[General Questions and Answers] spinifex74:
ROFL..... I have seen the "use the search tool" so many times, on so many forums, it's not funny.

The problem with inbuilt search tools are these:

1: Spelling. Many users on the internet do not spell correctly. They abbreviate things, simply spell it wrong, or get the position of the letters in various acronyms around the wrong way. This makes searching for a particular word, or group of words, very hit-and-miss, as the particular thread that answers your question, may not show up in search results because either the searcher, or the poster, has spelt stuff incorrectly.

2: Global differences. Irrelevant in this instance and on this website, but a good example to make the point.... in Australia and most UK-background countries, we call it a "nappy" In USA, it's called a "diaper".

We call them "taps"..... USA calls them "faucets".... and others call them something else.

Because forums and the net are global entities, a search function should allow for dialect and language differences.... but this would be almost impossible, so a search function relies on the HOPE that MOST members have spelt things correctly, and MOST members all use the same terminology.

Are YOU going to post a thread with language/dialectural differences, on the off-chance someone from another country calls it something different ? "My toilet (bathroom) tap (faucet) isn't working (operational) - how do I fix (repair) the leak (breach / broken washer / cracked pipe)? "

3: Minimum number of characters. Most search functions have a minimum number of characters required, to perform a search, to weed out the useless "common" words like "at," "I," "on," "the," etc etc. Usually 4 characters minimum. It does not help that most technological things - especially on a forum such as this - are abbreviated or have acronyms that do not provide the minimum number of search characters required. On an automotive forum, for example, how does someone search for "AFM" "VTEC" "EFI" or such-like, if those terms don't reach the minimum? Computer and technology parts are the same.

If a forum has a minimum 4-character search function, how does anyone search for "HTC" or "HD2" ????? There is NO other option for spelling out those terms to something longer..... that's all their names are. They are not shortened versions of a longer word... that's it.

4: Trawling through the results. Oftentimes, when a search DOES result in a page of threads, it can take hours upon hours to read through them all, trying to FIND the answer within those search results. As mentioned above, most-times the responses are simply other users flaming the OP for not searching. Finding the actual answer within those threads could take days.

Users also go off on tangents when posting replies. So a simple thread asking "how do I do A" may have 3 useful replies, then 10 pages of totally irrelevant posts as reply #4 has gone off and described "how I did B instead of A" and the thread has followed suit.

Asking a quick question - and getting a handful of helpful responses - gets the question answered (usually)... in which case, the thread is closed, and doesn't "block up" the internet with more useless posts.

And if someone asks the same question next week, so what. A handful of helpful responses still gets the question answered, and the thread is closed, and the world continues to rotate.

The issue of users not-using / incorrectly-using the Search function is something that has existed since Jesus was pissing in his nappies (diapers, for our American readers).

It is not something that can be forced upon members, until the Search function itself is re-programmed to be fool-proof.

Only then, can you FORCE users to use it first, before being allowed to post a question.

The simple answer is this: If the same question is being repetitively asked over and over again, ask yourselves why?

Obviously, it is because the answer is not readily available in a more obvious position, for members to find.

If the answer is something simple - make it a sticky, so that people can find it more easily.

Create a wiki page or something similar, again so users can find it more easily.

But most of all.... if you aren't prepared to help a user who asks a dumb question, simply move on. As mentioned above, flaming that person achieves nothing.

Most people don't post questions because they are lazy. You have no idea how much time that person has, or hasn't, spent searching for an answer. So you have no right to flame them about asking a repetitive question.

People naturally get defensive when flamed, so their simple "please help me" post becomes a 10-page flame war of people defending their rights and reasons for asking a question, versus those members who feel they shouldn't have asked in the first place.

Ultimately, forums are for helping each other. If you can answer someone's question, or point them in the right direction, then do so. But FFS don't waste everyone's time, and bandwidth, flaming them and blocking up the forums..... which is usually the reason you flame them in the first place (for blocking up the forums)