Similar Topics

[rdd1952]

I have been gone for almost a month and upon going into the first thread I noticed that at the bottom, there is a list of similar threads. Most of the ones in that particular thread were terribly old. For instance, I went into one on fishless cycling and the 5 similar threads were from Dec. of 2003, May of 2004, Dec. of 2005 and Feb. and April of 2006. I'm sure there are a lot more recent threads (one almost every day on fishless cycling) that could be listed. I understand that having them there could possibly help people find more info but would seem more likely to lead to a lot of old threads being resurrected with new, unnecessary replies. Is there a way to put a date timeframe on those or at least have it search for most recent threads first?

 

[OohFeeshy]

You can minimize it, although it seems you need to redo this each time you log in again.

 

[rdd1952]

I think the idea is a good thing as it will allow people to find more information on their subject although a search would do the same thing with more results. I will minimize for now. Since I stay logged in, it shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Lateral Line]

There have been a load of ancient threads bumped recently - that could be the reason.

 

[rdd1952]

I woud imagine s I actually went into one of the ones on that first thread and was getting ready to post a reply when I saw how old it was.

 

[Inchworm]

It can be something of a distraction too. I've surfed right off topics I was getting ready to post on.

The selection of threads displayed isn't usually as "similar" as it might be. For example, in the Corydoras forum, I often seem to find links to Cichlid threads. At the bottom of this thread there were links to the threads about bettas, hair grass, and pythons, as well as to others in Announcements and Suggestions.

It reminds me of the old days here at TFF, when we had advertising links at the bottom of the pages. They would pick up words from the posts and take it from there. I remember one in particular, where the thread mentioned pineapple swordtails and the ad was for Hawaiian vacations. It was amusing in an odd sort of way.

 

[rdd1952]

From looking at the "Similar Threads" in this thread, it would appear as if it is searching for the key words in the tread title, "similar" and topics" in this case. At least the ones below are recent though.