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posting solutions to problems

tredse1 said:
i have had a lot of problems trying to search the older threads...which is where most of the useful info is. i have seen things that i liked before i joined, went back to retrive it once i was ready and what do you know, it no longer exsits! Also i search for something..ie "heater" and it comes up with crap about some supercharged superfast car that looks really cool, and by the way the heater don't work...that didn't help me fix my heater at all, there has to be some way to preserve the old threads and weed out the unwanted crap when searching!
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do u not understand how a search engine works? if u search for "heater" then it is going to search everything with the word heater in it. did u think it was going to read your mind on what you where looking for? maybe should be a bit more specific in your search or do alot of scrolling until you find what you are looking for:shrug:
 
xdetroitx said:
do u not understand how a search engine works? if u search for "heater" then it is going to search everything with the word heater in it. did u think it was going to read your mind on what you where looking for? maybe should be a bit more specific in your search or do alot of scrolling until you find what you are looking for:shrug:
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acctually i did, i did several searches, ie "heater not working" witch gave me 2-3 threads in the first 15pages that were kinda simlar to what i needed, and of course like the OP stated...they were all unresolved! i am a fairily patient person so usually i will search for a couple HOURS before giving up and posting a new thread...the heater thread i posted is an exception i messed up on that and feel stupi, i am just useing it as an example.

and by the way when you search for "heater not working" it brings up any pages with "heater", "not", or "working", not pages with all three words- that is what i don't like, it should at least list pages wth all three words first and then have the pages with the indiviual words, that would make more sense...just my opinion...my biggest complaint about it though is that threads tend to disapear(in the old forums and archives)...find one day then the next day it is no where to be found...that is frustrating!
 
not all probs are resolved so we cannot penalize someone for not making a final post telling us the problem but maybe we can put a sticky in the troubleshooting thread asking op,s to let us know what their problem was and maybe lock it up afterwards. either way is fine with me :cool:
 
xdetroitx said:
not all probs are resolved so we cannot penalize someone for not making a final post telling us the problem but maybe we can put a sticky in the troubleshooting thread asking op,s to let us know what their problem was and maybe lock it up afterwards. either way is fine with me :cool:
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i think it would be a good prctice for people to subscribe to threads they create until resolved to help remind them...JMO
 
Another option would be to have the OP create a new thread that simply states the problem, all the symptoms they experienced and what they did to fix it. maybe a separate folder for these threads would be good and people could add any extra info. Anything off topic could be deleted from those threads.
A little more work perhaps, but it would create a distilled data source without useless info and unresolved queries. And people might be motivated to do it because then they would have their name on the how-to so to speak. [OK the folders already exist, i.e. Duratec How To, we just need to use them]

One thing that drives me nuts is that 3 letter search thing and acronyms. so for example iac, pcv, egr cannot be searched for and it is rare that someone expands these out. If the thread has useful information it would be good to 'tag' them so that searching for "idle air control" would find the thread.
 
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SVTC1136 said:
Another option would be to have the OP create a new thread that simply states the problem, all the symptoms they experienced and what they did to fix it. maybe a separate folder for these threads would be good and people could add any extra info. Anything off topic could be deleted from those threads.
A little more work perhaps, but it would create a distilled data source without useless info and unresolved queries. And people might be motivated to do it because then they would have their name on the how-to so to speak. [OK the folders already exist, i.e. Duratec How To, we just need to use them]

One thing that drives me nuts is that 3 letter search thing and acronyms. so for example iac, pcv, egr cannot be searched for and it is rare that someone expands these out. If the thread has useful information it would be good to 'tag' them so that searching for "idle air control" would find the thread.
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i second that!!
 
actually I just had another idea, would it be possible to enter these acronyms into an something like an auto correct thing like word has so that the forum "knows" the acronym
For example you search for iac and it returns all posts with "iac" and "idle air control" because it knows that that's what you mean.
 
SVTC1136 said:
actually I just had another idea, would it be possible to enter these acronyms into an something like an auto correct thing like word has so that the forum "knows" the acronym
For example you search for iac and it returns all posts with "iac" and "idle air control" because it knows that that's what you mean.
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If you need to search a 3 letter acronym, just surround it with quotes; eg "iac"

The logic accepts it because it is more than 3 characters, but to put it in basic terms, the quotes become non existent when PHP queries MySQL in the case of a single word.
 
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Try this solution.
If the OP hasn't posted to the thread in x number of days, and email is sent asking them to do so.
If within x number of days after that, the thread is not updated by the OP, it is locked.

EDIT: Instead of locking it, it could be moved to section, called "Pending Resolution" or something of that sort. Once it has been posted to thereafter by the OP, it could be moved to "Resolved" or "Unresolved"
 
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Brent372 said:
Try this solution.
If the OP hasn't posted to the thread in x number of days, and email is sent asking them to do so.
If within x number of days after that, the thread is not updated by the OP, it is locked.

EDIT: Instead of locking it, it could be moved to section, called "Pending Resolution" or something of that sort. Once it has been posted to thereafter by the OP, it could be moved to "Resolved" or "Unresolved"
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I like the sound of that. However, as this thread is proving to an extent, I don't think there is any clear answer\solution with this.

Unfortunently, I have no opinion of my own on how to resolve this, although I do agree, it would be nice if more troubleshooting threads did have the resolution posted.
 
nice to see i'm not the only one concerned. contours for the most part all have the same issues. if we could clean up the troubleshooting forum a little, i'll bet anything questions would plummet. if not, folks will come on here asking the same darn questions over n over again. can't blame them really, as they didn't find a conclusive answer in the troubleshooting forum:shrug:.
 
Brent372 said:
Try this solution.
If the OP hasn't posted to the thread in x number of days, and email is sent asking them to do so.
If within x number of days after that, the thread is not updated by the OP, it is locked.

EDIT: Instead of locking it, it could be moved to section, called "Pending Resolution" or something of that sort. Once it has been posted to thereafter by the OP, it could be moved to "Resolved" or "Unresolved"
Click to expand...

To me that sounds perfect, honestly I sometimes forget about the threads I started. I know I have seen some other people have this same problem. I do subscribe to my threads. I dont know if this is at all possible but I wouldnt see an issue from getting an automatic email to tell you have an "idle" thread just like you would get an email to someone that replys to the post. I dont know if this would just cause more work for a mod or whoever, but the pain VS the gain:shrug:. just brainstorming, I dont know all of the 1's and 0's of threads and forums.
 
i think that one thing that has to be kept in mind to is that sometimes the OP doesn't have the solution with witch to end the thread, thus why he/she is posting in the first place...ie newbie posts "how do i hightower my headlights?" in the unlikely event that no one responds they won't just suddenly realize hey i'll put my headlights in the oven! they will remain confused.

and yes they should have searched in this example and will be told so by many of us, but this is just an example to get my point across.
 
I think as long as we keep this thread going, people will see it and be like "HEY! I never posted how I fixed that one issue..." and so on.
 
this is true... don't get me wrong i truly hope that happns it would be an easy solution...at least for now. for the future we would have to keep the word going!
 
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