Patent ID: 7809733

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving activity data concerning messages associated with members of a set of topics associated with an electronic discussion forum, the activity data including a view count (Vw), a book mark count (Bf), a reference count (Rf), a reply count (Rp), and rating data (Rd); computing effort based relevance for a configurable period of time for members of the set of topics based on Vw, Bf, Rf, and Rp; weighting effort based relevance based on Rd; logically ordering the set of topics with respect to effort based relevance; acquiring user data concerning a user visiting the discussion forum, the user data including a set of viewed topics, a set of viewed messages, and a set of queries provided by the user; determining a context in which the user is operating, the context being associated with a task the user is performing, the context being one of, following a topic, participating in a topic, referencing an element in a topic, and performing a combination of following a topic, participating in a topic, and referencing an element in a topic; providing a recommendation to the user concerning a set of topics, the recommendation being based, at least in part, on the context in which the user is operating and effort based relevance for members of the set of topics; and automatically generating a set of frequently asked questions based, at least in part, on effort based relevance for members of the set of topics; where computing effort based relevance includes: computing an X axis component of an effort based relevance measurement based on Vw and Rp; computing a Y axis component of the effort based relevance measurement based on Vw, Bf, and Rf; computing an X axis partitioning measure (α) based on the average of (Rp/Vw) for the set of topics; computing a Y axis partitioning measure (β) based on the average of ((Rf+Bf)/Vw) for set of topics; and computing the effort based relevance based on one or more of, a Euclidean distance from a first point described by the intersection of an X axis and a Y axis, and a Euclidean distance from a second point described by the intersection of α and β.