How can we make the XDA forums better?

[roirraW "edor" ehT]

One of the main things to do on the forum that would make it MUCH better was ME getting back on the moderating team, but, I'm loving my lifetime vacation... Hugs to all!!

Hi @FSadino! I might not know you yet, but if you choose to come back, the more, the merrier.

 

[strongst]

One of the main things to do on the forum that would make it MUCH better was ME getting back on the moderating team, but, I'm loving my lifetime vacation... Hugs to all!!

I would say:

Spoiler

 

[Renate]

One of the main things to do on the forum that would make it MUCH better...

... would be to remove the "inactive" from my title and just make it "Recognized Developer".
There's no reason for the requirements to be so stringent and arbitrary.
Like art, we know a developer when we see one.

 

[ze7zez]

The most wanted feature of the current forum is a change so that searching the current thread via the Search This thread button searches the current thread instead of the entire forum.

Currently, it is not intuitive to click on the x to turn off the search prompts for the entire forum.

This affliction of the search engine is mentioned in many places in the forum.

 

[blackhawk]

The most wanted feature of the current forum is a change so that searching the current thread via the Search This thread button searches the current thread instead of the entire forum.

Currently, it is not intuitive to click on the x to turn off the search prompts for the entire forum.

This affliction of the search engine is mentioned in many places in the forum.

The XDA search engine is possessed by digital demons. Part of the pack the original developers made with the devil to avoid selling their souls for success*. Yes, well...
Samsung's Finder works better

*vicious rumor, probably true

 

[Clark Joseph Kent]

... would be to remove the "inactive" from my title and just make it "Recognized Developer".
There's no reason for the requirements to be so stringent and arbitrary.
Like art, we know a developer when we see one.

This is something to take to the Recognized Developer Committee, I realize you have done so, and were given a reason for the Inactive.

Bottomline as with all Committees, Titles are addressed specifically to those Committees in question.

 

[IronTechmonkey]

The most wanted feature of the current forum is a change so that searching the current thread via the Search This thread button searches the current thread instead of the entire forum.

Currently, it is not intuitive to click on the x to turn off the search prompts for the entire forum.

This affliction of the search engine is mentioned in many places in the forum.

Is the current search function inflicted, or is it the infliction? Either way... +1, and for the record, IMO the current search IS the infliction, and it ails XDA beyond just ease of search.

In addition to intended scope of search across forum or thread, in many or (even most) cases XDA search replaces intended criteria with a wildcard (*) thereby finding all posts... unless the wildcard is noticed and is manually replaced by the intended criteria for a second search in different template. By that point many people are looking at the wrong search results and are wondering why the thing they searched for is not in the results.

That is beyond user-unfriendly, that is broken, and betrays the fact that the word "search" is the first word in the first line of the XDA Rules.

📚 XDA Developers Forum Rules 📚

XDA-Developers FORUM RULES List of Forum Moderators, click HERE Delete Your XDA Account HERE 1. Search before posting. Use one of our search functions before posting or creating a new thread. Whether you have a question or just something new...

forum.xda-developers.com

That new XDA members (or even existing members) see that the primary rule is un-followable, is not necessarily conducive to taking the rest of the rules seriously, or taking the site content seriously for that matter.

If XDA had a viable search function I might have an actual signature, something like "Keep Fingers Out of Cage (use them to search)"

 

[IronTechmonkey]

Okay, perhaps that (previous post) was a bit melodramatic regarding concerns about a potential descent into chaos just because the search engine is messed up... but on the more practical side of things: the absence of a viable search function does impact the nature of discussions and content in the threads. Repetition and attempts to reference things seem to have become an increasing percentage of posts in some threads. Effective search, somewhat by design and intentions, would lower that percentage.

 

[blackhawk]

Okay, perhaps that (previous post) was a bit melodramatic regarding concerns about a potential decent into chaos just because the search engine is messed up... but on the more practical side of things: the absence of a viable search function does impact the nature of discussions and content in the threads. Repetition and attempts to reference things seem to have become an increasing percentage of posts in some threads. Effective search, somewhat by design and intentions, would lower that percentage.

 

[ethical_haquer]

Is the current search function inflicted, or is it the infliction? Either way... +1, and for the record, IMO the current search IS the infliction, and it ails XDA beyond just ease of search.

In addition to intended scope of search across forum or thread, in many or (even most) cases XDA search replaces intended criteria with a wildcard (*) thereby finding all posts... unless the wildcard is noticed and is manually replaced by the intended criteria for a second search in different template. By that point many people are looking at the wrong search results and are wondering why the thing they searched for is not in the results.

That is beyond user-unfriendly, that is broken, and betrays the fact that the word "search" is the first word in the first line of the XDA Rules.

📚 XDA Developers Forum Rules 📚

XDA-Developers FORUM RULES List of Forum Moderators, click HERE Delete Your XDA Account HERE 1. Search before posting. Use one of our search functions before posting or creating a new thread. Whether you have a question or just something new...

forum.xda-developers.com

That new XDA members (or even existing members) see that the primary rule is un-followable, is not necessarily conducive to taking the rest of the rules seriously, or taking the site content seriously for that matter.

If XDA had a viable search function I might have an actual signature, something like "Keep Fingers Out of Cage (use them to search)"

I really don't understand how we have

...cutting-edge machine learning algorithms...

for AI Moderators, but somehow our basic search functions don't even work.

 

[IronTechmonkey]

I really don't understand how we have

for AI Moderators, but somehow our basic search functions don't even work.

Someday we might have AI XDA members who are programmed to varying degree to search or not search, some of which will be programmed to complain to varying degree about inefficient search features.

 

[blackhawk]

Someday we might have AI XDA members who are programmed to varying degree to search or not search, some of which will be programmed to complain to varying degree about inefficient search features.

Do what Gookill does; add lots of targeted ads on top of the screwed up biased search results to distract and redirect the user's original objective.

 

[karandpr]

Do what Gookill does; add lots of targeted ads on top of the screwed up biased search results to distract and redirect the user's original objective.

Nah man one XDA portal is enough.

 

[ProfessorM_]

I think that it could be a good idea to add "quick search" in specific thread and also add possibility to search forum for file attachments

 

[Oswald Boelcke]

I think that it could be a good idea to add "quick search" in specific thread and also add possibility to search forum for file attachments

Do you know if Xenforo alllows for this or if respective (free) add-ons are available?

 

[ProfessorM_]

Do you know if Xenforo alllows for this or if respective (free) add-ons are available?

Basically there is something like that already on this forum. You go to the top to search bar and click it, then from dropdown menu you will pick "This thread". But when I will copy part of your response for example "Do you know if Xenforo" and click search then it says "no results". It looks like it is not looking for strings in posts. I have found addon which seems to do the job(with live demo) and it is HERE - QuickSearch 1.1.0 as far as I see is just 10$. I'm not familiar with Xenforo so I don't know it is one time purchase or subscription. I also have found addon to add google search option HERE but I don't see demo so it is impossible to test it for me but it maybe worth to test it. If we talk about attachments - I did not found anything free Also very interesting thing on this forum for me is why when I make search box at the top active(I will click it to write something) and I start typing or pressing backspace to delete characters then it starting scrolling posts in the thread?

 

[Anton TNT]

I think that it could be a good idea to add "quick search" in specific thread and also add possibility to search forum for file attachments

Forum attachments is easy to find just using a Google search, as Google bot searches the pages constantly

 

[ethical_haquer]

Basically there is something like that already on this forum. You go to the top to search bar and click it, then from dropdown menu you will pick "This thread". But when I will copy part of your response for example "Do you know if Xenforo" and click search then it says "no results". It looks like it is not looking for strings in posts. I have found addon which seems to do the job(with live demo) and it is HERE - QuickSearch 1.1.0 as far as I see is just 10$. I'm not familiar with Xenforo so I don't know it is one time purchase or subscription. I also have found addon to add google search option HERE but I don't see demo so it is impossible to test it for me but it maybe worth to test it. If we talk about attachments - I did not found anything free Also very interesting thing on this forum for me is why when I make search box at the top active(I will click it to write something) and I start typing or pressing backspace to delete characters then it starting scrolling posts in the thread?

I noticed the same thing:

Searching a thread Is worse. If I search this thread for "forums here at XDA" it says: "No results found.". However, when you look at the second post in this thread you will see that the very first sentence ends with "...forums here at XDA.". Clearly it doesn't work. That's why I have resorted to searching each page on a thread individually with "Ctrl + F" to find a string of words.

 

[IronTechmonkey]

Here is a relatively secondary suggestion but before getting to it, so as to not loose site of what is important, it is my contention that having a viable search should be the first order of business, and furthermore that particular executive staff and decision-makers at xenforo, should be required to remain on-site at their desks until they have implemented viable search functions for all of the forums which they host, especially this one.

OK now to the suggestion: It would be nice if there were a setting which would have links to other posts go furl themselves That is to say: a setting which would force such links not to use the "unfurl" flag to preview the linked post. As the previews quite frequently don't contain the specific information being shared they serve little purpose, and they waste page scrolling space. Why should we have to furl those link when they could do it themselves.?

 

[Anton TNT]

Suggestion : I would like to implement Teamviewer or any similar free program to this forum or it's certain section to help others in that manners directly rather than write whole set of pages for one thing. It would be great for Android head units section.