Suggestions

Posted by Gary on July 31, 2003

In Reply to: Suggestions posted by GPP on July 31, 2003

: : : It was the 'fell' and 'swoop' comment that I was really asking about...

: : See the commentaries in the thread begun by Peter on July 25.

: :
: : : Putting up a message to direct people to the discussion forum may be useful but I doubt that it would make any significant difference to the number of postings asking about things that are covered elsewhere.

: : I suspect you are probably right about that, but this wasn't really my point. Rather, I was suggesting you refer visitors not directly to the Forum, but to the Search box. I was addressing the situation where people come first to the Meanings/Origins page, and find information that seems wrong to them--such as this comment from Mark about the entry for 'bad hair day':
: : ": : : : : : : Completely disagree from where that phrase comes from, may have been the first time you heard it but I can tell you that I have been hearing it over hear in Oz for the last 20 years at least, probably longer" (since corrected);
: : or the comment of July 26 From Steve Zelt about 'movable feast' (also since corrected); or Peter's comment about 'one fell swoop'.

: : I think saying something to the effect of "For additional commentary, discussion (or arguments), try Searching in the box provided above for one or more keywords from this phrase" would in many instances solve both the problem of visitors going away unhappy because they didn't like the information given at Meanings/Origins, and the problem of other visitors going away happy but with information that may not be as correct or complete as it might be. If nothing else, it would give them the opportunity to see what has already been discussed, before jumping feet first into the Forum.

: Okay, now I see my Search suggestion won't work, with the way the search function is currently structured--searching at Meanings/Origins yields results ONLY from that area of the site, and can't find any of the discussion forum entries; and apparently vice versa. Is it possible to consolidate Search so that it will always search the Archives, the current forum, AND the Meanings/Origins section?

That's technically fairly straightforward. I think there's benefit in them being kept separate though.