How does this message board find similar threads?

[feynomite]

I've noticed that at the bottom of each post it shows similar threads, and the matches are pretty good.

Does anyone know how it goes about doing this? Does it summarize an entire thread? Does it use tags?

 

[michinobu]

Pretty good question... I'd imagine that it just simply uses key-word searching algorithms. IBM's Computer Science Research and Development department are talking about trying to develop a "context" search algorithm instead. So, instead of getting a search engine which might use your keyword and synonyms for the word, you have an algorithm which (somehow) understands the context of what you're searching for.
I doubt that this website has that, since it's still in development, but they might have something nifty.

 

[Evo]

It just picks up a random word from the thread title.

 

[feynomite]

Pretty good question... I'd imagine that it just simply uses key-word searching algorithms. IBM's Computer Science Research and Development department are talking about trying to develop a "context" search algorithm instead. So, instead of getting a search engine which might use your keyword and synonyms for the word, you have an algorithm which (somehow) understands the context of what you're searching for.
I doubt that this website has that, since it's still in development, but they might have something nifty.

Cool concept IBM has there.. kind of like semantic web.

Maybe one day when I have time I'll take a peak at the vBulletin source code. I'm thinking it does a full-text search using the words in the title (eg: "how + does + this + message...") onto all initial posts of threads.