Searching the forum - I failed!

PKM

PKM

OB-1 Kenobi
Silver Member
I hate to start a thread about this, but there's no good place for it. Why is it that searching the forum sometimes doesn't work?

I know other people have had the same problem, so it's not just my computer crapping out. If you want to encourage search and not repeat topics, you must fix!:)
 
I know what you mean. I will search for something and not get any results even though I know there were threads on it. There is one forum that is really great when doing a search. It highlights the word and takes you to it without having to search through the whole thread. Sometimes you have to combine words or leave some out. If you include the word cue sometimes you get a overload, if you don't include that word you get nothing. It is time consuming and frustrating.
 
PKM said:
I hate to start a thread about this, but there's no good place for it. Why is it that searching the forum sometimes doesn't work?

I know other people have had the same problem, so it's not just my computer crapping out. If you want to encourage search and not repeat topics, you must fix!:)
Click to expand...

Go to Advanced Search, and check your preferences. Make sure you have Save Preferences (or something similar at the very bottom).

If I remember correctly, the results default to ascending order, which is the opposite of what you would expect. Make sure they are shown by RELAVENCY and then in DESCENDING order. That will put the most relavent results at the top.

Hope this helps.
 
I was talking about the "fatal error" that I sometimes get, it says something about allowed memory exhausted. The actual search could be improved, but it's not too bad when it works.
 
I haven't been able to figure out how to do a string search.. sometimes more than one word chained together is necessary 'Samsara Cue' would give me results about other Samsara threads, without giving me every thread with the word 'Samsara' in it (Including every post with it in the sig). I've tried the advanced search, to no avail.. I'm probably missing something. I'm not sure how irritating it is for you veteran types to see the same discussion posted again, but as a relatively new member it's disheartening to see others shot down for mentioning something that's been said before. Maybe you don't want new folks here, which is something I'd like to know, but you're going to drive a lot away with the constant 'This is an antique thread, use the search'. For some things that makes sense, but is there really so much traffic here that it bothers everyone that much to see a new 'how do I keep my shaft smoothe?' thread? Technology changes, members change.. new ideas constantly emerging. I'd rather see a new thread with fresh perspectives than a 2-year-old thread resurrected with 6 pages of old info. Just my thoughts, but I'd benefit greatly from a better understanding of how repeat threads are perceived by the veterans.

-Joe
 
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like we

use to tell our dummies, I mean users, if all else fails, read the instructions! .... LOL just kidding, but there is a lot of truth there too :rolleyes:
 
I still tell mine that lol! So hard to do it myself! When something doesn't work the way I expect it to, I assume it's broken.. I really need to work on that! Ok, ok.. going to read now :P
 
Hmm.. this is all I found..
You can search for posts based on username, word(s) in the post or just in the subject, by date, and only in particular forums.

To access the search feature, click on the "search" link at the top of most pages.

You can search any forum that you have permission to search - you will not be allowed to search through private forums unless the administrator has given you the necessary security rights to do so.
Click to expand...

Nothing about using quotes to search for strings rather than keywords..
 
When those types of errors happen, they are not forum based, but rather server.

When it occurs, they recieve a messgae regarding the error and it is usually addressed pretty quick.
 
yeah i get the fatal errer or whatever it is quite often. really annoying.

btw you can use quotation marks to search for a phrase, or two words together. for example, a search for cuetec cues will show threads/posts with the words cuetec, cues, and both together. on the other hand, "cuetec cues" will show you just threads with cuetec and cues together.
 
worriedbeef said:
yeah i get the fatal errer or whatever it is quite often. really annoying.

btw you can use quotation marks to search for a phrase, or two words together. for example, a search for cuetec cues will show threads/posts with the words cuetec, cues, and both together. on the other hand, "cuetec cues" will show you just threads with cuetec and cues together.
Click to expand...

Sure the space acts as a delimiter, so the search considers each word as a search variable and matches all occurrances of each one.

Using quotes indicates that multiple words are to be considered as 1 search variable and only provides matches for that one term.

Still even another way that is usually used is cuetec+cues, which gives only results of cuetec and cues no matter where they occured in the result, but both have to be present. You do not get results with only cuetec or results with only cues.

I would suggest when doing a search to know what the delimiters are, and
sound out the logic in a sentence.

If search is equal to cuetec OR equal to cues, then give me results.

If search is equal to cuetec plus cues, then give me results. (gives results where both words are in the result, but not necessarily together).

If search is equal to "cuetec cues', then give me results (and only results where both words are exactly like the search term.
 
It happens to me all the time too with real general searches I think it is when they come up with too many results for a search or you.

Like if you were to search pool or ball
 
You can use google to search the forums. Say you wanted to find the word "stroke." You would enter this into google:

site:forums.azbilliards.com stroke

This will tell google to only search the site forums.azbilliards.com

The good thing about using google is that it is more powerful than the forum search. Being able to search for words shorter than 4 letters comes to mind. It is possible that if the post is very new it won't get found by google. But if that's the case you can probably see it on the first two pages of the forum.
 
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I'll try that.. thanks for the other posts guys, but when I put in "Samsara cues" it does not treat it like a string.. it simply looks for all posts with either word. I tried using single quotes too, same result.
 
Indeed.. but literal string searches are quite handy, when AND logic isn't enough. Thanks a ton for the google syntax, that worked beautifully!
 
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