Free Republic Software Update for November 25th, 2003 (Update #4)

[Stultis]

What if you were to automatically generate keywords? You could take the article text, run it through an automatic summary generator, filter out really common words from the resulting summary (I, you, he, him, they, your, we, a, an, the, and, or, that, his, my, her, et cetera, et cetera), and then index whatever's left as a set of keywords for the article.

I don't know that much about database programs in general, and less about Perl in particular, but I wouldn't be surprised if that capability was built in (or readily available in library functions or add ons). I don't see any reason to make such an index visible, however, even if it still produced matches in association with keyword searches. I like the idea of keeping keywords that users consciously select separate.

How about a "add more keywords" button on the article post page? The user could supply his own keywords (or not) and then click the button. The function would then create a page listing suggested keywords that could be added with a check box (like with the topics list). Or maybe this "add more keywords" page should come up after the user clicks the post button, in which case it might be called "add/review keywords".

The suggested keywords could be generated from a combination of the following:

1. Highly unique words in the article
2. Fuzzy or soundalike matching with user supplied keywords (which would help to catch misspellings and/or provide for variant spellings of words like "al Qaeda")
3. keywords commonly associated elsewhere in the database with user supplied keywords and unique words from the article

[ex-snook]

Thanks for the good work.

[Mo1]

What does this mean???



Windows
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[general_re]

My initial take is that it's better to have automatic keyword-generation and user-defined keyword creation be complementary and additive, rather than relying on the user to vet the system's list, or vice-versa. That way, you can get the best of both worlds - the system can go through and hit the obvious keywords without omission, and the user can hopefully spot higher-order concepts that the machine can't.

Plus, you can make the automatic generation totally invisible to the user in that case - it would look exactly the same as it does now, where you post the article, add your keywords, and then hit "submit". Then, after that, the system generates its own keywords, and simply adds them to the user's list, sans duplicates. Index all the keywords, user-defined and automatically generated, create a Boolean search facility for the index, and you'll have a fairly powerful way of finding and retrieving old articles. Add wildcard searches of the index, and you'll be an unstoppable searching force ;)

[Mo1]

Hey John .. I have a question

I use to be able to put a color in the background of my profile page

now it's just White

How can I fix that??

[steveegg]

Hey John .. I have a question

I use to be able to put a color in the background of my profile page

now it's just White

How can I fix that??

That was experimental; I guess John abandoned that when he did the latest update.

[Mo1]

Bummer .. I like the background color

[Mo1]

I have another stupid question

that pager pinger thingy .. do have to load it up every time I sign in .. or will it automatically boot up?

[smith288]

He will add it back when he can filter out a MS only attribute that allows for the possibility of malicious code.

[sweetliberty]

Try this link. If that doesn't work, click on your name in the corner of the latest posts page and get the menu page. Select "preferences" from your menu page. Scroll down to where it says "windows" and that gives you the option of opening pages in a new window. I have mine set that way, but I usually just right-click on the title and select "open in new window." That way, I have a bunch ot windows open I don't have to worry about the link opening in one I already have open. I do the same thing to post a reply, then I don't lose my place on the thread.

[Corin Stormhands]

You mean it's not General Interest (Hobbits 24/7)? :)

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

One by one it will destroy them all...

[justshe]

"I'll see about fixing that soon. It annoys me to no end."

THANK YOU! And the fact that it annoys YOU too...helps. I like those kind of 'motivators'...!

[Sloth]

Nice job.

(Search is on the todo list.)

I STILL say the default search option should be 'by post time' rather than 'by relevance'... For one thing, I have *never* wanted to do a search by anything other than reverse chronological order; and secondly, computers are a lot better at understanding 'order' than 'relevance.'

[P.O.E.]

Thanks!

[fnord]

whatever happened to "beta" FR where we could use style sheets to control colors and layout? I really liked tinkering with it ...

[StriperSniper]

user-defined colors assignable from the subscriptions page. I might hack that in right now

Excellent!

(I was about to say the 'blue' looked too much like another site, almost thought I hit the wrong link ;-)

[steveegg]

Seeing I don't use the pager, I think you have to load it up every time you log on.

[justshe]

No search capabilities on "browse all forums"....or am I asking for the moon?

Neglected to say.....I like the colors of the sidebar menus....like the changes you have made....THANK YOU!!!!!

[smith288]

Another little GUI fix

The border around the search form looks kinda goofy with all that white space on the right...perhaps you should put it in a table and then border the table (and not make it 100%).

I also dont think its wise practice to utilize the FORM for styles unless referring to it through classes.

[DaughterofEve]

I like the color! But can we soon edit this area:

Forums (Browse All)
------------------------------
Campaign Central
General Interest (Chat)
News/Activism
Religion
RLC Liberty Caucus
The Smokey Backroom
VetsCoR

and eliminate the ones we don't want, etc., or put it all at the bottom...problem being it pushes the headlines down a bit too far. (since I have this chance to speak to the wizard!) Sorry if I'm just Mac-challenged over here.