Suggested Improvement to Facebook Groups: Searches, Categories, Timelines and Hashtags


Here is a follow-up on this earlier post where I suggested that Facebook add amenities to their "Groups" feature such as "search" and "categories". Thankfully, they implemented the search feature but we're still waiting for a day when group administrators (admins) will have the power to really order and prioritize the posts on their forums via categories and other means. Also, sadly, Facebook's group search feature can't seem to search beyond a limited time-frame or number of entries, depending on whether the entry was made in a comment or in a post.
Facebook "F" and Hashtag Silhouette facing sunset by Dr Ajao OlaWale
Illustration by Dr Ajao

In another post, I commended Facebook on introducing the Timeline feature which serves as a categorization feature of sorts based on time. As long as anyone vaguely remembers what time a post was made, it can be more easily found via the timeline feature. A timeline feature should be highly appreciated by admins if also applied to Facebook Groups, the same way it has also been applied to Facebook Pages.

In the absence of Timelines, Categories, and (smarter) Search features, what are we to do?

Enter, Hashtags.

Hashtags could be a feature that admins use to categorize the posts made in their groups. It would be nice if admins could prioritize (or 'deprioritize') or categorize posts using strategic hashtags that can be easier found via the group search. I understand that it may be prohibitive for Facebook to upgrade their search engine so that it catches all instances of a word. However, it should be possible to upgrade it such that it searches for hashtags within a group's context. The word "book" might be hard to search for but with a unique hashtag (say #Groupname_Book), Facebook should be able to find every instance of the word within the book.

Admins can then be tasked with ensuring that the tags are unique/unrepeated enough to make it easy for Facebook to find, irrespective of how many years have elapsed. Or better yet, the power to create special infinitely searchable tags should lie with the admins alone in the first place.

My two cents, or should I say "pounds"?

Links to earlier posts:
http://drajao.blogspot.com/2011/12/suggested-improvements-to-facebook.html
http://drajao.blogspot.com/2011/12/facebook-timeline-to-hate-or-not-to.html

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