10
$\begingroup$

This is a problem which has happened many times when I want to ask a question on MSE. After I finish the title of my question, there'll be a Similar questions box to offer me some similar question. If I see some really similar question, I won't ask again to avoid duplicated work.

However, there's many times that I didn't see really similar question that can answer my problem after I finished my question and was going to post. But soon after I've already posted my question, the Related box at the right side of my question page will offer me some question that can really answer my problem. And my question becomes duplicated actually.

Why these two systems differ so much? I hope we can improve the Similar question box to behave like the Related box. The latter one performs better. In this way we can reduce duplicated work.

$\endgroup$
3
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ This question is a bit related: Searching for related content. (No answers, but some pointers in the comments might be useful.) $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Dec 8, 2021 at 6:53
  • 7
    $\begingroup$ The "similar questions box" is only going by the title of your post. The "Related" list has the advantage of seeing your whole post, which gives it more keywords to look for. $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Dec 8, 2021 at 12:15
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ Echoing Gerry Myerson's comment, please note that it actually takes some time for the system to "process" your new post in regard to establishing it's relation to existing posts. Presumably it depends on the actual content of the post, the processing time may be a few minutes, could be much longer. Occasionally one can observe in real time (via frequent refreshing) the list of related posts going from just one (or even zero), when it's basically a blank on the right hand side, up to the eventual full list of five, eight, or whatever. $\endgroup$
    – Lee David Chung Lin
    Dec 8, 2021 at 17:11

0

Reset to default

You must log in to answer this question.

Browse other questions tagged .