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View Full Version : the current search feature blows!!



black_zj
04-20-2011, 02:40 PM
I don't see an option for searching threads with ONLY the pertinent words, but instead when you search it brings up every thread with any single word you are searching for. Example, I need to find threads ONLY about "high MAP input", but the search brings up a bunch of irrelevant crap.

So please fix the problem.

BigDaveZJ
04-20-2011, 08:45 PM
Google can't find anything with that either, so perhaps the forum software works just fine and there just isn't any info on what you're searching for.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=high+map+input+site%3Amallcrawlin.com

OverkillZJ
04-20-2011, 09:13 PM
So please fix the problem.

You can't fix stupid.

OverkillZJ
04-20-2011, 09:16 PM
And apparently search works great, it did bring up the ONLY thread that contains "high map input" as the first result... this one. http://www.mallcrawlin.com/forum/search.php?searchid=30352

Normally I don't jump on people requesting something, but you sound like a complete dick between the title and the fix it now request. Attitude is important, and yours sucks.

Jeep Whore
04-20-2011, 10:29 PM
now if you wanted them to "fix" it with Overkill's suggestion it would along the lines of this:

I noticed this when I searched

I don't see an option for searching threads with ONLY the pertinent words, but instead when you search it brings up every thread with any single word you are searching for. Example, I need to find threads ONLY about "high MAP input", but the search brings up a bunch of irrelevant threads.

If this was changed then you would have a lot of newbies on this forum posting a lot less things that have already been discussed.

OverkillZJ
04-21-2011, 08:59 AM
^In which case you'd get a much nicer reply: the software (vbulletin) is written by folks that can code a hell of a lot better than Dave or I, so if its not a feature they provide, it's not something we're going to fix, that'd be a full time job for awhile. If you're offering to pay me ~150/hour, I'll take care of it, though!

Anyway, even though search won't return ONLY results for "high map input" - notice how this thread is at the top when you search for it. Most relevent results are at the top, and will go down from there, containing all of the words you searched for, but not particularly in any order. The search isn't perfect, but if you click advanced search you have options that'll usually help you find what you're looking for.

When that fails, GOOGLE.COM is your friend... The search here can't search for threads that don't exist. For instance, this thread hasn't been sypdered yet, but if in a week or so you go to google.com and search for: "high map input" site: mallcrawlin.com this would be the only thread that comes up.

SirFuego
04-21-2011, 10:11 AM
Disregarding the tone of the OP, he does sorta have a point in that something isn't right with the search...

The search completely ignores logical operators and quotations (when other VBulletin sites -- including the older version of MC -- don't)...

Consider the following search terms:
high map input

This implies that any of the three terms should be in the thread -- ok, fine

So now let's search for:
high AND map AND input

Now I get the exact same threads as if I used the first search term. I also noticed that even though it doesn't search for "and" in the threads, it still highlights the "and"s in the clicked threads. Here is the link given to me a thread that does not have all three terms present (notice how "AND" is included in the highlighted words).
http://www.mallcrawlin.com/forum/showthread.php?23418-247-Input-Shaft-Length&highlight=high+AND+map+AND+input

Use the same search over on Pirate and the "and"s are stripped out when it lists the keywords and the only threads returned have all three terms in them.

Now search for:
high OR map OR input

Same search results as before. The "OR" keyword is basically completely ignored.

Finally, if I use the following search terms:
"high map input"

That would mean that not only do all the returned threads need have those three words -- but they also must be in that exact order. But when I run the search, I get the same threads as the previous two searches. Use the same search on Pirate, and it returns no results because those three terms are never together.

Are you sure that something isn't misconfigured in the search? Just seems odd that logical operators and quotes are completely ignored when other VBulletin sites have that functionality. I highly doubt the admins of those sites implemented that logic either. Maybe it's an option or mod that isn't included by default in this version?

SirFuego
04-21-2011, 10:21 AM
Also, there is a bug in the "Page X of Y" output in the search. For any searches that return more than 6 pages, it always says "Page 1 of 5" -- then when I click on page 4 and let the page load, it shows "page 4 of 8". When I click on page 7, it shows "page 7 of 11" -- the number after the "of" is always one more than the last page I can select (and not the total number of pages in the search results). Normal threads don't have this problem, so it seems limited only to the search.

The bottom line is that something is really hokey with the search. I have no idea how to fix it or if it's just an issue with the new version of VBulletin, but it's probably something worth looking into.

black_zj
04-21-2011, 11:13 AM
I'm glad someone else agrees, especially on a forum where their favorite thing to say used to be "search newbie"....

black_zj
04-21-2011, 11:25 AM
Google can't find anything with that either, so perhaps the forum software works just fine and there just isn't any info on what you're searching for.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=high+map+input+site%3Amallcrawlin.com

Hmmm, when I typed in "1996 Grand Cherokee high MAP input" on google it brought me right to the info I needed. The old forum setup was much better.

SirFuego
04-21-2011, 11:50 AM
Was that info from this site?

black_zj
04-21-2011, 12:34 PM
Was that info from this site?

Did you intend to ask "Was there info from this site"? No there wasn't.

BigDaveZJ
04-21-2011, 12:49 PM
Wow dude. Stop being such a fucking ass hole to people. Fuego was just backing you up a few posts ago if you don't recall...

Troof.

SirFuego
04-21-2011, 12:52 PM
Did you intend to ask "Was there info from this site"? No there wasn't.
Nope, my question was worded as intended. You seemed utterly confused by the fact that the information you were looking for isn't on this site and that Google pointed you to another site that contained the information you are looking for.

Jeep Whore
04-21-2011, 11:30 PM
Anyway, even though search won't return ONLY results for "high map input" - notice how this thread is at the top when you search for it. Most relevent results are at the top, and will go down from there, containing all of the words you searched for, but not particularly in any order. The search isn't perfect, but if you click advanced search you have options that'll usually help you find what you're looking for.


Google does the same thing.... the further and further you go through the pages the less relevant the links become.

OverkillZJ
04-22-2011, 09:52 AM
I'll repeat myself: We don't write the software. We spend a hell of a lot of time running it, though, and there is always a few squeeky wheels who don't really contribute anything worthwhile, but complain when something doesn't work as they think it should. If you're having issues with the seach, I highly suggest you head to google.com and search for "whatever site:mallcrawlin.com" which will return results only for this site, if that's what you want. If you think anyones making $ on this site, think again: we don't have the resources to rewrite software.

OverkillZJ
04-22-2011, 10:05 AM
And to repeat myself again... If you search for "high map input" this is the first result. How, exactly, is that search not working?

I understand it would be nice to use AND/OR/NOT/YourMomma but it isn't an option, and there's not a thing we can do about it on this software. There are no settings relating to the search in this fashion, it relates to MySQL calls but that desn't really matter - the fact of the matter is that when I type "high map input" this thread is returned first... Do the math. Also with the entire site being indexed by google, you can search in any fashion you feel like...

On "use the search newbie" - I still stand by it. If you search for basic concepts like BB, budget boost, lift kit, etc - the relevant results are AGAIN, AT THE TOP.

If it ain't broke...

OverkillZJ
04-22-2011, 10:14 AM
Use the same search over on Pirate and the "and"s are stripped out when it lists the keywords and the only threads returned have all three terms in them.

Now search for:
high OR map OR input

Same search results as before. The "OR" keyword is basically completely ignored.

Finally, if I use the following search terms:
"high map input"


Look at the software tags at the bottom of the screens at Pirate. It's a previous version of vbulletin, which was actually written by a different company before the source code was sold. They have the resources to maintain old version of sofware, where as we need to just plug it in and have it work, so what we get tends to be what we get to an extent...

I liked 3.0's search more, but at the same time, I don't really see the big deal with this one. I'll leave it there. As it stands, with threads like this, I'm about ready to pull my admin status off my account and be done with this shit. Years of people bitching and nitpicking over things I've worked on for next to nothing gets old.

SirFuego
04-22-2011, 10:23 AM
Matt, I understand that you guys don't write the software, nor do you have the time to figure out how to rewrite it. I did not know that the old version of VBulletin was managed by a different company. Nor did I know that the search feature had been changed in this version. I had no idea that the logical operators or the "filtering" capability was completely thrown out the window in this version.

The bottom line is that (I now know that) the search behaves differently here than it did before. I understand that this method is, in theory, more efficient than the previous way of searching in that only the first couple pages are really going to be helpful. But the fact of the matter, is that there is a learning curve in understanding how to interpret the search results. I'm not saying that the learning curve is steep, either, but I'm just saying that it can be initially confusing if you became accustomed to the way it previously worked.

For the record, when the new version was implemented, feedback was requested. This was my feedback. The search didn't perform the same, so I was providing examples on how it differs so that (a) I could understand why it's different or (b) I can bring to light a potential issue. Now that I understand that the search behaves differently, I have no problem with the way that it works, because I now understand how it's changed. As such, I now have a better understanding of how to search with the new software. I'm not familiar with how the backend of this software is implemented.

After some searching, I did figure out that the difference is the way the MySQL queries were handled, but again, I was just hoping that it was a simple option that could be enabled/changed to allow for the logical operators to be used. It sounds like it's a much bigger problem than that, so I understand your frustration. I have zero experience with the backend of this software or how the database is handled, so if it requires code changes, then that's fine. I understand you don't have the time to fix it. I was hoping that it would be an easy change, but it looks like it's not.

OverkillZJ
04-22-2011, 10:31 AM
You're still overcomplicating it - typical engineer brain :finga: I see this as very simple, I can even cut / paste a random selection of your post above the search behaves differently here than it did before and this thread is still the first result.

You can type ands / ors all you want, they're rejected from the search even if they're highlighted, therefore using the same practices in previous versions, THE RESULTS ARE STILL THE SAME and that's the end of the story.

SirFuego
04-22-2011, 11:03 AM
I could have sworn that ands/ors and quotes worked previously, but I could just be confusing it with other sites. Since it's a MySQL dealio, that's probably the case since I'm guessing the backend fulltext search feature wasn't really touched. I'll admit that I don't actually think I've used the search feature since the transition until this thread cropped up. So maybe I'm just jading myself since this is based on a "dead end" search for information that's not on this site. Usually I remember enough about the past threads I've read to know who posted in the thread, so I can quickly narrow my search down that way.

I knew I was walking on thin ice when I put all that together. I was expecting lashback. I just figured that since you need to work with Macs at your job now, your frustrations would be taken out on me. :smt082 Don't worry, Matt, I still love you and I know you still love me.

OverkillZJ
04-22-2011, 11:35 AM
Don't make me photochop another picture of you :overkill:

:)

SirFuego
04-22-2011, 11:43 AM
I'm a glutton for punishment. Do it!

There are a few nice pics on Facebook to get you started.