Related Events are too far into the future

[cliffy]

Hi,

I would like to refer to a post by Jennifer

https://theeventscalendar.com/support/forums/topic/related-events-include-strange-unrelated-events-too-far-in-the-future/

I too have this issue and completely agree with her view. I personally feel the argument about bloating the code is a bloated argument in itself. If there is a filter in the code somewhere to show related events, why not change the existing code so it doesn’t show a related event 17 months from now – why not change the existing code and let others manually change it if they want something so far in the future. To me, this seems like common sense. It seems much more common sense to put something in the UI – I’m not a programmer.

(I’m using the Enfold Theme)

[George]

Hey @Cliffy,

You mention explicitly that you are not a programmer; why, then, do you assume all of your code-related arguments are good ones, and that our code-related arguments are illegitimate (“bloated”)?

I’m not being snarky here, I just want to highlight the contradiction in your post and clarify the fact that there are genuine, legitimate concerns about bloating the code and that regardless of what might seem like “common sense”, making the changes you suggest is quite complex.

An Example

Say we offer limiting things by time-frame as a UI option. Here are just a sample of further decisions that result from the original one:
1. where does this option go in the admin screen?
2. Is it per-event, or a global option?
3. Is it in the options panel? If so where?
4. Should it be a checkbox, a dropdown, a custom user input?
5. Should we set pre-defined time-frames to normalize the behavior? Or make it free-form?
6. How granular a limit should we allow/enable – time-frames of months? Weeks? Days? Years only? All of these?

Now let’s say a time-frame of twelve months is chosen. For a given event, 10 results are found as “related”, but only 5 are within 12 months. These 5 are only sort-of related, but as it happens the 5 events beyond the 12 month time-frame are far, far more “related” to the current event.

7. What should happen here? Should the higher-relevancy events outside of the time-frame just be ignored altogether? Or should the time-frame be honored no matter how relevant the results within it?

And so on…

—

I just want to point out that beneath what might seem like a simple thing, i.e. “just add an option”, there are dozens and dozens of other decisions that all need to be made.

In closing, you mention this:

why not change the existing code and let others manually change it if they want something so far in the future

That’s a valuable bit of feedback, and the fact that now Jennifer and you are posting about this adds more weight to this idea. I want to be clear that this feedback is appreciated, and it’s something I take seriously, hence my long reply here! 😀

We will always admit that our plugin is not perfect and that there’s always room for improvement. But hopefully my reply here will illustrate how complicated a change it would be to make the changes you suggest – please let me know what your thoughts are on all of this.

—

For the time being and the foreseeable future, the only solution to this problem will be to use the code snippet that Brook shared in that forum thread. I’m sorry about that, but am happy to address any further questions you might have and to discuss more about this if you’re compelled to do so!

Sincerely,
George

• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by George.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 5 months ago by George.

[cliffy]

Oh I’ve spent quite a few years in software design, user testing, product marketing etc (of course this doesn’t qualify me to comment on your code, but I hope you value my opinion, and that’s all it is). And I understand completely not wanting to bloat your code. Surely, if you don’t add anything to the UI, then there is no bloat, just a change (OK perhaps just a little extra).

In regard to putting something in the UI:

Where you put it and what it looks like obviously needs consideration, I accept that. But that shouldn’t be difficult to work out really. Of course the biggest question would be the options available and I realise if it were presented as a “quick fix” this may lead to more support issues from people asking for more options. But a simple dialog box which represented weeks would I’m sure resolve the issue Jennifer and I have raised. If you want years, then x weeks by 52 etc.

Now let’s say a time-frame of twelve months is chosen. For a given event, 10 results are found as “related”, but only 5 are within 12 months. These 5 are only sort-of related, but as it happens the 5 events beyond the 12 month time-frame are far, far more “related” to the current event.

I’m not sure I follow this scenario. I have not seen the option to specify how related one event is to another. It is either related or not is it not? But yes, given your scenario just show the next x number of events in the following x number of weeks.

I’m only trying to put my case forward George and I know you guys take notice and listen and your feedback and support is fantastic. I received notice about the last release and how one of the issues I had raised (along with others I am sure) had been fixed / implemented in that release. Hence I know it is worth raising the issue with you. If I put it across wrong, harshly etc then please accept my sincere apologies 🙂

In addition to all the above, I think I neglected to point out the obvious. In my calendar I have repeat events – lots of different repeat events. So when looking at one event the “related” events that show are of events 18 months in the future. Yet there is the exact same event taking place next week (or even later in the current week) – this is why it looks confusing to the end user.

H 🙂

[George]

Hey @Cliffy,

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, lots of interesting points here. And no worries about your original post – it wasn’t harsh or anything! I sensed some frustration but that is totally fair, and hopefully we can both agree that our “Related Events” feature can be improved in general 🙂

To address a few of the additional points you raised, all I mean about an event being “more” or “less” related is like this:

• Events A and B are in the same category as each other, but have no keywords in common (in their event descriptions, event titles, etc.)
• Event C is in the same category as Event A, and also has some of the same keywords in its event description.

So Events A, B, and C are all “related”. But A and C are “more” related because they have more in common. And so if you multiply factors like this across hundreds of events, etc., you end up with a gradient of “relatedness” for any set of events, not just a black-and-white “this is related” and “this is not related”.

Now, our related events system is not quite as sophisticated as this at present, but it was just an illustration of things to consider.

---

But a simple dialog box which represented weeks would I’m sure resolve the issue Jennifer and I have raised. If you want years, then x weeks by 52 etc.

You are partly correct here, and when it comes to converting weeks to years it is a rather simple thing to do in concept. The issue is the full implementation of this as an outright feature, and, as you noted, not just a “quick fix”.

I can (and will!) create a development feature ticket for this; it’s a great idea and your and Jennifer’s thread will both be linked to as examples of folks wanting this feature, which will raise the “priority” of the ticket and thus hopefully lead us to discuss it as a development team sooner rather than later. I appreciate your kind words about our listening to users and such – we do listen to feedback and love hashing out complex problems! 🙂

To be completely candid and frank with you, there is no way for a UX feature for this to make it into our plugins for our next planned release. This release is a major one, and we’re already more or less complete with development are in the pre-launch phases of QA, Testing, fixing our bugs, and all that fun stuff that it sounds like you might be quite familiar with based on your experience in the field 😉

But who knows? The release after, or a maintenance release in between or something, could see some UI implementation of this. Until then, I’m sorry to say that Brook’s original code snippet is the best solution at this time.

Thanks for the back-and-forth here, @cliffy, and for adding your voice to this feature request. The feedback genuinely does help, and we appreciate it.

Let me know if you have any other thoughts on all of this, or if I can help with anything else.

Cheers!
George

[Support Droid]

This topic has not been active for quite some time and will now be closed.

If you still need assistance please simply open a new topic (linking to this one if necessary)
and one of the team will be only too happy to help.

[Victor]

Hi There!

Just wanted to share with you that a new release of our plugins is out, including an improvement for the related events.

Now, related events are ordered by the start date so they are displayed when they’re close to the date of the event that is actually being viewed

Find out more about this release → https://theeventscalendar.com/maintenance-release-for-the-week-of-27-may-2018/

Please update the plugins and see if the fix works for your site. Don’t hesitate to open a new topic if anything comes up.

Best,
Victor

[Author]

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