I've hit a crossing point for dread's new search. Recall is the amount of entries which are returned within the search set and precision is the amount which are relevant. Too high of recall and there will be far too many non-relevant results to make the search meaningful but too much precision and results which are relevant might be excluded.
To not make it too complex for the search requests I've tried to balance two opposing forces well but I think I took the side of precision. Being that I know what will come up for the relevant results what I am searching is optimized to how I know the search works. That is a problem that I want to counter against. If you can take a moment please answer the questions below so I can optimize this search to fit more in line with how 'regular' user would search.
The questions are:
What would be your first search on the dread update and what would you want it to return exactly? (Don't think general terms like "drugs" or "best vendors" but specific terms like a vendor name, place, specific drug, funny memes, or historic information; that kind of idea.)
By default, would you like to see results which have a lot of activity (comments and/or votes) or was more recently posted? Can you give a percentage?
Which is more important, more activity or more content on a result. Can you give a percentage?
Would you want to increase the likelihood of seeing results from users you have interacted with?
Should we increase the recall from users who have a good score on dread?
By default, should more positive interactions with the result lead to higher recall of it?
/u/samwhiskey · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 01:06 · Link
1. When I used the search (and when it comes back) I'm usually searching for an exact post (the dmtrott ama for example) and would want it to return that post or one that mentions the post (because a mention would likely link to the post). 2. More recent I think, 60/40. If it is reviews then more recent would be helpful over lots of comments on a 2 year old review. 3. Probably more activity as there are many posts where the actual content isn't very informative but the comments build, so again I'd just lean 60/40. 4. I can see that being a benefit for most users, however I interact with a lot of users that don't provide good content. This is a wash for me. 5. Yes 6. Yes
/u/Paris · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 02:08 · Link
I plan to boost recentness when it comes to people using the term "review" within the search field. I also hope to pull in data from recon so when people search for a specific vendor there is a link to the vendor profile on recon right at the top.
/u/TTTz · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 02:19 · Link
Save feature would be good here? With a sub mod way to organize? - It would be great to have a sort button of new posts in mod subs
/u/TTTz · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 02:17 · Link
This is a great idea
/u/waltcranston · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 02:55 · Link
what about a toggle for "relevancy" or "recency" much like reddit (and dread's to some degree) system. recon idea is good. next step would be to get the markets to actually implement it properly -- if you were feeling spicy/dictatorial, you could even make proper recon adoption a requirement to host a market subdread.
/u/Paris · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 03:49 · Link
It will have a toggle for sorting by new and storing by best match (relevance). I'm hesitant requiring markets to need to have the recon integration because honestly recon needs a big update too. Maybe when it does get fully updated we will require a show of technical ability as in getting the recon API enabled on their end. I just don't feel like it's the right move forcing it down market's throats who don't want to share their market data.
/u/waltcranston · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 04:35 · Link
I'm split halfway on whether I think it's the right move. On one hand, yeah, kinda a dick move to force anyone to do anything. But on the other hand, it forces an appropriate level of market transparency and a fully functioning recon is a very valuable asset to have - for all parties. And I bet most market admins would understand the decision / this would be the fire under their ass they needed to get it properly implemented. Just my 2 doge
/u/dontlaugh · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 00:38 · Link
normally i'd say chronological 4lyf. ...but i also like the idea of positive posts and higher dread scores coming up first - my only concern would be new users and entertaining downvoted shit posts being filtered out. if i had to pull a percentage, i'd say 50/50 i'm assuming these changes wouldn't apply to the frontpage and all pages which would default to hot/new?
/u/Paris · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 02:02 · Link
This is solely focused on search. The sorting algorithm has been optimized but it's not in anyway going to be used for search because it's on a completely different layer of the stack. We filter a lot of the votes from new accounts with minimal or no activity.
/u/TTTz · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 01:12 · Link
Is the search function an opsec concern?
/u/Paris · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 02:00 · Link
As long as you are not sending personal information to it I couldn't imagine how it could be an OPSEC concern. Of course assume we are recording all the searches but that isn't that shocking when it comes to improving the search.
/u/TTTz · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 02:06 · Link
Agreed. An OpSec more for indexing previous and current busts. Is a lot easier with a search button and reviews and pics and people posting stupid stuff. Now that it is indexed clearnet, even easier. Or am I missing something on that? Do not get me wrong Here I will Say IT LOUD 'I MISS THE SEARCH FEATURE, WHERE IS IT?>?!?@!' But I see both sides.I guess either way if you are going to get profiled, its just easier with search versus click click. You have a great thing going, this is in no means a disagreement or Hey You! post. -TTTz
/u/sinister6 · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 01:36 · Link
chronological seems fine to me. No need to make it complicated.. most users keep scrolling down pages till they find what they are looking for anyways
/u/Paris · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 02:03 · Link
That is a problem. Dread as an information source needs the more relevant information right at the top so people don't need to search long to find what they want. I might add in a button to increase recall if the search returns back not enough posts.
/u/sinister6 · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 02:08 · Link
If you want to implement that then you have to deal with what google had to deal with.. the SEO people who will manipulate that type of system to have there listings display at the top.
/u/Paris · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 02:23 · Link
Which is fine and exactly what we want. Because SEO allows me to make sure the relevance is there within the content. When people use specific terms that others searching for that content will use it's way easier for the best content for that search to go up. Of course with a highly dynamic site like dread the most recent stuff will get a lot more freshness.
/u/WilliamGibson · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 02:42 · Link
I am in favor of chronological as well but I see what you mean... I guess we will end up with hashtags on dread.
/u/Paris · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 04:07 · Link
We did float the idea of having tags either generated by the system for the post or provided by the user to improve relevance on each individuals front page. Like if someone views /d/opsec a lot those new opsec posts would be loaded near the top of the front page by adding more sorting score to the things we think the user cares about. We can fine tune this with the tags by identifying specific subcategories a user looks at a lot. In a way it's to prevent manipulation because bots have a completely different access and viewing pattern vs a regular user. But it's also good if we wanted to move towards targeted advertising. If a user said they liked coke but only from EU vendors we would be able to send them a notification about a sale they might be interested in. Suggesting other subdreads they might want to subscribe to also can work in the same way. We are building a new category system for every subdread which will allow us to improve the discovery page and allow people to find the subdreads they care about easier (while also allowing us to filter out the dead subdreads).
/u/waltcranston · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 02:51 · Link
Make it work exactly like google. It only took them 20 years and untold billions of dollars to perfect, but I have faith in you.
/u/Paris · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 03:55 · Link
I'm looking more so for "good enough" not so much "ah perfect." Dread will never be perfect no matter how hard I try. Someone will always have their way to do things which they like while others have their other way, both of them completely different. I can't make everyone happy but I can provide the functional ability so people can find what they are looking for. The sign of how much the search matters to some have been shown a lot over the past month to me. I get PMs every day about the search even now. Hard to find why there isn't any search when there is no search for it I guess. It's coming guys I fucking swear. The update is going to be here so fucking soon. Just one day you will access and everything will be improved and you will have the search back. It will be better then ever!
/u/waltcranston · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 04:37 · Link
If dread isn't going to be perfect then I want my refund!!!!
/u/FrankBaud · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 09:28 · Link
This should be simple solution: regex
/u/Paris · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 17:08 · Link
It's possible to detect regex and query based off it. From my tests it works exactly how you would expect. A bit slow though.
/u/Pygmalion · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 10:08 · Link
As a vendor 1. I search my own brand to see if there are relevant posts about my business. 2. I would like to see most recent posts. Being up to date on reputation things is key to marketing strategies and potential damage control. 3. Ideally I want all the new content. 4. No, users I already have interacted with are interesting but not really what I need. 5. No, giving weight to users with good score would give a false impression of reality. 6. Yeah, that would make it easier to filter relevant things that require attention.
/u/Plutonium · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 13:54 · Link
Will following users ever become a thing? (Not relevant to post just a question so my apologies).
/u/Paris · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 17:08 · Link
Like get a notification when they make a post or something? Or a specific feed for followed users?
/u/Plutonium · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 17:18 · Link
Post notifications would be nice but i was thinking of a following list. So you can see their most recent posts on the front page along with the subdreads you subscribe to.
/u/growersoasis · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 15:38 · Link
Would you want to increase the likelihood of seeing results from users you have interacted with? This would be nice for those that are on dread enough to recognize users that they've talked too. Someone posted about the average dread user only hopping on a few times a month tho so I'm not sure if this would be a BIG plus for the average user. Should we increase the recall from users who have a good score on dread? This could lead to information bias. Very active accounts could dominate searches for common questions. Dread seems to vet pretty good tho so idk if this would be a problem. By default, should more positive interactions with the result lead to higher recall of it? I'd like that yeah. I'd rather dread didn't turn into reddit, just because of how biased and set in stone redditors are. The DW should stay flexible and ready to learn. The new search function seems like it would give a lot of power to well established accounts. I have no opinions about the rest of the post.
/u/Haven_Shill_XHV · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 16:35 · Link
You may be thinking too hard about this. The last search was fine. I'd be happy with something that just doesn't cost too much processing-wise for the servers, as you said in an earlier post that the search was a bottleneck/attack vector. That being said, Dread doesn't seem like a place where the normal rules would apply. I've found some really good information on posts made by nobodies with only one or two comments. Thus I'd say recency would win over activity by 80/20. When I search a vendor, I usually want the freshest news possible. More content over activity by 65/35. Since so many people have alts or create throwaways, the option to skew towards people you usually talk to seems like a waste of processing resources. Score may also not mean so much, for the same reason. What do you mean by "positive interactions with the result"? If you mean tying recall to upvotes, then that may not be a bad idea. I wonder if that can be gamed by bad actors, though. Also, dread users usually don't upvote.
/u/Paris · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 17:17 · Link
When I mean positive interactions with the result I mean there are language processes use to detect the overall sentiment of posts. This can be scored in relatedness of the recent site language sentiment at the time of the latest post activity. It's designed to boost positive posts that are informative and people interact positively to and tank posts which largely get a negative sentiment right at the start. So if a post is spam generally speaking it will get tanked because the sentiment is largely negative compared to other posts. We also do this for posts which have been manipulated by the poster or someone associated to the poster. Thanks for taking the time to answer the questions!
/u/Haven_Shill_XHV · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 18:14 · Link
I'm glad if I can help. Thanks for building and maintaining this awesome place for all of us to gather in :) That actually sounds pretty cool and useful, so yes I would like to see something like that implemented in the search.
/u/linkpin · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 18:57 · Link
Wouldn't it make sense to have an experimental group of volunteers who would be asked for feedback after using the search? It's less abstract and people can answer more accurately what they want, because they are still in that state of mind.
/u/amgbenzz · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 19:07 · Link
1.Markets/Vendors and specific keywords relating to methods. 2. A lot of activity, for percentage id say like 70% not to sure. 3. More activity (Upvotes and comments) because its more likely to have valuable information about the topic your searching for. 4. No, since theres a lot of interaction with people who don't know as much but the ones who do and I have interacted with are most likely on the posts with the most content. 5. Yes 6. Yes!
/u/AutoModerator · N/A votes · 30th November, 2021 - 19:07 · Link
The Art of Memetics⚠️ By Wes Unruh and Edward Wilson This comment was posted automatically by a bot. All AutoModerator settings are configured by individual communities. Contact this community's Moderators to have your post approved if you believe this was in error.