This idea just popped into my head after submitting this article and noticing that no other GTA IV news has been linked as a related article, so now I'm wondering this question: How many other articles out there like this where the links in the related articles section are either irrelevant or they don't even show up at all even though you know for a fact that there's news on GameGrep that's related simply because the automated system doesn't pick it up from the way you named your article?

As such, I'd like to see an improvement to this where users can link to existing GameGrep articles as being related in addition to linking them within the article description and/or quote. This would realistically result in more accurate information within the related articles section and a more user friendly Grepping experience as people can come to one of the more recent articles on stories that have been developing for a while (and as such have multiple news posts) and from there look at the past articles through the related articles section if they're not already there or linked in the article description/quote.

The automated system already helps a lot, but there are plenty of occasions where a human telling the system what is and isn't related can accomplish more.

I think this is a good idea, but before we implement I'd like to see what more we can do to automatically detect more related articles. The last round of changes I asked Tekmosis to do was to be more stringent on matches, but I was also thinking we can broaden scope by looking at other articles tied to the same game profiles.

Not only that, but would it be possible to check the quote and descriptions as well? Sometimes different people report on the same or similar stories (obviously different developments in the story if they're the same), but the titles don't match up so it's not caught by the automatic search even if similar content that's in the title is found within the quote and description of another article.

Apologies for the double post, but I have a few possible ways to help out the related articles feature and I thought it would be best to put it in a separate post to make things easier to follow.

• Option 1: Check for related articles after filling in the article quote, description, etc., and then include words, phrases, and the profile(s) attached to the news story (if applicable) in the search for related articles. This way, the automatic search could be made more accurate.

• Option 2: Give the user the option to give storyids in a similar fashion to the image upload section for related articles, where GameGrep would then automatically retrieve the story title and link to it. Alternatively, have the user give the full URL of the story and have the title of the article appear automatically. This method could also result in, say, one GameGrep point per related article added manually as it is extra work on the user's part.

• Option 3: A combination of options one and two. Have the system still check for related articles, but it's up to the user (and approvers) ultimately to decide what is and isn't related, so adding a checkbox to each possible related article found during the automated search and telling the user to check which (if any) articles are related to the story. If there aren't any articles that pop up that are related, or if the user doesn't feel it's a strong enough correlation), then they could manually enter related article URLs or IDs. The proposed GameGrep point for each manual addition could still be applied, but approvers would have to come to some consensus as to what would be considered a related article and what wouldn't be to keep people from trying to tie things together that have little to no relation to each other.

These articles are a good example of why the duplicate system does need to be improved:

http://www.gamegrep.com/industry_news/8402-wow_makes_gamers_relaxed_not_violent/

http://www.gamegrep.com/news/8218-research_study_shows_games_are_relaxing/


This one didn't show up for me at all, and it hasn't been the first time.

I agree with Avalith about searching the description and quotes. Especially the quotes in fact, since those will all be worded the same. I'm also with Redemption about making the game ties a factor somehow.

Option 1 I think is no good, because you could have a whole article typed up (some of them do require a significant amount of time) and then you find out it's already been done.

Option 2 sounds possibly useful as well, though personally I'm content with linking with posts at the moment.

This message was edited by chautemoc on Apr 07 2008.

quote chautemoc

These articles are a good example of why the duplicate system does need to be improved:

http://www.gamegrep.com/industry_news/8402-wow_makes_gamers_relaxed_not_violent/

http://www.gamegrep.com/news/8218-research_study_shows_games_are_relaxing/


This one didn't show up for me at all, and it hasn't been the first time.

Not to mention that that's about the third or fourth time the article's been posted and approved and it hasn't shown up for most if not all of the others (which have since been deleted).

quote chautemoc

I'm also with Redemption about making the game ties a factor somehow.

I agree with this too, but then again the issue this poses is that either tying the article to a profile would have to be moved to the very beginning of the submission process (where you put your article title and source URL) so it can be checked or the search would have to be moved to the end so that it can search for the game. Any way you slice it, it probably makes more sense to just move the search to the end of the whole process anyway, even if it does mean more time spent on the user's end, but it takes more time for approvers to search GameGrep to see if it's already been done and it takes more time for the mods if a duplicate slips through to track down the original if it's not already been provided by someone and then delete the extra.

As for the second two options, basically give the person submitting a story the chance to tell the system what is and isn't related by linking to other related articles on the site to help improve the related articles section.