Search Capability?

[hendi_alex]

Would be a great enhancement to this site, to be able to search within groups and across all groups for key workds/phrases. Lots of topics are addressed and then simply get lost in the volume of new posts. Consequently, the same questions/issues keep coming up over and over again. Also might be nice to rate threads as to useful content and perhaps even establish a "my favorites" folder for future reference. Maybe consider providing a screen for most useful posts in each board, screen for posts from given individuals, etc. Finally would be nice to be able to view all of my own posts. Sometimes want to return to a thread where a particular post was made, but can't remember the location. Lots of overlap in categories often cloud the memory as to an exact location. Sometimes requires a lot of effort to find that original post.

Alex

[Charlie MV]

Alex, there is a search feature at the top of the main page on the left. On the right side there is a"view my own post" link. Is that what you mean?

[hendi_alex]

My bad! Was not on that page and had forgotten about that search tool. WRT the "view my own posts" button, just shows threads in which the individual has posted. Still takes lots of clicking through many layers to find a specific post. In my mind, would be nice to see a sequential display of the actual posts of an individual. The current "view my own posts" does make it easier to keep up with threads in which the viewer is actively engaged, but does little to help the poster keep up with where a specific post was made. The guys over at investor village have put together a great set of search filters that give tremendous flexibility to the user. Perhaps the webmaster could take a look over there and visit any specific board. The search field has two drop down menus with almost unlimited search and view filter options. IMO really enhances the useability of the site.

[webmaster]

I'm on vacation. When I return I'm going to stick it on every page, top and bottom.

[alisios]

The current search system misses the a lot of features that the older search had. I particularly used many of the features of the older version such as:

1) Search by Poster
2) Search by key word - and have the key word highlighted in the thread.
2a) uses of "*" as a wild card
3) List searches by post or by thread
4) Limit search to a forum category

Well, in fact, all the features of the old I miss. Unfortunately, I think this "skin" doesn't allow for such functionality

I find the current search very limiting and unfriendly. Please reconsider the use of google searches.

[Kenshin14435]

I'm on vacation. When I return I'm going to stick it on every page, top and bottom.

THEN WHAT THE HECK ARE DOING HERE!!!!!
LOL, that was funny though.
Are you really on vacation.
If so, GET OF THE COMPUTER!!!!
LOL, have a good one.

[TheLorax]

I would agree with alisios.

The current search function is beyond the pits. I spent countless hours trying to find one recipe yesterday. Did run into a few threads that I don't recall ever having received notification that I had received a reply to though.

1) Search by Poster
2) Search by key word - and have the key word highlighted in the thread.
2a) uses of "*" as a wild card
3) List searches by post or by thread
4) Limit search to a forum category

Although I have no idea what "*" as a wild card means, I think it would be nice to have all of what ever alisios says we should have.

In order to search by poster, I suppose an area where registered members is listed is going to have to be created. I would hope this area would only be able to be accessed by registered members who are logged on. I once had a problem trying to reply to a member named Charlie and had to go back through threads because there were two with similar user names. It would be nice to list out members in alphabetical order since some user names are very similar.

I would also hope that any new search features would only be available to registered members who are logged on. Defies logic to have the whole www able to search us.

[webmaster]

If you're looking for a thread you've participated in you can click on the link to your profile and then click on the link to all threads you've participated in.

I'm not a fan of member lists because, unless I have a sophisticated whitelist of allowed crawlers, there is no way to stop rogue bots from scraping that list and sending the forum members email spam. I prefer to keep that information private.

Rogue bots are a huge problem for site owners, they steal content, burn our bandwidth, sometimes slowing the site down. There were times when I had so many rogue bots on the site it was slowing the site down and I had to restart the server to shake them off and get things back in order.

Thanks for keeping this topic on the radar because I'm going to get to it soon, hopefully this week, as I catch up with other work first.

[TheLorax]

Regarding looking for a particular thread, I had something like 80+ pages of posts. That was virtually an exercise in futility given it wasn't my post. It was somebody else's post. It ended up in an entirely unrelated thread that I found by accident... buried in an unrelated forum and it was titled Recipes. It was a sticky thread though but I didn't remember that or it might have been a heck of a lot easier finding what it was I was looking for.

Another feature that would be really nice would be to "watch" threads without having to post in them. There are times when I have nothing to add to a thread but am interested in reading the posts as well as new posts yet I have to post in it to get it on watch. Having that feature would also presumably mean that we could unwatch threads too which would cut down e-mail notifications ending up in our webmail to threads in which we no longer have any interest.

Another feature would be to be able to have a listing of our "watched" threads somewhere in our profile.

Why not consider making a member list only available to those who are registered members who are logged on and do your computer genius coding thing so that area of the site is invisible to all visitors and guests just like you did with this board. If I take the url at the top of this page and copy it and paste it into a different search engine, I am forced to log on before being able to access this area. And, there are no ads in this area so presumably the rogue bots mentioned aren't getting in to do their crawler thing what ever the heck that is.

Forgot to mention that while going through posts of mine I ran into threads where people must have broken the links to their photos so no images were showing up in their posts other than white boxes that had X's in them with the word Image shack or photo bucket or whatever the image was stored in. That sort of puts a big damper on a thread. Is there any way that we can have that photo upload deal you mentioned where images go right into a thread without having to remember passwords to webshots and without having to mess around figuring out which url is for the little thumbnail jobbies or where the photo we want to add is even stored on our own computers? Something that does it automatically?

I don't understand all this computer stuff. Very frustrating.

Editing to add that if we have our personal profiles set to not receive e-mail, no need to create any white lists. The information is not there to be had and presumably only you have access to it. Or better yet, why not make all profiles invisible to anyone other than registered users who are logged on. That way those crawler things won't even see a PM or profile button at the bottoms of our posts.

[Charlie MV]

Google has a sense of humor. Google "how do I find Chuck Norris" .Lemme know that you think.

[andywph]

Google has a sense of humor. Google "how do I find Chuck Norris" .Lemme know that you think.

Results

Chuck Norris - Google Search
Google won't search for Chuck Norris because it knows you don't find Chuck Norris, ... Your search - Chuck Norris - did not match any documents. ...

[Charlie MV]

Andy, you didn't hit the result. You gotta read the first hit. The result says"Google won't search for Chuck Norris because it knows you don't find Chuck Norris, he finds you."