Let’s say you do threads/posts searches that go back in time far enough to ensure that “recent” topics haven’t been dealt with earlier.
Let’s also say the search returns huge numbers of things to have to browse through, and you don’t want to spend the next hour or so being sure you’re not resurrecting an old topic.
How would it be if something like the Dewey Decimal system used in libraries might be attached to the topic being covered?
Now I’m not saying one would know at the time the OP went up exactly how to categorize the resulting thread, since it could easily veer off into unexpected territory.
But somebody sometime before the thread slips off into the zone between “current” and “old” might attach a code to the thread (yeah, I don’t know just how yet) so future searches could zoom in on that code and get the threads on that topic.
Has this already been discussed? Resolved?
I’m sure if you were to do a search on categorization… 
Okay. I did. That just helps to make my point. I’d have to read most of those threads to see if the categorization issue was in the vein of what I’m talking about.
I was looking for a way to streamline that process.
Besides, if I just go ahead and post something that’s been beaten to death earlier, most likely somebody who’s been around a while will post a link to the older thread(s) and I know to lay off further posting.
I’d just prefer not to have that happen.
The biggest problems with it are
- coming up with a reasonable number of classifications
- getting some poor sods to do the categorization in the first place
- not breaking the server
Now as a web app designer, the most onerous of these will be to get people to do it. If you only apply them going forward, then most of your relevant results won’t be included. Next, there’s the problem of opinion. Someone A puts someone B’s masturrbation thread under TMI. B gets offended because its a GQ on human sexuality. Lastly, a good potion of threads are ‘me too’, {{{hugs}}} and ‘cite:D?’. I can’t imagine reading through all those, especially when hijacks occur.
The biggest problem is the server issue; I’m sure volunteers would pop up all over the place to help classification along. But they don’t want to alter the vB code at all here and are currently (I think) waiting for the new version to come out.
I recognize those problems, Oy Vey, and do realize it would be a sizeable task to get done.
The Dewey Decimal system itself has flaws that make it not quite accurate, but it’s a shot in the right direction.
Maybe something along the lines of the way a thesaurus is organized.
And for those threads that never get much more than the “me too” and “cite?” responses, where the thread’s topic isn’t ever dealt with beyond what’s in the OP’s statement or question, I’d vote for eliminating it from being categorized at all. I.e., going back to read that somebody else posted the same issue some time ago doesn’t get one any closer to resolution on what the issue(s) was/were.
Okay, let me ask this a different way:
I must assume that folks who have been around for some length of time (a year or longer) have their own private/personal categorization scheme, perhaps one that’s only in their memory.
As a newbie (datewise, anyway) I don’t have the luxury of access to those privately stored schemes and lists and such.
If there were a sort of FAQ-type catalog (compiled perhaps by several/many older members) that wouldn’t roll out of sight, it could be searched with greater ease.
In other places I’ve made my own schemes that worked to some degree, and even shared them at times. I’m one of those who likes reference material.