Indexing AskMe

December 29, 2003 1:24 PM

Is anyone already thinking ahead to indexing AskMe so that all the dog questions or MP3 player questions or digital camera questions can be seen together, both as an aid and as a way to keep down too many duplicative posts?

I am far too lazy to do it myself, of course, but figure one of you spiffy computer-geek types might be thinking along these lines already and have something for us.
posted by briank to feature requests at 1:24 PM (14 comments total)

I know this was an "experimental month", but there is already a LOT of material, and more than a little duplication/overlap/mutual interest.
posted by briank at 1:25 PM on December 29, 2003

Good idea, briank. Would a "search AskMe only" feature be easier to implement?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:38 PM on December 29, 2003

I'm waiting to see what Matt comes up with.

I can see a lot of value in having something that would extend and filter whatever category setup Matt comes up with. On the one hand I think it would get hard to use AskMe in a casual fashion if it had an elaborate tree structure with hundreds of categories or a fancy semantic web. But at the same time I think it could be very useful to have something like that.

Maybe the search will work better than it does for MetaFilter.

One of my favorite things about Askme is learning from answers to questions I never would have asked. Having a snazzy, node-based index into the questions and answers might make that even better.

If Matt had more resources it might make sense for him to build an API into the raw data. But since it's doubtful that will happen, grabbing the content periodically and mirroring it for the index might be the only option.

I guess the answer is, yes, I'm already thinking about it. But I have no desire to recreate the wheel, and I know Matt has lots of plans as well.
posted by y6y6y6 at 1:47 PM on December 29, 2003

i was wondering this, too, as i decided not to respond again to the "how do i care for my leather coat" question.

(and i, apparently, am one of those types who began posting much more frequently after ask.me happened)
posted by crush-onastick at 1:58 PM on December 29, 2003

Do I remember something Matt said about implementing categories into AskMe? That would leave the main page format as is and still give the option to organize posts in categories, just like MeTa.
posted by rhapsodie at 1:59 PM on December 29, 2003

I'd recommend against any system of categorization, for two reasons:

1. Content hierarchies are troublesome to create and maintain; there's too much fuzziness and people can't be relied upon to properly self-categorize. For instance, would a question about the best portable CD player for runners go into "technology" or "fitness", and who decides?

2. Many of the questions I've seen are of a kind that bear repitition. For one thing, a given "expert" might not be reading the front page the first time a question is asked and might contribute to a later discussion. Second, things change, especially in the tech world, where today's answer can be obsolete a month from now.

I think the best approach is a straightforward search feature. If it's MP3 players you're interested in, you can bank that the keyword "MP3" is going to appear somewhere in any given discussion. This plays into the way I (and many others, I believe) "use" MeFi as a whole, which is to scan the front page of each section briefly for items of interest, then click the things I like. I might not be interested in a category like "finance" but someone might ask a question about a tangentially related topic that I am interested in, and I'd hate to miss it. The MeFi community will guard against double-posts on its own, and those few that make it through will survive if they have new content worthy of being kept, as it is in the blue. In other words, MeFi is a Good Thing, to me, because it works precisely the way it does. If it worked some other way, I wouldn't want to use it.
posted by vraxoin at 2:00 PM on December 29, 2003

Well, we may be talking about different things here. I assume Matt will do some very basic categories and search features. I'm sort of thinking about an off-site index that could be used for power searches and filtering.

"there's too much fuzziness"

Actually I was thinking of something very fuzzy. I think the main interface should be straight forward with just a few categories and a search box. But the value of AskMe will easy it is to find old questions and answers. And as we've seen over and over people frequently don't know the right question to ask. We need an indexing method that will lead people by the hand.

"people can't be relied upon to properly self-categorize."

Agreed. We need some way to leverage the community to massage things into a robust index.

"would a question about the best portable CD player for runners go into "technology" or "fitness""

Both.

I like the idea of being about to logically combine categories. So maybe someone looking for this info would be able to search for questions that are in *both* fitness and music. If you can do that you can create virtual categories that are the intersection of two or more categories.

"I think the best approach is a straightforward search feature."

I worry that such search would get overwhelmed in a few months. How many results would you get even now for "MP3 players"? In a year you'll return a hundred results and people will give up if they don't see what they need in the first ten or so.

Having a way to drill into the questions rather than return a static list seems like a better idea. But much harder to engineer of course.

"If it worked some other way, I wouldn't want to use it."

One of the things Matt seems to be really good at is not breaking things that work as is. I think we can trust in that.
posted by y6y6y6 at 3:06 PM on December 29, 2003

Having trouble finding my question in an opened thread. Basically have a further question yet can't always recall which day or actual topic it was located in. Anyone else? Or am I missing something besides me book marking it?
posted by thomcatspike at 3:57 PM on December 29, 2003

I think it would be interesting if there was an extra field or fields on the submit question page where people could be propmpted to enter some (say up to 3) keywords that would be attached to the thread as metadata, and then have those searchable.

I say interesting rather than useful because I'm not sure how it would work out ... people have a very interesting way to find many different ways to describe/index the same object. On the other hand, perhaps after a few months there may be some clear winners in the keywords entered that might suggest ways to structure such a function in the future. Personally, I suspect that a few keywords would be used a lot, and a lot of keywords used infrequently.
posted by carter at 4:00 PM on December 29, 2003

fields on the submit question page where people could be propmpted to enter some (say up to 3) keywords that would be attached to the thread as metadata, and then have those searchable.
This could be solved using a question format like;
Dogs: What breed will ...
Mp3: Which format for my...
Recipes: Favorite one with...
Camera's: Anyone suggest a good...
Plus you won't have to read the entire question seeing if you if it's of interest or you can help. Example Billionaires: How far can a stretch a dollar buying...having everything...then receiving exempt tax...now affording more...?[skip]
posted by thomcatspike at 4:48 PM on December 29, 2003

I like thomcatspikes suggestion. We could give AskMeFi its own look - add to it a rule that no question can be over one line with sn assumption that there is more inside [so you don't need to write "more inside"]. Tres minimalist.
posted by meech at 5:44 PM on December 29, 2003

1. Content hierarchies are troublesome to create and maintain; there's too much fuzziness and people can't be relied upon to properly self-categorize. For instance, would a question about the best portable CD player for runners go into "technology" or "fitness", and who decides?

Silly people. Hierarchies are too much trouble, of course.

Now, *associations*, on the other hand...

(wink, wink...)
posted by namespan at 7:01 PM on December 29, 2003

I want a very minimalist category scheme (and a pony).

It would just have a few, say five, categories:

1. Internet/Computer Technology
2. Home Technology*
3. Domestic
4. Literature and Media
5. Jobs and Work
6. Other

*by fiat PVRs and other "converged devices" go here.

Remember, the categories are for browsing. Searching is not accomplished by the categories, but via some search mechanism (either internal or google). Browsing is good because it will reduce duplicate questions and because of the stumble-across effect -- when you didn't even know what question to ask but want to read up on hiking boots. I think that the suggested categories are broad enough to last us for the duration, but also specific enough that I bet that most of us would agree on which thread goes in which category (I did this mentally with the askMF homepage and the first archive page -- I didn't have any trouble putting things into any of the 5 categories (no "others" needed).

I envision this working like MetaTalk does. When you get to the homepage, you're presented with the chronological view of all questions, with a small text indicator of the category underneath. Then one can sort to just see a particular category.
posted by zpousman at 7:59 PM on December 29, 2003

Matt, have you looked at successful implementations of category-based discussion or forum-type websites like Three Way Action or The Usual Suspects for ideas?

I spend a hell of a lot more time at both those places than here, not least because they are organized and I can ignore areas of discussion I'm not that interested in.
posted by acridrabbit at 5:53 PM on December 30, 2003