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Using the SEARCH function

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Using the SEARCH function Empty Using the SEARCH function

Post  coh Thu Jan 12, 2012 3:35 pm

Discussion in the thread by Dario (Poink88) got me thinking about the search function. I posted some concerns in that thread, but since nobody commented I wanted to start a separate thread. Since we often advise people to use search, it's important to make sure it's working properly.

Basic search seems to work pretty well, but the results I get aren't always what I'm expecting. For instance...say I'm interested in information about "sasanqua camellias". If I type "sasanqua camellia" into the basic search window, I get back all the posts that have EITHER camellia or sasanqua in them. What if I'm interested only in posts that have BOTH words? No matter what variations I use in the advanced search function, I cannot get posts that only have BOTH words (camellia and sasanqua) in them. And I definitely cannot get the phrase "sasanqua camellia", even though I know it exists because I used it in one of my posts (the second paragraph of this post).

In the above case, it's not such a big deal because there really aren't that many posts that deal with camellias. But for some topics, the search returns hundreds of hits, most of which are not specific enough. So am I doing something wrong? Or is the search capability of this site very limited?

The other search function that doesn't seem to work is the "search by author". If I type in my userid (coh) and hit return, I get all my posts. Fine, but what if I want to search all my posts for those about "camellia"? I get back either all the posts (by anyone) that have "camellia" in them, or nothing. There doesn't seem to be a way to associate a search word with an author search, which is a common search method. Again, am I missing something, or is this not possible with this search function?

If these are bugs, hopefully they can be fixed. If I'm just using the search function incorrectly - then I think there should be a search tutorial on the site to explain how to get the search results that are desired. Or maybe I'm just being really dense! Hopefully someone can shed some light on this. Thanks!
coh
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Post  Poink88 Thu Jan 12, 2012 3:40 pm

I hope the "tech" team can shed light to this as well. Like you, I am not having much luck figuring out how to do "and" searches. I think it defaults to "or" on either word and/or user search.

A tutorial would be great!
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Post  fiona Thu Jan 12, 2012 4:26 pm

Coh, from what I can see the answer to your question is that the Search function seems only to detect words in a topic TITLE and not in the main body of the post. Your own post only features the words camellia and sasanqua in the text and not the title. You will see I have created a dummy topic with both words in the title and lo and behold up it comes in a search.

As I said - that was the answer. Now for the solution, and it is exactly the same as we have been talking about in Dario's thread:

To make something register for a good Search, it is important to give it a title that reflects the full nature of the topic.

That's about as good as it can get on this forum and in my experience most of the forums I am involved with are pretty much the same.


Last edited by fiona on Thu Jan 12, 2012 4:51 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Post  Russell Coker Thu Jan 12, 2012 4:38 pm



And that's why I asked that the Euonymus info be removed from my apricot thread - I hated to see good info lost, and that's what would have happened. Now it's easy to find with a simple search (if people would just use it!)
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Post  coh Thu Jan 12, 2012 4:42 pm

Wow, that's unfortunate...that really limits the utility of the search function if true. What about associating the author with a word/phrase?

My experience with other forums is different...many have search features that allow for in-post searching. Even the other bonsai forums (BonsaiNut and Bonsai Study Group are the ones I've checked) have that capability. BonsaiNut has a toggle option (search entire posts/search title only), and BSG defaults to in-post searching (with an option for "search in topic subjects only"). Edit to add - BonsaiSite also has the capability to search titles or in posts.

Chris
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Post  fiona Thu Jan 12, 2012 4:50 pm

That's one for Kev to answer. Probably the questions that need to asked are first does forumotion have that capability and second would we have to pay extra for it if it does.
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Post  coh Thu Jan 12, 2012 4:56 pm

Unfortunately I think I just found the answer to that question. There is a forumotion website and on their help page it states:

The forumotion search engine browses through the topic titles of your threads instead of the content. This is why a topic title should be as descriptive and explicit as possible. To get good search results later, try to choose words that another user might use in his search.

So it does not appear that this forum software has the ability to search within posts. That info is dated 2007, though, so maybe things have changed since then.

Chris
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Post  fiona Thu Jan 12, 2012 5:03 pm

I'm just looking at that right now and it says a paragraph later about the Advanced Search facility and the need to enable javascript. I've just PMed you, Coh with a question.
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Post  coh Thu Jan 12, 2012 5:11 pm

We must be looking at different places, because I don't see anything there about advanced searching or javascript. I'm looking at http://help.forumotion.com/t59451-frequently-asked-questions

Chris
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Post  fiona Thu Jan 12, 2012 5:34 pm

Me too. Anyway, Chris (Coh) and I have done a trawl of the support forum and it seems that this is a complaint that has raised its head several times before. Not much we can do right now unless user pressure forces forumotion's hand.
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