7

It seems in comments and answers that it is hammered home the fact that people need to search the website before posting.

If this is the case, then why is there no tutorial on searching the site?

If it is mission critical for a user to search the site, it would be good to have a better tutorial or page to help users to search the site.

Improve this question
8
  • 4
    How would you get people to read it? They generally don't read any of the current resources.
    – Robert Longson
    Commented Dec 26, 2021 at 18:03
  • 1
    @RobertLongson we give them a hat if they find the page ... would be a bloody rare hat ....
    – rene Mod
    Commented Dec 26, 2021 at 18:12
  • 2
    Well, how to put it... Because the company did not make one - it is as simple as that. the closest we have (apart from the texts buried in the help center and Meta posts) to a tutorial is the Tour, but it is completely useless (anyone that wants to say otherwise - please, open it now and try to think like a new user). It might be worthwhile to write a tutorial, but... well, 'tis what Robert above said - no one reads them...
    – Oleg Valter is with Ukraine
    Commented Dec 26, 2021 at 18:14
  • 2
    @BenMadison do you refer to my comment above? It is somewhat bitter indeed - I do consider the tour as it currently stands useless (happy to be proven wrong), as well as the company's efforts on that front far from being enough. As for the users not reading anything - it is not condescension, just a fact of life, same as with terms of service, fine print, etc. Nothing particularly wrong with users' behavior being such - it is a systemic issue.
    – Oleg Valter is with Ukraine
    Commented Dec 26, 2021 at 18:42
  • How do we know that users do not find the answers/information they are looking for? Who's to say that dozens of users stopped themselves from asking how a bounty works, why users need 50 rep in order to post comments, or why downvoting is anonymous etc.etc. The fact is, nobody knows and this is an absurd situation as we're nearing 2022. Whenever I go searching in some other website I get a questionnaire asking me if the page I landed on helped me. Can't the same happen here?
    – Mari-Lou A Слава Україні
    Commented Dec 26, 2021 at 19:19
  • 1
    When you focus on a search box at the top of any page you see a dropdown that contains a link to Search Help. Have you gone through the topics there and what do you find lacking? Adding that commentary to your question can only benefit your request
    – charlietfl
    Commented Dec 26, 2021 at 19:21
  • 3
    Perhaps it is worth mentioning here that the site's built in search functionality is not very useful, specially for new users who are not familiar with the structure of the site. You are much better off googling the stuff you need to find with "site:stackoverflow.com" (or whatever site you want to search).
    – nobody
    Commented Dec 26, 2021 at 19:25
  • Does this answer your question? Difficulty finding existing / duplicate questions meta.stackexchange.com/q/50262/282094
    – Rob
    Commented Dec 26, 2021 at 19:36

0

Reset to default

Browse other questions tagged .