Automatically suggest similar topics

dandv

I'm evaluating Vanilla after a long break, vs. Discourse.

Discourse has an extremely useful feature: as the user starts a new topic, the forum suggests similar topics. This vastly cuts down on repetitive topics (we know many users don't search before posting).

Does some version of Vanilla have this feature? I didn't see it running in this instance as I was writing this post.

K17

Hi :D to simply answer your question "Do vanilla have this feature": no.

But I think this could be done with some kind of plugin, but it may be hard to do.

dandv

I've been managing a Discourse forum since 2015. This has been a killer feature,

• both in saving our moderators time answering FAQs, and
• enabling our users to find what they were looking for without even asking!

I'm really surprised Vanilla doesn't have this.

R_J

There is a plugin which gives you an improved search experience and showing related topics is an additonal benefit: https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/sphinxsearch-plugin

The plugin requires the forum admin to also set up sphinx search and I'm not sure if that plugin runs with the current version

pitkmi

I have Sphinx running on 3.3, so should be fine. Not using the related topics part though. Set up was a little more involved than a regular addon.

pitkmi

Tried it on my test forum. Seemed to work fine, but can't comment on how it figures out what's related, since it's a test forum and the content is a little lacking. Here are the options you get:

It was a while ago, but pretty sure I just followed these instructions:

https://github.com/bauerjj/SphinxSearch

I've had to restart the search daemon two or three times, but other than that it's been fine.

K17

@dandv I have used a lot of different forum software and actually have never seen this feature.

But, for sure, it could be a great addition.