. I think it may even confuse new users. But for new threads, I find the feature extremely helpful.


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## JClaudeK

DearPrudence said:


> As mentioned in that thread, as it is conveniently placed at the bottom of the page


It takes 2/3 of the place on the page, I disturbes me (a bit) when I write.


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## DonnyB

DearPrudence said:


> I saw it appear last night personally, and was about to thank Mike for it
> Actually, thanks to it, I see that it had already been implemented and discussed:
> Similar threads - not
> As mentioned in that thread, as it is conveniently placed at the bottom of the page, it is easy to ignore if you don't find it useful, isn't it?



Yes, I thought I'd seen that once before. 

I quite like it and since it's at the bottom of the page you can just ignore it if it's no use.  It's inevitably going to produce better results on some threads than others, but if you have a thread title that starts "*what is the meaning of ..."* you can't really expect it to produce anything usable.


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## mkellogg

Huh. I just upgraded an add-on without any intention of enabling this feature. With a little work, I could get rid of it, but since some people find it useful, I'll leave it for now.  I am a bit concerned for the server load, but we will see.


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## bearded

Thank you for your reply, Mike.  I belong to the opposition party.


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## elroy

bearded said:


> whenever one begins to reply to any existing thread post, a list of ''similar threads'' appears


 It seems that the list is there whether or not you reply?


bearded said:


> Before starting a new thread, one should already have checked what precedes.


 This is true, but
1.) "should" doesn't always mean "does." 
2.) Sometimes I look for answers in existing threads.  Sometimes a particular thread doesn't answer my question, but another one does.  This list could potentially be a useful way for people in that situation to be made aware of, and quickly access, threads that answer their question.
3.) It's possible some of the threads should be merged, but:
3a.) There are many, many threads, and it would be quite an onerous task to sift through all of them and do all the merging that would be needed.
3b.) Merging may sometimes be counterproductive as it may produce super-long threads that become hard to process/digest (_unübersichtlich_ in German).
3c.) In some cases, although threads are similar, they don't need to be merged, so the "similar threads" feature could still be useful even if nothing needed to be merged.
4.) This feature might alert moderators to thread titles that need to be changed.  If I, as a moderator, click on a purportedly "similar" thread and find out that it's not too similar after all, I may change the title to improve the SEO of the database.
5.) There are a bunch of other things below the reply window, like the social media links, the "Contact Us" link, and others.  Anyone can ignore what is not useful or interesting to them.

All in all, I don't have any strong feelings either way, but my brief analysis above makes me think that the pros probably outweigh the cons.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

It's an alternative to using the Search function, I guess.

elroy, what's an SEO?


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## elroy

Search engine optimization


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## JClaudeK

elroy said:


> 3b.) Merging may sometimes be counterproductive as it may produce super-long threads that become hard to process/digest (_unübersichtlich_ in German).



In the "French Only Forum", there  are many _super-long threads_ (due to merging threads which _is _sometimes counterproductive): some are much too _unübersichtlich _and might discourage more than one questioner.


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## Nanon

I agree, super-long threads may be discourageing. However, refraining from merging some threads may produce equally discourageing super-long lists of threads with the same title in the corresponding dictionary page...


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## mkellogg

I see now why I left this feature disabled. It uses quite a lot of resources and probably slows the server some. It basically doubles the load on the server.


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## lauranazario

mkellogg said:


> I see now why I left this feature disabled. It uses quite a lot of resources and probably slows the server some. It basically doubles the load on the server.


Then it might be a good idea to turn it off (disable it) again.
It is not a particularly helpful feature; plus resources could be allocated to other functions. My 2 cents.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

elroy said:


> Search engine optimization



... even though I have no idea what that is or what it does (not that it matters).

I like the idea of Similar Threads!


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## swift

Is it possible to enable this feature in some selected forums only? The similar threads are useful in the _Dictionary error reports & suggestions forum_. I typically remember all the previous threads, and merge threads on the same issues all the time. The similar threads menu is very helpful to see if there are other sections in the dictionary where similar error reports or suggestions have been made, to ensure a standardized approach.


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## DonnyB

It's gone!  Is there any chance of it coming back... I used it _a lot_.


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