Friam

Smart Forums

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Robert J. Cordingley

Smart Forums

Recent experiences with software support and the forums that vendors use
leave much to be desired. Primary problems seem to be: poor signal to
noise ratios, ineffective search & navigation tools and no meaningful
structures. Looks like it's an AI problem or perhaps specifically even
a problem for Case Based Reasoning. Does anyone on the list have any
experiences with or suggestions for better solutions that might be
thought of as Smart Forums?
Thanks
Robert C

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Arlo Barnes

Re: Smart Forums

Well, I generally think of the improvement of forum interactions as a community phenomenon, eased or impeded by the structure of communication and interaction with the site infrastructure*, rather than as a computational dilemma per se; but I would be interested to hear what ways you think fora could be improved by AI.

A general forum for thinking about internet fora (or forums, depending on your preference) is here.

-Arlo James Barnes

*For software support, it is that interaction with the site is very limited - mostly, people are only there for the duration of the time they need assistance, and during that time are more interested in getting help than giving help. There is no time for the structure, mores, and history of the site to become clear, and so communication is weakened.

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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Nick Thompson

Re: Smart Forums

Arlo,

As you may remember, I have been frustrated by a possibly related problem. I have thought or years that academic fora could be used for the development of publishable text. When I was teaching, I tried to move undergraduates down what I hoped was a slippery slope from arguing a point of view in a forum to writing a paper, collaboratively. Since any convincing presentation of an argument includes thorough presentations of opposing arguments, your opponents in an argument can help you generate a lot of your text. Later, when I came to Santa Fe, I tried to get groups of us to write together by pouring rich material into an internet forum and then gradually turning it to drafts of text, and finally finished publishable work. I have had two successes, but given the amount of rich material that has been generated, that seems chump change.

For my purposes, the trouble is the FORM of internet correspondence. It is terribly difficult to get an internet exchange into editable form, partly because of all the headers, partly because of the quotation, partly because of the order, and partly because it’s hard to get it into one file. Now, I am sure you will say (because that’s what I kept saying), “Oh, you old dummy, that’s easy!”. And if it is easy for you, please tell me how. I have spent weeks at it, and failed every time.

What I think I need is a forum that is designed to produce one continuous, temporally ordered document. Now, the correspondence utility in Research Gate seems to do that. But its drawback is that only two people can correspond at a time. So, if you – or anybody else -- know of a forum utility that produces a continuous, temporally ordered document for many authors, please let me know.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Arlo Barnes
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2014 1:23 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Smart Forums

A general forum for thinking about internet fora (or forums, depending on your preference) is here.

-Arlo James Barnes

Robert J. Cordingley

Re: Smart Forums

In reply to this post by Arlo Barnes

I think a forum is a sub-optimal (i.e. terrible) means of delivering technical support. At best it might be a linked list (thread) of emails submitted by participants with a heavy dose of anecdotal evidence and occasional contributions and responses from the vendor. Searching a forum for a solution often only generates a list of submittals from people with the same problem. It is possible to pose questions (interrogate).

A working wiki on the other hand is a moderated compendium of articles submitted by participants and generally edited by enthusiasts. As a means of delivering technical support it beats out forums but probably takes more energy and resources to compile, organize and moderate. It's impossible to interrogate.

It's my understanding that CBR systems theoretically organize information into 'working knowledge' using some form of an inference engine to solve problems based on people's experiences. It may also suffer from anecdotal evidence depending on how it is managed but might be possible to interrogate.

Your link to 'here' returned ' there doesn't seem to be anything here' (sic) from reddit and searching reddit for 'forum' generated a S/N of zero in the first two pages. In the search results a typical article title was 'My PC has been on the fritz for over a year.' - demonstrating my point.

So a Siri style interface on top of any of these bodies of knowledge would be a big improvement. Mostly tho' I like to connect with a live technically trained human being.

Thanks,
Robert C

On 7/16/14 11:23 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote:

Well, I generally think of the improvement of forum interactions as a community phenomenon, eased or impeded by the structure of communication and interaction with the site infrastructure*, rather than as a computational dilemma per se; but I would be interested to hear what ways you think fora could be improved by AI.

A general forum for thinking about internet fora (or forums, depending on your preference) is here.

-Arlo James Barnes

*For software support, it is that interaction with the site is very limited - mostly, people are only there for the duration of the time they need assistance, and during that time are more interested in getting help than giving help. There is no time for the structure, mores, and history of the site to become clear, and so communication is weakened.
============================================================
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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Parks, Raymond

Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: Smart Forums

In reply to this post by Arlo Barnes

Sounds like an economic incentive might be called for to correct the community structure. In the past, some non-technical support sites required that a questioner have previously answered questions before they were allowed to ask them. Alternately, the vendor could provide giveaways or benefits to active participants. The problem with the former strategy in a technical problem forum is that one has no incentive until one has a problem. The problem with the latter idea is that it frequently creates a small group of highly active participants whose reward-getting prowess drives off lesser contributors.

Perhaps the best solution would be some combination of one or both of the above economic incentive with a concerted effort to create the buzz that does create a community. Apple forums have this because of the phanboi effect, but a vendor can create this with constant reminders, special offers, freebies, and other social activity. The Daz3D folks seem to try to do this - the Sketchup team tries but their communications are far too intermittent.

Ray Parks

Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager

V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084

NIPR: [hidden email]

SIPR: [hidden email] (send NIPR reminder)

JWICS: [hidden email] (send NIPR reminder)

On Jul 16, 2014, at 11:23 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote:

Well, I generally think of the improvement of forum interactions as a community phenomenon, eased or impeded by the structure of communication and interaction with the site infrastructure*, rather than as a computational dilemma per se; but I would be interested to hear what ways you think fora could be improved by AI.

A general forum for thinking about internet fora (or forums, depending on your preference) is here.

-Arlo James Barnes

*For software support, it is that interaction with the site is very limited - mostly, people are only there for the duration of the time they need assistance, and during that time are more interested in getting help than giving help. There is no time for the structure, mores, and history of the site to become clear, and so communication is weakened.

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Parks, Raymond

Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: Smart Forums

In reply to this post by Nick Thompson

Nick,

That sounds like a cool "big data" research project. There are solutions at the command-line level to some of your problem - scripts and lexical analyzers can extract the "meat" of the medium, but that just gives you a pile of random cuts of meat. Big data may be able to recognized different cuts and sort them into a butcher shop display case (like my local Sprouts or Kellers).

However, as Robert pointed out - the majority of comments are frequently questions without answers in technical forums. A display case of nothing but hamburger is not very useful - so there needs to be something more. Frequently, the most frustrating aspect is that one has to look at every possible thread to find the one thread where the correct answer is given.

The question and answer section of Amazon's product pages seems like a successful model - they simply ask the question of every person whose ever bought the item in question.

Ray Parks

Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager

V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084

NIPR: [hidden email]

SIPR: [hidden email] (send NIPR reminder)

JWICS: [hidden email] (send NIPR reminder)

On Jul 17, 2014, at 7:43 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Arlo,

As you may remember, I have been frustrated by a possibly related problem. I have thought or years that academic fora could be used for the development of publishable text. When I was teaching, I tried to move undergraduates down what I hoped was a slippery slope from arguing a point of view in a forum to writing a paper, collaboratively. Since any convincing presentation of an argument includes thorough presentations of opposing arguments, your opponents in an argument can help you generate a lot of your text. Later, when I came to Santa Fe, I tried to get groups of us to write together by pouring rich material into an internet forum and then gradually turning it to drafts of text, and finally finished publishable work. I have had two successes, but given the amount of rich material that has been generated, that seems chump change.

For my purposes, the trouble is the FORM of internet correspondence. It is terribly difficult to get an internet exchange into editable form, partly because of all the headers, partly because of the quotation, partly because of the order, and partly because it’s hard to get it into one file. Now, I am sure you will say (because that’s what I kept saying), “Oh, you old dummy, that’s easy!”. And if it is easy for you, please tell me how. I have spent weeks at it, and failed every time.

What I think I need is a forum that is designed to produce one continuous, temporally ordered document. Now, the correspondence utility in Research Gate seems to do that. But its drawback is that only two people can correspond at a time. So, if you – or anybody else -- know of a forum utility that produces a continuous, temporally ordered document for many authors, please let me know.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Arlo Barnes
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2014 1:23 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Smart Forums

Well, I generally think of the improvement of forum interactions as a community phenomenon, eased or impeded by the structure of communication and interaction with the site infrastructure*, rather than as a computational dilemma per se; but I would be interested to hear what ways you think fora could be improved by AI.

A general forum for thinking about internet fora (or forums, depending on your preference) is here.

-Arlo James Barnes

*For software support, it is that interaction with the site is very limited - mostly, people are only there for the duration of the time they need assistance, and during that time are more interested in getting help than giving help. There is no time for the structure, mores, and history of the site to become clear, and so communication is weakened.

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Owen Densmore

Re: Smart Forums

Administrator

In reply to this post by Robert J. Cordingley

Good moderators make a huge difference .. sorta herding the cats.

The Atom text editor has a discussion list

http://discuss.atom.io/

.. that is well moderated although it is a bit noisy.

For me it works well enough as a support site.

-- Owen

On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 8:54 AM, Robert J. Cordingley <[hidden email]> wrote:

I think a forum is a sub-optimal (i.e. terrible) means of delivering technical support. At best it might be a linked list (thread) of emails submitted by participants with a heavy dose of anecdotal evidence and occasional contributions and responses from the vendor. Searching a forum for a solution often only generates a list of submittals from people with the same problem. It is possible to pose questions (interrogate).

A working wiki on the other hand is a moderated compendium of articles submitted by participants and generally edited by enthusiasts. As a means of delivering technical support it beats out forums but probably takes more energy and resources to compile, organize and moderate. It's impossible to interrogate.

It's my understanding that CBR systems theoretically organize information into 'working knowledge' using some form of an inference engine to solve problems based on people's experiences. It may also suffer from anecdotal evidence depending on how it is managed but might be possible to interrogate.

Your link to 'here' returned ' there doesn't seem to be anything here' (sic) from reddit and searching reddit for 'forum' generated a S/N of zero in the first two pages. In the search results a typical article title was 'My PC has been on the fritz for over a year.' - demonstrating my point.

So a Siri style interface on top of any of these bodies of knowledge would be a big improvement. Mostly tho' I like to connect with a live technically trained human being.

Thanks,
Robert C

On 7/16/14 11:23 PM, Arlo Barnes wrote:
Well, I generally think of the improvement of forum interactions as a community phenomenon, eased or impeded by the structure of communication and interaction with the site infrastructure*, rather than as a computational dilemma per se; but I would be interested to hear what ways you think fora could be improved by AI.

A general forum for thinking about internet fora (or forums, depending on your preference) is here.

-Arlo James Barnes

*For software support, it is that interaction with the site is very limited - mostly, people are only there for the duration of the time they need assistance, and during that time are more interested in getting help than giving help. There is no time for the structure, mores, and history of the site to become clear, and so communication is weakened.
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Owen Densmore

Re: Smart Forums

Administrator

I ran into a surprise re: support when changing to the Gulp task manager. Their only support, posted on their github page, is:

Still got questions? Post on StackOverflow with a #gulp tag, or come chat with us in #gulpjs on Freenode.

Oddly enough, it worked for me. SO w/ #gulp got responses.

Re: OP: freenode is a continuous conversation on a topic that sorta emerges, but under the umbrella of a common high level project, in this case the Gulp task manager.

-- Owen

On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 10:17 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

Good moderators make a huge difference .. sorta herding the cats.

The Atom text editor has a discussion list
http://discuss.atom.io/
.. that is well moderated although it is a bit noisy.

For me it works well enough as a support site.

-- Owen

Steve Smith

Re: [EXTERNAL] Re: Smart Forums

In reply to this post by Parks, Raymond

I think what Nick is talking about is not so much mining an existing forum but rather creating a forum whose policies and collective intentions are to build a document (white paper, publishable paper, etc.) collectively. I think Nick is frustrated that the existing tools for such fora are syntactically gunky to the point that someone with his modest skills at hashing text is insufficient.

As I remember it, Nick engaged a number of us in what he called "noodling" based on a wiki structure but with unmoderated policies regarding cross-linking "threads" or more aptly "Noodles"... I remember it as an interesting exercise, well motivated, and possibly sufficient at least for the "brainstorming" phase of a project... It wasn't clear that the tool (wiki) or the policy (ubiquitous cross-linking of threads-as-noodles) would necessarily take us to that next level. The failure, as I remember it was a lack of participation. I don't remember how many of us "threw down" in Nick's Noodle-Bowl, but I'm afraid it probably wasn't enough. My own participation was spotty... a brief surge of interest and participation which died off (naturally) fairly quickly and was perhaps extinguished by a lack of broader participation. Again, memory is weak, Nick's may be better, but I think it was at most a half-dozen who "played" and then it might have been only Nick and I who put much at all into it?

It was an interesting experiment which I think was useful but maybe at best "a good start".

In my own opinion (and experience), I think that the problem of tech support fora has already been identified fairly well here:

most people participate only to "take" from the forum
many who "give" tend to give anecdotal speculation rather than hard facts or useful advice
many who "use" the forum tend toward bashing around a little, expressing their frustration that the straw/needle ratio is too low, thereby throwing more straw in the pile.

I specifically have been using the "Honda Insight" enthusiast forum to try to debug a few problems with my own 2001 Honda Insight (wonderfully/horribly eccentric 0th generation hybrid vehicle) and have at least faulted on the first point of offering little of my own information. This is partly as a consequence of wanting to avoid the second two problems. By the time I actually have enough evidence and experience with a problem, I am mostly relieved (problem solved, or at least understood) that I want to "forget the problems" as quickly as possible, and trying to write a succinct summary of what I learned is a major challenge.

When I do contribute, I try to contribute in the form of documenting my troubleshooting and debugging whilst ubiquitously cross-linking to other threads which have addressed the problem I'm currently chasing. I do this mainly (despite the risk of raising straw/needle ratios) because THAT is where *I* find the most help, when someone chasing a problem, points at a resource that they either know has (or hopes will) help them before falling off that horizon of "well, my problem is fixed now, seeya later and thanks for all of the fish!"...

I agree with Robert who says the ability to talk to a real live technician in real-time is ideal, up to the fact that too often "help line" technicians cannot have the kind of experience a working mechanic (or enthusiast) can have.

Another forum I have used in this manner is an Appliance Repair forum which has helped me through two major Washer/Dryer repair phases. In this case, there are several semi-retired appliance repairmen who apparently enjoy hanging out on the forum, providing expert advice. It seems to be a win/win/win.... they enjoy this labor of love, the company that sponsors the site (an appliance parts supply company) and the users of the forum like me all get something good from it.    I made a point in my own case, to summarize my experience from cradle to grave (from first symptoms to final resolution) when I was done... it was easier for me to do this with an Appliance than with a Vehicle or a Computer/Software problem because for the most part, an washer or drier is a somewhat simpler electromechanical device with fewer "hidden variables" and "subsystem dependencies"... things happen in relative real-time, relatively sequentiall.    Timers trigger things in sequence, an observer can usually hear/feel/see the results (solenoids, motors, valves, etc.) and the logic is relatively simple (turn on the fan, energize the heating element, if the current exceeds Z open a breaker, if the temperature exceeds X, open the heating element circuit, etc.)

This forum (and WedTech) do not really qualify (for me) as a "problem solving forum" though I do see we use it that way sometimes... but more in the mode of a "call for ideas"... with a cascade of responses ranging from flippant to acutely helpful with a modest amount of "idle speculation" in the middle of that gaussian distribution. This forum (and WedTech) is almost entirely (IMO) a forum for announcing interesting things and discussing the implications of them. Of course, what is interesting to one is often not interesting to another, and I think we collectively have a fairly good idea of who is interested in what, but wonderfully an erstwhile lurker or even a regular participant throws down on a topic unexpectedly with significant utility (i.e. insight, unique new information, directly useful experience or knowledge).

I have worked on Decision Support Systems and Collaborative Tools which I think indicates that I have some hope and some experience in this domain. I think it will be a long while before the holy grail is achieved of structuring unstructured process in arbitrary ways.   One of my projects in this domain (entitled Faceted Ontologies) *did* attempt to get a handle on structuring unstructured information artifacts, or perhaps more to the point, ingesting information artifacts with one type of structure, normalizing the structure, then allowing individuals to restructure or extract artifacts and correlations according to a structure more relevant to them.    That problem was uber-hard, we did not do more than outline an approach in 2 years of work.

All that said, I think it is an interesting (but hard) problem and I applaud the intentions of folks like Nick who seek to achieve even a small win in this domain and I applaud those who build little tiny tools as bridges to begin to approach the foothills of such problems.

- STeve

<base href="x-msg://713/">
Nick,

That sounds like a cool "big data" research project. There are solutions at the command-line level to some of your problem - scripts and lexical analyzers can extract the "meat" of the medium, but that just gives you a pile of random cuts of meat. Big data may be able to recognized different cuts and sort them into a butcher shop display case (like my local Sprouts or Kellers).

However, as Robert pointed out - the majority of comments are frequently questions without answers in technical forums. A display case of nothing but hamburger is not very useful - so there needs to be something more. Frequently, the most frustrating aspect is that one has to look at every possible thread to find the one thread where the correct answer is given.

The question and answer section of Amazon's product pages seems like a successful model - they simply ask the question of every person whose ever bought the item in question.

Ray Parks

Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager

V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084

NIPR: [hidden email]

SIPR: [hidden email] (send NIPR reminder)

JWICS: [hidden email] (send NIPR reminder)

On Jul 17, 2014, at 7:43 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:

Arlo,

As you may remember, I have been frustrated by a possibly related problem. I have thought or years that academic fora could be used for the development of publishable text. When I was teaching, I tried to move undergraduates down what I hoped was a slippery slope from arguing a point of view in a forum to writing a paper, collaboratively. Since any convincing presentation of an argument includes thorough presentations of opposing arguments, your opponents in an argument can help you generate a lot of your text. Later, when I came to Santa Fe, I tried to get groups of us to write together by pouring rich material into an internet forum and then gradually turning it to drafts of text, and finally finished publishable work. I have had two successes, but given the amount of rich material that has been generated, that seems chump change.

For my purposes, the trouble is the FORM of internet correspondence. It is terribly difficult to get an internet exchange into editable form, partly because of all the headers, partly because of the quotation, partly because of the order, and partly because it’s hard to get it into one file. Now, I am sure you will say (because that’s what I kept saying), “Oh, you old dummy, that’s easy!”. And if it is easy for you, please tell me how. I have spent weeks at it, and failed every time.

What I think I need is a forum that is designed to produce one continuous, temporally ordered document. Now, the correspondence utility in Research Gate seems to do that. But its drawback is that only two people can correspond at a time. So, if you – or anybody else -- know of a forum utility that produces a continuous, temporally ordered document for many authors, please let me know.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Arlo Barnes
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2014 1:23 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Smart Forums

Well, I generally think of the improvement of forum interactions as a community phenomenon, eased or impeded by the structure of communication and interaction with the site infrastructure*, rather than as a computational dilemma per se; but I would be interested to hear what ways you think fora could be improved by AI.

A general forum for thinking about internet fora (or forums, depending on your preference) is here.

-Arlo James Barnes

*For software support, it is that interaction with the site is very limited - mostly, people are only there for the duration of the time they need assistance, and during that time are more interested in getting help than giving help. There is no time for the structure, mores, and history of the site to become clear, and so communication is weakened.

============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com

Robert J. Cordingley

Re: Smart Forums

In reply to this post by Owen Densmore

With the Apple/IBM recent announcement Watson on your iPhone is looking distinctly possible - from Aug 28, 2012: http://www.extremetech.com/computing/135173-ibm-working-on-watson-app-for-smartphones. Sounds like it would be a much better medium for delivering tech support than a forum - can't wait!

Robert C

On 7/17/14 10:26 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:

I ran into a surprise re: support when changing to the Gulp task manager. Their only support, posted on their github page, is:

Still got questions? Post on StackOverflow with a #gulp tag, or come chat with us in #gulpjs on Freenode.

Oddly enough, it worked for me. SO w/ #gulp got responses.

Re: OP: freenode is a continuous conversation on a topic that sorta emerges, but under the umbrella of a common high level project, in this case the Gulp task manager.

-- Owen

On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 10:17 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:

Good moderators make a huge difference .. sorta herding the cats.

The Atom text editor has a discussion list

http://discuss.atom.io/

.. that is well moderated although it is a bit noisy.

For me it works well enough as a support site.

-- Owen
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com