G
Guest
Hello all good peoples
I hope I'm in the right forum for this :-
I've recently had major problems with my computer, and have made many posts to this newsgroups looking for help. I'd like to say that the people who post here have been incredibly helpful, and have helped me to solve a lot of problems. However, I find the structure of this newsgroup to be very un-helpful, and have some issues that I would like to hear your opinions on
Firstly, why are we so limited in our searching? I loose posts all the time. You can only search by key word, and I don't even know if it’s a title search or a full text search. I have to keep a file of my posts and replies just to find them again. And this list has to include date, forum and an exact copy of my text to be of any use. If I don't do this, I have to slog through a dozen different forums, try to distinguish between a million identical postings. And even when I do, my search results seem to be organized in a strangely arbitrary manner. Why can't I search by author (other than when I'm already looking at one of his or her posts), by date, by title or keyword or all of the above?
Secondly, if you're looking for advice, most of the newsgroups seem redundant in that we have both general and specific forums placed side by side instead of in a hierarchical fashion. Any symptoms I have could logically apply to a dozen different forums, to a greater or lesser extend based on how familiar I am with the problem. If we have a media newsgroup, why do we also have separate music, video and picture newsgroups? Why do we have a basics and a new user's forum? And why would anyone use any of these forums when one could just post to the Expert Zone and theoretically get the best advice in one shot
Finally, since there is obviously so much redundancy in both question and reply postings, and because our search engine makes finding specific things so difficult, wouldn't it make sense to keep a 'best of' section, where people can search for previous threads that might already have answered their questions? How would I know whether or not this or any topic has already been discussed a million times, unless I had the time to try every forum, and was able to think of every possible keyword by which to search for it
I don't know. Maybe I missed the instructions somewhere. Maybe everybody else is just used to the set up, and actually understands why forums are divided up the way they are...and maybe y'all like not being able to find your own posts, and the lot
Paul of the Paris of the Midwest.
I hope I'm in the right forum for this :-
I've recently had major problems with my computer, and have made many posts to this newsgroups looking for help. I'd like to say that the people who post here have been incredibly helpful, and have helped me to solve a lot of problems. However, I find the structure of this newsgroup to be very un-helpful, and have some issues that I would like to hear your opinions on
Firstly, why are we so limited in our searching? I loose posts all the time. You can only search by key word, and I don't even know if it’s a title search or a full text search. I have to keep a file of my posts and replies just to find them again. And this list has to include date, forum and an exact copy of my text to be of any use. If I don't do this, I have to slog through a dozen different forums, try to distinguish between a million identical postings. And even when I do, my search results seem to be organized in a strangely arbitrary manner. Why can't I search by author (other than when I'm already looking at one of his or her posts), by date, by title or keyword or all of the above?
Secondly, if you're looking for advice, most of the newsgroups seem redundant in that we have both general and specific forums placed side by side instead of in a hierarchical fashion. Any symptoms I have could logically apply to a dozen different forums, to a greater or lesser extend based on how familiar I am with the problem. If we have a media newsgroup, why do we also have separate music, video and picture newsgroups? Why do we have a basics and a new user's forum? And why would anyone use any of these forums when one could just post to the Expert Zone and theoretically get the best advice in one shot
Finally, since there is obviously so much redundancy in both question and reply postings, and because our search engine makes finding specific things so difficult, wouldn't it make sense to keep a 'best of' section, where people can search for previous threads that might already have answered their questions? How would I know whether or not this or any topic has already been discussed a million times, unless I had the time to try every forum, and was able to think of every possible keyword by which to search for it
I don't know. Maybe I missed the instructions somewhere. Maybe everybody else is just used to the set up, and actually understands why forums are divided up the way they are...and maybe y'all like not being able to find your own posts, and the lot
Paul of the Paris of the Midwest.
