The new search system- problems, observations, issues

[disneyjunkie]

How do you search just one area?

I'm trying to find threads dealing with WDW during President's Day week. With the old search engine I could search just the Trip planning forms. I can't do that anymore.

 

[KathyTX]

How do you search just one area?

I'm trying to find threads dealing with WDW during President's Day week. With the old search engine I could search just the Trip planning forms. I can't do that anymore.

In the Search window, click the "advanced" link. This will let you specify a single forum (or a group of forums) to search.

 

[disneyjunkie]

Thanks Kathy

It looks like I was having trouble because I only clicked advance search once.

 

[PanamaMike]

I have almost 300 posts on the DIS.
This new search engine brings up only 20 of them. The most recent one it shows is May 22 and the next one is Jan 19, 2005
Bring back the old system or fix this one.
Please.

 

[agnes!]

PanamaMike -

BoardTracker as a system will probably never have the same features as the original DIS website search. The original search engine on the DIS was apparently too server-intensive, causing performance problems. BoardTracker relies on an independent database using "spiders" to harvest information. For more information on BoardTracker, go check out their website (BoardTracker.com, I believe).

If you want to find all your previous posts, here'[s the work-around I've seen posted. Left-click on your user-name to the left in this or any other thread. There will be a drop-down menu, one of the choices will be "Find more posts by [username]". Click on that & you'll find the 280+posts on the threads you have participated in. If you utilize BoardTracker's Advanced Search feature, you will only be able to find threads that *you* have started.

There is a New Search poll *somewhere* on the Community Board, but I don't feel like searching for it right now .

Good luck,
agnes!

 

[MPeter]

How do you search just within a particular thread that you are currently reading? Using the Search Thread option doesn't seem to work.

 

[Dan Murphy]

From what I have been able to figure out from trying to work with it when they changed the search here, MPeter, I do not think you can search a thread. I do think that new search only looks at the original post of a thread and ignores the replies. That is what it seems like to me.

From what I have read though, I think you could find a post with your name as the poster (not from your profile, that only works on threads you started) then you could search on your name, find all your posts you have made, then scroll through the pages of your posts and see if you have any posted on that thread. Not sure how valuable that is, or practical if you have very many posts.

I have not looked at it for a few weeks now though, have not really used it lately either. It is a pretty rudimentary search engine from what I can see. Maybe they have changed it and improved it, I have not looked though.

 

[agnes!]

MPeter -

Pretty much what Dan said .

agnes!
PS - Oh, I have noticed a new box down at the bottom with (somewhat) "Related Threads" (but after taking a look at what pops up I'm not sure just how relevant the relations *are*...)

 

[dj2]

is there any way to find posts by a user farther back than the past 500? i was trying to find a list of chef phone numbers that i'd posted on the disabilities board a few years ago, and it doesn't go back that far, only to 500 posts. then i posted again, and it still went to 500 (not 501), so i think the limit is in number of posts pulled, not a specific cut-off date. any way to see those old posts?

 

[KathyTX]

dj2- I can't help with the search functionality, but I did find the thread I think you're looking for:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=575236

Hope that helps!

 

[dj2]

dj2- I can't help with the search functionality, but I did find the thread I think you're looking for:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=575236

Hope that helps!

thanks. yes, that was one of them. what did you do to find it? is it a procedure that non-webmasters can use?

 

[jfulcer]

If it's a really old thread, use google. Type this is in the google search box:

MAGIC KINGDOM Executive Chef site:disboards.com Click for link

that will find the words "MAGIC KINGDOM Executive Chef" but will only search disboards.com.

Don't undersestimate google for your searching needs. They index this board too ya know.

 

[BoardTracker]

If it's a really old thread, use google. Type this is in the google search box:

MAGIC KINGDOM Executive Chef site:disboards.com Click for link

that will find the words "MAGIC KINGDOM Executive Chef" but will only search disboards.com.

Don't undersestimate google for your searching needs. They index this board too ya know.

What's wrong with: http://www.disboards.com/searchbt.p...utive+chef&order=1&user=&scope=4&cat=1&frm=-1 ?

 

[WillCAD]

What's wrong with: http://www.disboards.com/searchbt.php?search=MAGIC+KINGDOM+Executive+chef&order=1&user=&scope=4&cat=1&frm=-1 ?

There re 17 pages in this thread telling you what's wrong with it. Read a few.

 

[BoardTracker]

There re 17 pages in this thread telling you what's wrong with it. Read a few.

We have, thoroughly. The question still stands then.. What do you get in google search that gives you any benefit? I understand some would like to search posts-by-user, but this is not supplied by google as well.

On top of that however:
Google does not cover most of the threads in this site, BoardTracker does.
Google only adds threads once every few weeks, BoardTracker does this in near real time.
Google doesn't allow you to search threads in the last day/month/year etc.. BoardTracker does.
Google does not allow you to limit search to a specific forum, BoardTracker does.
Google does not allow you to search threads started by a specific user, BoardTracker does.

I understand some may want more features (the main or only one we can see is the search posts by user, in order to see where you posted).. This is what the 17 pages are mostly about. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

However besides that, and not that there is anything wrong with it whatsoever, but simply not as useful imho... why would you want to search for "MAGIC KINGDOM Executive Chef" in Google rather?

 

[Dan Murphy]

What's wrong with: http://www.disboards.com/searchbt.p...utive+chef&order=1&user=&scope=4&cat=1&frm=-1 ?

Hey, BT, good morning, great to see you again.

I notice that the quoted BT search found 13 listings, whereas the Google search from jfulcer (hi Jeff ) located 107. Would the difference be that BT is searching only OP's on the disboards, whereas Google is searching all posts, OP's and replies, on the disboards? And if those four search words did not happen to be in an OP, would BT have missed a post that they happened to be if in a reply?

Seems neither is fine honed, one maybe somewhat overly restrictive, only searching a limited pool, OP's, whereas the other, maybe a bit more expansive, possibly too much so, searching all, OP's and replies.

Is there a way to maybe have a happy medium, adding in several more database searching operatives, maybe like the previous vBulletin search used, to make the BT search a more functional and usable search engine? I just looked at the main disboards page and it shows thread count to be 1,049,072, post count to be 12,879,219. Assuming that the former number is included in the latter number (post count inclusive of OP's), it would indicate that, if BT only searches OP's, that BT is missing a bit over 91% of the board content, searching roughly 9%. If that is the case, it would seem that BT, and the disboard members, are missing a lot of searching pool and potential. I might have that assumption (yes, I know that old 'assume' thing, LOL ) incorrect, but that is the way it seems to operate.

Just thinking out loud here, hoping to, as item number two in the OP's posting of this thread asked for, observations.

 

[BoardTracker]

Hey, BT, good morning, great to see you again.

I notice that the quoted BT search found 13 listings, whereas the Google search from jfulcer (hi Jeff ) located 107. Would the difference be that BT is searching only OP's on the disboards, whereas Google is searching all posts, OP's and replies, on the disboards? And if those four search words did not happen to be in an OP, would BT have missed a post that they happened to be if in a reply?

Seems neither is fine honed, one maybe somewhat overly restrictive, only searching a limited pool, OP's, whereas the other, maybe a bit more expansive, possibly too much so, searching all, OP's and replies.

Is there a way to maybe have a happy medium, adding in several more database searching operatives, maybe like the previous vBulletin search used, to make the BT search a more functional and usable search engine? I just looked at the main disboards page and it shows thread count to be 1,049,072, post count to be 12,879,219. Assuming that the former number is included in the latter number (post count inclusive of OP's), it would indicate that, if BT only searches OP's, that BT is missing a bit over 91% of the board content, searching roughly 9%. If that is the case, it would seem that BT, and the disboard members, are missing a lot of searching pool and potential. I might have that assumption (yes, I know that old 'assume' thing, LOL ) incorrect, but that is the way it seems to operate.

Just thinking out loud here, hoping to, as item number two in the OP's posting of this thread asked for, observations.

Hi Dan
The answer is as follows..

Google search does not search the posts but rather pages.
This means a lot of things:

1. Search google for : 'Random acts of kindness' in Disboards.. and what do you get? over 8000 results.
http://www.google.com/search?q=site...ient=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official
How come? Because this text appears in your signiture. Is that what you want to find when you search for threads? Usually not. You are looking for discussion. Not signitures and surrounding text.
Another example is - if you were looking for something like: first prize
The word "first" appears on every page in Disboards, because it is there in the link of "view first unread post". But when you want to find 'first prize' you want to find threads about that issue, not because the word happened to be on the page outside the discussion
BoardTracker on the other hand searches in the post only. Granted, at the moment only the first post, but most times it will be more accurate than the entire page anyway.

2. BoardTracker covers all the threads on a board. Indeed, missing content in the replies at the moment (which will be resolved in the future) but this is compared to google which covers about 25% of the threads (at most). This means that 3 out of 4 threads can not be found in google at all.
Yes, you do 'see' 107 results in google BUT it doesn't mean the thread is about the subject you were searching, for the reason described in point #1 and for the reason that will soon be described in #3. the 13 listings in BoardTracker are threads that absolutely (and relevantly) contain what you were looking for.

3. Searching in a full page is not only less relevant because of the search in the surrounding text (thread tools, signitures, ads etc..) but also because of searching across posts.
If you search for magic kingdom chef, you might get results in google when someone asks about magic kingdom (with no relation to chef) and someone in reply #5 answeres with the word chef (for whatever other reason). Searching a page rather than posts, creates irrelevancy since what you DO want to know is of threads about what you are looking for, not pages containing all the words across different posts.

Most times, not all, what people are looking for can be judged by the fiirst post. In that, BoardTracker is currently very effective. With the ability to search within a forum and search within a date range, BoardTracker is an effective tool, more than other search alternatives such as google and others.
As we acknowledged already, there is a value in including replies, and we will add this. Hopefully sooner than later. It requires planning and safe execution, and it will take some time, but we will get there. Still, even then, it will not be the 'perfect' solution, but frankly, there isn't such thing. But we are trying to get as close to possible to that

 

[Dan Murphy]

......Most times, not all, what people are looking for can be judged by the fiirst post.....As we acknowledged already, there is a value in including replies, and we will add this. Hopefully sooner than later. It requires planning and safe execution, and it will take some time, but we will get there. Still, even then, it will not be the 'perfect' solution, but frankly, there isn't such thing. But we are trying to get as close to possible to that

I do think, BT, that it has been expressed here that most people are interested in actually looking beyond that OP. Just my observation.

And good to know that is in the future, agreeably and hopefully, not the distant future.

I agree the previous vBulletin search was not perfect, nor is even Google, Yahoo, Info, Lycos, MSN, or Windows Live, but it did seem leaps and bounds ahead of the BT search. Again, just my observation.

Thanks for working to improve your service.

 

[agnes!]

What's wrong with: http://www.disboards.com/searchbt.p...utive+chef&order=1&user=&scope=4&cat=1&frm=-1 ?

I'm sure I don't know, I'm just a DIS'er . It might help if you would analyze the data & then point out what's *right* with it. Perhaps compare the two search results side-by-side with "*good* hits", "mis-fires?", etc

IMO, though, doing off-site searches like Google reduces any possible loads on the site servers. So if a DIS'er uses BT or if they use Google, the DIS site & the servers themselves have less down-time.
And that is a good thing.

agnes!

 

[SeaSpray]

I would like to see the old Search function brought back.