Relevancy Calculation? June 2, 2009 6:26 PM Subscribe
Would it be possible to alter the "sort by relevance" option on the search function to include how often the requested term was used in the comments/responses?
Basically I was searching for askme questions about girlfriends but have been frustrated by the number of questions about "my girlfriend's computer/dog/coworker/etc." that are ranked as highly relevant when in reality they are irrelevant, as whose computer/etc. it is makes no difference. It seems like if the number of times a phrase was used in the comments was factored into the relevancy calculation this would fix the issue; people are unlikely to keep saying "your girlfriend's computer" but would probably use the word "girlfriend" in a response if that was what the question was actually about.
Basically I was searching for askme questions about girlfriends but have been frustrated by the number of questions about "my girlfriend's computer/dog/coworker/etc." that are ranked as highly relevant when in reality they are irrelevant, as whose computer/etc. it is makes no difference. It seems like if the number of times a phrase was used in the comments was factored into the relevancy calculation this would fix the issue; people are unlikely to keep saying "your girlfriend's computer" but would probably use the word "girlfriend" in a response if that was what the question was actually about.
Search for 'girlfriend and relationship', or 'girlfriend and dating', or 'girlfriend and sex'.
Your relevancy algorithm sounds a bit tenuous, unless you have some data-crunching of Cortexian proportion to back it up.
posted by CKmtl at 7:29 PM on June 2, 2009
Your relevancy algorithm sounds a bit tenuous, unless you have some data-crunching of Cortexian proportion to back it up.
posted by CKmtl at 7:29 PM on June 2, 2009
Google might be a better tool for you. Google indexes entire pages, and our search engine indexes the atomic elements of posts and comments. It doesn't treat them as a whole unit together. So try something like this at Google:
Because the term "human relations" appears on every page in that category, including it is an easy way to limit your results to that category. That will exclude the computer questions that were clogging your results here. And I'm sure their relevancy system is light years ahead of what we're using.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:42 PM on June 2, 2009
site:ask.metafilter.com girlfriends "human relations"Because the term "human relations" appears on every page in that category, including it is an easy way to limit your results to that category. That will exclude the computer questions that were clogging your results here. And I'm sure their relevancy system is light years ahead of what we're using.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:42 PM on June 2, 2009
My girlfriend's dog (dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog dog, I love the sound of the word) doesn't know Python. Should I dump her?
(Top of the results!)
posted by Plutor at 3:56 AM on June 3, 2009
(Top of the results!)
posted by Plutor at 3:56 AM on June 3, 2009
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posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:41 PM on June 2, 2009