Frustrated With Search Function

[Jenny48549]

As I have stated numerous times in the past, the search engine in this version of VB is to put it bluntly "crap" . It is inefficient, loads up the servers, and returns lousy results.

This is why the VB developers totally scrapped it and designed a totally new search engine from the ground up when they were developing VB version 4.

The only way to get better search results at this forum is to upgrade to a newer version of VB and it does not appear that this will happen anytime soon. Everyone will have to live with what we have at the moment because there is nothing that can be done to improve the current situation.

[effCup]

Originally Posted by Jenny48549

there is nothing that can be done to improve the current situation.

One follow-up question, if I may: the fix that was successfully achieved for the findability of the Simone St. John thread title here, are you saying that similar is not achievable for the titles of the threads Olga Muhidnova l Orea l Adrianne & Usha?

Clarifying: a change was made to the title of the Simone St. John thread and it is now findable via advanced -> title search, it's just it took awhile for that change to propagate through the server array so that I too could see it had worked. My question above then is: can the same not also be done for those two other threads?

[hos]

Originally Posted by effCup

My question above then is: can the same not also be done for those two other threads?

imho such things should happen automatically by the software, if the software doesn't do it, it has to be done "by hand" - and concerning the situation with models having multiple (common) names - we have thousands of threads which could be modified to gain more searchable names in thread titles. a hard task to always do this "on call", modifying the database directly by hand (which isn't recommended anyways because of error risk / creating inconsistent data if modification wasn't made properly).

[palo5]

Originally Posted by effCup

One follow-up question, if I may: the fix that was successfully achieved for the findability of the Simone St. John thread title here, are you saying that similar is not achievable for the titles of the threads Olga Muhidnova l Orea l Adrianne & Usha?

Clarifying: a change was made to the title of the Simone St. John thread and it is now findable via advanced -> title search, it's just it took awhile for that change to propagate through the server array so that I too could see it had worked. My question above then is: can the same not also be done for those two other threads?

Since it doesn't seem to be clear:

Our search machine is not a perfect tool, so don't expect perfection. Seriously, don't expect it

We know what it is supposed to do. We also know it doesn't always deliver. And we know, or at least I know, that simple searches succeed where sophisticated searches sometimes don't

Also, Mods don't get to play direct with database pages or indexes, so can we forget that, please

Fazit: if a sophisticated search doesn't work and someone has an urge to complain, he wasn't paying attention. If he was, he would have known that they can fail. Use a simple search

If there are problems with thread titles, any section mod will help

Please read Jenny's post, and take her seriously

[effCup]

Originally Posted by palo5

Our search machine is not a perfect tool, so don't expect perfection. Seriously, don't expect it

We know what it is supposed to do. We also know it doesn't always deliver. And we know, or at least I know, that simple searches succeed where sophisticated searches sometimes don't

Also, Mods don't get to play direct with database pages or indexes, so can we forget that, please

Fazit: if a sophisticated search doesn't work and someone has an urge to complain, he wasn't paying attention. If he was, he would have known that they can fail. Use a simple search

If there are problems with thread titles, any section mod will help

Please read Jenny's post, and take her seriously

I have read Jenny's post and taken it seriously. I was not asking for a fix to all the problems with advanced -> title searches. I was simply asking for what the successful fix of the Simone St. John thread title did achieve.

Your and others' comments here seems to be saying: advanced -> title search is not just partly but fully broken so I must stop using it. It's not. The fixed Simone St. John thread shows that it is still partly working, just as my test thread in the test forum shows which bit of advanced -> title search is now broken.

Please do not conflate those two together by saying advanced -> title search is "unreliable" and so should simply be discarded, for that is incorrect. I have tried to make my posts in this discussion very clear and precise. I feel the conflating comments by others along the lines just listed are where the misunderstandings and lack of clarity has occurred.

Custom post titles within threads are no longer found by advanced -> title searches, whereas they were earlier in my time on vef, i.e. since 2012-02. Jenny's said why that won't be fixed and I understand that. I was not asking for that to be fixed. I was asking for the Simone St. John bit. You're telling me that's too much to ask.

[delicasalat]

Originally Posted by effCup

I have read Jenny's post and taken it seriously. I was not asking for a fix to all the problems with advanced -> title searches. I was simply asking for what the successful fix of the Simone St. John thread title did achieve.

Your and others' comments here seems to be saying: advanced -> title search is not just partly but fully broken so I must stop using it. It's not. The fixed Simone St. John thread shows that it is still partly working, just as my test thread in the test forum shows which bit of advanced -> title search is now broken.

Please do not conflate those two together by saying advanced -> title search is "unreliable" and so should simply be discarded, for that is incorrect. I have tried to make my posts in this discussion very clear and precise. I feel the conflating comments by others along the lines just listed are where the misunderstandings and lack of clarity has occurred.

Custom post titles within threads are no longer found by advanced -> title searches, whereas they were earlier in my time on vef, i.e. since 2012-02. Jenny's said why that won't be fixed and I understand that. I was not asking for that to be fixed. I was asking for the Simone St. John bit. You're telling me that's too much to ask.

I don't think palo5 is saying "advanced" search doesn't work (it clearly does, as I use "advanced search > title only" all the time). He was saying that 'sophisticated' searches are not reliable (i.e. too many parameters), so keep your searches as simple as you can and they should mostly work.

[effCup]

Originally Posted by sooperlicious

I don't think palo5 is saying "advanced" search doesn't work (it clearly does, as I use "advanced search > title only" all the time). He was saying that 'sophisticated' searches are not reliable (i.e. too many parameters), so keep your searches as simple as you can and they should mostly work.

OK. Are you saying advanced -> title search for "Usha" is too complicated?

[delicasalat]

Originally Posted by effCup

OK. Are you saying advanced -> title search for "Usha" is too complicated?

Sorry, no. Not specifically that. I was meaning compound searches.

I use the Advanced > title only search all the time and it seems to work ok

[Jenny48549]

Originally Posted by effCup

One follow-up question, if I may: the fix that was successfully achieved for the findability of the Simone St. John thread title here, are you saying that similar is not achievable for the titles of the threads Olga Muhidnova l Orea l Adrianne & Usha?

Clarifying: a change was made to the title of the Simone St. John thread and it is now findable via advanced -> title search, it's just it took awhile for that change to propagate through the server array so that I too could see it had worked. My question above then is: can the same not also be done for those two other threads?

I just did an advanced title search using " Olga Muhidnova" alone and it found the thread with no issues. Using the full title will not work due to the "l" between the names. This is because of the "more than 3 characters" rule that is set in the search engine parameters. We cannot reduce that number to less than 3 characters because the number of searches being performed here that occur simultaneously would slow the forum to a crawl .

[effCup]

Originally Posted by Jenny48549

I just did an advanced title search using " Olga Muhidnova" alone and it found the thread with no issues. Using the full title will not work due to the "l" between the names. This is because of the "more than 3 characters" rule that is set in the search engine parameters. We cannot reduce that number to less than 3 characters because the number of searches being performed here that occur simultaneously would slow the forum to a crawl .

That's right. The problems are with the titles/names "Orea", "Adrianne", and "Usha". Advanced -> title searches for each of them do not find those two respective threads. In Usha's case that's the only name in her thread title. If they were fixed in the same manner as with Simone St. John then they could be found using advanced -> title searches.

vef does have thousands of model threads. In my time on vef (since 2012-02) I've encountered perhaps only a couple of handfuls of model thread titles with just this type of anomaly/problem, so I don't think the scope is too serious to tackle, is it?