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New Search capability?
For the love of God, can someone (Geoff) please upgrade the search capability for DVDTalk. It irritates me to no end that the same damn questions are posted multiple times. I normally get angry about duplicate posts, however, after trying to use the "search" (and I use that term lightly) function on this site, I see why there are so many duplicates.
There are much better turnkey search solutions out there or hell, maybe even some scripts. I am sure this has been discussed before but I was unable to find anything using the "search" function! ;) |
The other day I searched for the thread called Why is the term "colored person" bad, but "person of color" good? I remembered that the title involved the words "colored" and "color," so I searched for each of these - restricting my efforts to the Other Forum, and Titles Only.
I got no matches. :hscratch: I know *nothing* about how computers / the 'Net work, but why did this happen? Is it because in the actual thread title, color and colored were inside quotes? |
ctyner,
I understand that Geoff is doing what he can (that's what I hope anyway). I am unfamiliar with BB admin so I am unaware of the issues faced. Does vBulletin allow for search add-ins? I would think vBulletin would not be so naive to think their search functionality was the be-all, end-all of BB search functionality (actually after cruising the forums at vBulletin, they [developers] don't think that good search fuctionality is critical! I have yet to hear anything more shortsighted and just wrong than that statement. Geoff, you might want to reevaluate your BB choice. ) I cruised the vBulletin board and found a wonderful tidbit regarding searching in vBulletin... "Well here is the thing... if you limit your indexing to 4 characters minimum, the words BY and IP won't be indexed to begin with so your search will fail. Not only that but BY is a common word and will be thrown out. The search in vBulletin 3 is being reworked a little to make it more logical but it won't be able to over-ride the minimum characters like you are suggesting. That would take full-text search which won't be usable until MySQL 4.0 comes out of beta which is slated for the end of the year. Using full-text search reliably in vBulletin is on the list of things to add but most likely won't be until after 3.0." |
Originally posted by Indurain Does vBulletin allow for search add-ins? |
Originally posted by ctyner In that people can edit the scripts and rewrite the search functionality themselves, sure. I'm not aware of one, and I'd imagine if a better solution were available, vBulletin users would use that instead of (justifiably) complaining about the poor search implementation currently available. |
vBulletin doesn't require that searches include 4 characters or more. It's a setting used here and on pretty much every board with a decent amount of posts. Small sites can accomodate the extra size. Large sites can't.
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Originally posted by Alyoshka I've been to at least one vbulletin site that allows searching for two or three letter words, unlike here.http://www.soundcircuit.com Originally posted by RandyC 12-03-02 05:49 PM The issue of restricting the search to n characters is a dvdtalk option and intended to deal with server load issues. The issue of the search software not working is not a dvdtalk issue and is a Vbb issue. |
Originally posted by ctyner vBulletin doesn't require that searches include 4 characters or more. It's a setting used here and on pretty much every board with a decent amount of posts. Small sites can accomodate the extra size. Large sites can't. Does the review search engine also use vBulletin? It would be *so* helpful if it would recognize keywords without having to match exact phrases. Right now, if you type in the major words from a title but not the connecting words, you won't get any result. Ie. searching for "fellowship ring" or "attack clones" gets no results... even though most other common search engines (like Google or Amazon's engine) work fine that way - in fact, Google specifically doesn't even include the minor words in the search. Heck, if you could just get it to disregard punctuation it would help. |
Originally posted by Indurain Geoff, you might want to reevaluate your BB choice. |
Originally posted by ordway It would be nice, though, if it could recognize "" as "get exactly what's inside the quotes." Does the review search engine also use vBulletin? It would be *so* helpful if it would recognize keywords without having to match exact phrases. It still doesn't handle spelling errors. in fact, Google specifically doesn't even include the minor words in the search. Heck, if you could just get it to disregard punctuation it would help. I'm sure I could cobble together something much more powerful than exists now, but the functionality's been fine for me. :shrugs: |
AndyCapps,
As I acknowledged before, I am not BB guru. I made the statement simply as a suggestion to reevaluate the current system. I am not a subscriber to the, "if ain't broke don't fix it," camp. Although, I feel that maxim doesn't apply in this situation due to the number of "brokes" with the search functionality. I like phpbb. It appears to be stable despite the large number of threads, members, and posts. I welcome thoughts on this bbs and its search functionality. I am sure that Geoff and company have, and will continue, to update, streamline, and improve this site (I hope they do). I'm not trying to diminish the work they do, I am trying to determine the root of the problem and IMO it is vB and not lack of effort. |
Originally posted by ctyner
Sorry, but I'm not Google, and I don't write search engines for a living. I copied over some code from the video game search <small>(which I wrote more recently, so it's more reflective of my current skills)</small> which should accomodate your requests a little better. Hurray! It works great - I think it will be a *lot* easier to find reviews now. Thanks for the fix! :) |
Originally posted by ctyner vBulletin doesn't require that searches include 4 characters or more. It's a setting used here and on pretty much every board with a decent amount of posts. Small sites can accomodate the extra size. Large sites can't. I think dvdtalk should at least allow three letter searches. It's quite frustrating. |
Originally posted by Alyoshka soundcircuit is much much larger than dvdtalk. soundcircuit Total Posts: 1,141,206 Total Threads: 49929 dvdtalk Total Posts: 1,319,497 Total Threads: 106,791 I don't see a way to tell how many members there are at soundcircuit. Or how many are logged in at any given time. Or what the most users online record is, and how recently it was set(to get a feel for how often it is exceeded). That would all factor in to the board's performance. A lot of boards I visit have a 4 character minimum. I've seen one recently that disabled search alltogether as a way to increase performance. That's one way to take care of the "problem". Other sites disable searches when the load is high, which is pretty frustrating. I agree that it sucks to not be able to search for three letter words, but I'm sure Geoff had good reasons for limiting it. |
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Originally posted by Alyoshka Furthermore, I recall some of the vbulletin developers saying that the search function doesn't have the server load problems it had in previous versions. Same goes for the PM function. I think dvdtalk should at least allow three letter searches. It's quite frustrating. I'd be more frustrated if performance was further downgraded. Searching is great but really it is the icing on the cake IMO: I would suggest that one comes here primarily here to read and post what is currently being posted. In-depth research is useful but to some extent that is what google and the rest of the web are for. I've occasionally read people who say that they can't find a particular non-sticky thread they use a lot and wondered why they didn't bookmark it. Occasionally consolidation etc will mean that the URL changes but, nonetheless, bookmarking seems like a prudent move to me in particular cases. |
I figured I'd bump this because it does a good job of explaining the search limitations and reasoning.
On a personal note, I think vBulletin is pretty solid (overall) and very popular, but the search feature is its peg leg....not that peg legs are bad, but still a factor....kind of like running a marathon, because it is pretty vital, but it still can be done on a peg leg...eventually you learn to work with the peg leg, and eventually...you don't even notice...unless you try to buy new shoes. -pedagogue |
too bad you can't search 2 or 3 words in just the TITLE of the thread. That would solve 80% of the search problems on both sides...
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Originally posted by AndyCapps :hscratch: Larger in what way? soundcircuit Total Posts: 1,141,206 Total Threads: 49929 dvdtalk Total Posts: 1,319,497 Total Threads: 106,791 member total would be a better term of if you can break down to number of posts or number of threads per day but there are few forums Ive been to, that are as active as this one.. anandtech is one of the few that comes to mind |
We haven't forgotten about the search issues. It's the weakest part of the forum software and we have investigated other search hacks/options. Just want to get through the busy season before hacking things as massive as the search index.
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Just in case this helps anyone - I found a little work around on another site. If you want to search for a three letter word, add a * to the end and it should work.
Go ahead - try searching for "vhs*" or something like that - it works with three letter words. If you search Feedback for vhs*, it will bring up this thread and one other: The only other one mentioning VHS: http://www.dvdtalk.com/forum/showthr...ghlight=vhs%2A |
Originally posted by twikoff member total would be a better term |
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