Watched threads by keyword

[BillTre]

I would like to get watched thread notices about any thread which has particular words in its title or uses particular keywords.

Have no idea if this is possible, but it would be cool (for me, and probably others) since I don't go through each new thread every day.

 

[phinds]

I would like to get watched thread notices about any thread which has particular words in its title or uses particular keywords.

Have no idea if this is possible, but it would be cool (for me, and probably others) since I don't go through each new thread every day.

@Greg Bernhardt will have to give the actual answer but I can tell you this:
(1) it is completely feasible technically
(2) it is likely to be WAY more work to implement than it is worth for the small amount of use it would likely get
(3) it would likely take up a lot more resources than would likely be worthwhile

 

[UsableThought]

I would like to get watched thread notices about any thread which has particular words in its title or uses particular keywords.

With Google Alerts, you can set up to get notifications of keywords in threads, but not much better than that - no restriction to titles, and probably no restriction to sub-forums. To narrow the alert to PhysicsForum rather than the entire web, include

site:www.physicsforums.com

as one of the search criteria, along with the keywords. If the keywords are not too common, this might work for you.

https://www.google.com/alerts

 

[mfb]

Watching tags is a gold member feature, watching keywords elsewhere is currently not possible.

If you can expect the keyword to be somewhat frequent but limited to specific forums, you can watch those forums and just ignore other new threads.

 

[BillTre]

I would actually be interested in a ((keyword) or (words key to me in a title)) for any sub-forum in the whole PF website.

The reason being that I am concerned that there are things in sub-forums now which I might be interested in, which I could miss due to not going to the particular sub-forum with any regularity.

I have, several times, discovered interesting threads because they are randomly sitting on top of some sub-forum list (most recent post?).
But I could have just as easily missed them.

This would be my solution, for example:

I'm interested in "information". (maybe use "entropy" as another term)
If I got alerts when the term "information" were used Either in the Title or as a Keyword (or tag or whatever)
I think that would satisfy most of my concerns.

If I felt this kind of search was not achieving the desired result, Then I might:

1. Try different terms
2. Want a more broad search (include text along with keywords and title)

External work-arounds, like @UsableThought's Google Alerts suggestion, may work, but it just seems more convenient if is all in the website itself.
On the other hand, I could learn how to use Google alerts.

 

[mfb]

You can also use the forum search manually of course, and find all recent threads containing some keyword.
I would expect most threads with "information" in it to be not related to entropy. Just looking through the search results:

The problem doesn't give any information about the length of the cylindrical rod or how the charge is...

be weak ("One of our 5 best students this year") or have information that undermines the rest of the application ("He tests very well.").

You can simply calculate those from the information given: t1=2s,x1=0,t2=3s,x2=300,000km You then...

are just telling you how to interpret or apply the given information.

 

[BillTre]

They seem pretty off.
I suspect those are all from text rather than titles or keywords.
I would hope that a title/keyword strategy would filter a lot of that out.