Common Topic Summaries

There are some frequent topics that are hard to resolve, which generate a lot of comments, many of which will repeat because it’s hard to read all the comments. An example being what to do about overzealous identification getting things to RG. It would be quite good if such topics could have their own summary page that encapsulates all the pros and cons and ideas raised by the commenters (with links to original comments where needed) that doesn’t make an extensively long read so that it is easy for people to get up to speed and also for the designers to have an overview of all ideas and thoughts on the matter. I’m sure such topics would each find someone keen to maintain such a summary. That is, long free discussions do at some point merit being turned into something briefer and more systematic.
Thereafter people would read the summaries and only add something if they thought it was a new point to be made, which could then be added on the summary.
For example currently I have my own suggestions on the matter but I’ve no idea if they’ve been raised before or if they are novel.
David

1 Like

I would be surprised if an automated feature (based on large language models like GPT) like the one you described wouldn’t become common in forum software within a year or so.

1 Like

Good point. I’d think they could help draft but then manual curation afterward would be best to ensure it was succinct as possible with nothing missed out.

Some of the long threads do have a TLDR version. If I can find an example, will bring it back.

Here you go
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/help-me-identify-non-experts-welcome/2915?filter=summary

Click Summarise this topic
for 14 of 67 comments.

1 Like