What improvements can be made to Similar Dscussions module?
By Randall McCallum on Monday, 11 November 2013
Posted in Feature Requests (Not Supported)
Replies 18
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I am curious to find out what recommendation algorithm is being currently being used and what are the plans to improve the Recommendation algorithm in the Similar Discussion module for EasyDiscuss?

In the past few months I have noticed a high incidence of the same type or similar questions being asked in the forums every other day and then watch the StackIdeas support team politely and diligently answer these questions over and over again even though there is a Similar Discussions module on the right side of the page where the question is asked. Is the Similar Discussion module up to the task of providing the best solution for recommending similar discussions?

The increase in Similar questions as new users join the forums presents a problem of Support Denand vs Support Resources especially now that StackIdeas has many more extensions to support and feature requests for all extensions. This begs the question?

How can the Similar Discussions module or some new improvements to the current recommendation (similar) engine be improved?

Or perhaps implementing the use of a well supported Add recommendations to your website recommendation engine can solve this issue. Making some improvements to the way EasyDiscuss can be used to make recommendations to users can vastly improve it's overall value to ease up on people resources being required when the StackIdeas extension should be improved in this area to help solve this universal resources allocation issue.

There is a public evaluation instance of easyrec to integrate recommendations into web applications. It is a free open source recommendation engine and it appears to be well supported.

Please add your ideas and thoughts to this discussion.
Overview of Easyrec open source recommendation engine. http;//easyrec.org

Randall McCallum
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Monday, 11 November 2013 05:26
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Hello Randall,

In EasyDiscuss, we actually use the "score" based on the number of times the keywords are being mentioned.
Mark
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Thursday, 14 November 2013 01:52
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I agree with you Randall. I think a simple thing can solve the whole issue. All you have to do is let the user write his or her question as normal. After they press the publish button there should be a pop up screen informing them of similar questions and asking. You can even allow the user (while still in pop up) to check a similar question to make sure it is like their own without loosing the question asked (which is on 'hold'). If they decide to go with their question you can have a button saying so, or if they choose to discard their own one and go with a similar question (which may have been answered), they just follow a link.

I think this will be so easy to do. I mean, any case after a question is published and put into the EadyDiscuss search bar, you get suggestions. All you have to do is that BEFORE the question is published!!

So easy....
David Judah
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Thursday, 14 November 2013 16:13
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I do think that popping up to the user before allowing them to submit is actually a little "off" as that might greatly reduce your posts on the site but we'll see what can be done
Mark
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Thursday, 14 November 2013 23:19
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Hi Mark,

It was just in response to Randall's concept of trying to reduce questions which were answered before
David Judah
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Thursday, 14 November 2013 23:48
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Ah, I see
Mark
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Friday, 15 November 2013 03:28
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Where can I find this module? I cannot see it in the All EasyDiscuss Modules bundle.
Adam
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Friday, 15 November 2013 15:42
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Can anyone answer my question?
Adam
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Sunday, 17 November 2013 01:32
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It should be included within the EasyDiscuss module archive.
Randall McCallum
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Sunday, 17 November 2013 02:04
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Many thanks for replying Randall!

I assume you're referring to: easydiscuss_modules_unzip_first.

It contains:

mod_ask.zip
mod_easydiscuss_board_statistic.zip
mod_easydiscuss_categories.zip
mod_easydiscuss_latest_replies.zip
mod_easydiscuss_leaderboard.zip
mod_easydiscuss_most_likes.zip
mod_easydiscuss_most_replies.zip
mod_easydiscuss_most_voted.zip
mod_easydiscuss_navigation.zip
mod_easydiscuss_notifications.zip
mod_easydiscuss_post_topic.zip
mod_easydiscuss_quickquestion.zip
mod_easydiscuss_recentreplies.zip
mod_easydiscuss_search.zip
mod_easydiscuss_tag_cloud.zip
mod_easydiscuss_top_members.zip
mod_easydiscuss_welcome.zip
mod_easydiscuss_whos_online.zip
mod_easydiscuss_whos_viewing.zip
mod_easydiscuss_your_discussions.zip
mod_recentdiscussions.zip

I can't see any sign of a Similar Discussions module.
Adam
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Sunday, 17 November 2013 02:40
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Adam,

Check the mod_recentdiscussions.zip and see if is the module that allows for various settings.i am not on my laptop at this time so I can't check it to see if the settings can be changed to allow for Similar Discussions.
Randall McCallum
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Sunday, 17 November 2013 02:54
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Hello guys,

We don't actually have a similar discussion module yet but it will be released when 3.2 is out
Mark
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Sunday, 17 November 2013 03:10
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Thanks for the clarification Mark
Adam
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Monday, 18 November 2013 01:31
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You are most welcome Adam
Mark
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Monday, 18 November 2013 02:27
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where can i find the module, i see that you have released the 3.2 version of ED
n00bster
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Thursday, 12 December 2013 17:00
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Hello,

So sorry for the delay in getting back to you. We've just recently updated the modules and plugins Please get teh Similar Discussions module in the downloads page http://www.stackideas.com/downloads Hope this helps.

Thanks!
Adelene
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Friday, 13 December 2013 16:51
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It would be great if the "recent news" area of the administrator dashboard for EasyDiscuss and all ED offerings updated when module, plugins, etc. were available/updated
Kevin
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Wednesday, 18 December 2013 01:33
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Thanks for sharing Eileen
Mark
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Wednesday, 18 December 2013 01:56
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