Is there any plan to have full-text indexing of questions so we can search for certain topics?

Question

anonymous · Answer

now only via google
phrase site:openstudy.com

anonymous · Answer

UnexpectedEOF - not as of now, mainly because we want to encourage learning on OpenStudy - not just search and finding answers. But if you think a search function could help, let us know! Thoughts?

anonymous · Answer

cshalvey, I don't think searching would necessarily be a detriment to learning; for me, it would be useful for finding questions that I can help answer, or find topics on a whim that I would need to learn a bit more about before answering. For askers, it would allow them to search for similar questions, learn how those were answered, and possibly apply the same logic to the problem that they need to solve. This technique is already used by some answerers to demonstrate a technique instead of providing the answer outright. 

It also seems highly unlikely that someone would simply search for, and find an answer to, questions on OpenStudy. What are the odds that two students taking the same course with the same question have both visited Open Study and gotten answers posted that they couldn't get elsewhere? It's much easier to cheat by finding teacher's editions online or copying an answer from some other material. True, people occasionally come here to outsource their homework, but this site already encourages discourse and learning such that "search and copy" types of cheating are impractical by virtue of its design.

Plus, if they REALLY wanted to find easy answers, they'd use the google site search method above. Adding good fulltext search to the site doesn't change that ;)

shadowfiend · Answer

Solid reasoning :) For us, it's a matter of directing our effort to the places that will make the most impact. Because of the real-time focus of the site, we feel like our effort is generally better spent on areas other than search (particularly on trying to grow the community, at the moment). But search is on our radar, and always has been. It's just a matter of getting through the things that we consider higher priority (and there are many!) :)

anonymous · Answer

That's understandable; writing a real-time Web application is difficult due to all the moving parts! Well, no matter which features you have lined up, I'm excited to see everything develop and I look forward to the surprises y'all have for us.