Categorising or indexing useful Topics under headings

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

I've begun to notice more and more how hard it is to find a particular topic in the forum, in today's instance I knew the question being asked had only recently been discussed but I went back three pages without seeing any obvious title, and it was just by chance I clicked on "zoom" to find where camera controls had been discussed. And it's even happened to me with my own posts, I've spent ages trawling through my profile listing of posts to find something I remember dealing with but the titles just don't help.

the topic titles don't always encapsulate the solutions held within them, which is understandable since the poster raising the query can't be expected to know the nature of the solution in all of the cases.

Using search can help, but all too often it's a wall of text that's as tedious to make sense of as going through the pages of topics, and not really any faster.

One option is having a way to tag posts once they have been fully answered and are going to lie quietly awaiting the odd necro-poster.

Another way would be to have a stickied post containing headings such as "camera control", "Keyframed motion", "Herding cats", and when a particular topic has resulted in some interesting or ideal model answers, link that post under the relevant heading.

Both options will require that a regular does the reviewing to properly tag or categorise such topics.

As Drop Dead Fred says whilst surfing on the water spout in the sinking houseboat, "What are your thoughts?"

[Rolig Loon]

13 minutes ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

Another way would be to have a stickied post containing headings such as "camera control", "Keyframed motion", "Herding cats", and when a particular topic has resulted in some interesting or ideal model answers, link that post under the relevant heading.

We have several stickied threads at the top of the Scripting forum. In fact, we have more than any other forum, I think.  Moving a single post into one of those threads is a simple matter of flagging it and asking the moderators to move it.  That works well for individual posts, but not for whole threads.  As far as I know, there's no way to move a whole thread within another one, and I don't know how how robust the software is for creating sub-subforums, the way that we create sub-sub-sub-subfolders for our stuff in inventory.  I've never seen it done, anyway.

It really would help if people used informative titles for their threads, as you say. A title like "Scripting Problem" is totally useless.  I can usually find an old thread if it contains an obvious keyword.  However, some of the best discussions turn out to happen in threads that start with a silly question and get diverted into a fascinating conversation about something related but fundamentally different.  Those ones are impossible to find.  Years ago, I used to keep my own index of threads like that, but it took way too much effort (and I found that I didn't go back and consult most of those threads later anyway), so I stopped.  And then the forum software changed and all our old threads were lost, so it really was wasted effort.  In short, I don't know what the answer is.  I doubt sincerely that LL will ever dedicate anyone to tagging and indexing threads for us, and I don't expect some cataloguer among us to volunteer.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

10 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

However, some of the best discussions turn out to happen in threads that start with a silly question and get diverted into a fascinating conversation about something related but fundamentally different.  Those ones are impossible to find.

Exactly. And we are therefore losing track of incredibly useful information.

That's why I am thinking about a stickied post where there are headings, and a particular thread that ended up with something useful on say, Camera control, get's linked in that topic under a section headed "Camera".

[Rolig Loon]

4 minutes ago, Profaitchikenz Haiku said:

That's why I am thinking about a stickied post where there are headings, and a particular thread that ended up with something useful on say, Camera control, get's linked in that topic under a section headed "Camera".

Oh, I see.  Not actually moved there but referenced in a placeholder post that includes a link to the thread itself. That's not a bad idea.

[Quistess Alpha]

16 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

a placeholder post that includes a link to the thread itself

Since posts can't be edited more than a day or so, perhaps something like a sticky thread with a link to a google-doc or wiki of some kind that might be more manageable?

Edited November 17, 2021 by Quistess Alpha

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

Yes, there's also the inherent problem that only the post-creator could edit the thread. However, a redirection is then moving the seeker-of-knowledge away from the forums. It's a burger whichever way you look at it.

[Xiija]

It would be nice to have a "tag" ( hashtag?)  option when posting...

Edited November 17, 2021 by Xiija

[Rolig Loon]

It's been a while, but I remember asking moderators to move a couple of posts into the sticky about scripting doors. I don't know how feasible that option is generally because it could leave awkward holes in the threads they came from. It would also put more work onto the moderators.  Still, it's an idea.

[Quistess Alpha]

2 hours ago, Rolig Loon said:

move a couple of posts into the sticky about scripting doors.

nothing's stopping you from posting a link back to a specific post (the button to do that is right next to the report button)

like so:

 

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

The major stumbling blocks I've overlooked are that 

1) Only the original poster can edit the post

2) there is a time-limit on how long a post remains editable.

So this one has to go in the bin marked "Good idea but unimplementable"

 

We could I suppose petition the forum gods to allow some of us rights to edit other's posts, but, I know I wouldn't be able to resist the odd FIFY and I'm sure there's many here who also

[Wulfie Reanimator]

On 11/17/2021 at 2:39 PM, Xiija said:

It would be nice to have a "tag" ( hashtag?)  option when posting...

There is when you're creating a new thread.... but it's both under-used and, if used, it's used poorly because there aren't any tag-suggestions.

There's always the wiki, but having to request editing access is kind of a hassle and the wiki format isn't the most intuitive (let alone easily discoverable unless you get a direct link).

A sticky to an external doc (with multiple editors from the regulars here) seems like the most sensible thing, but it'd still take quite a bit of dedication to maintain.