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#1 2023-07-02 13:03:13

MAYBL8
Member
Registered: 2022-01-14
Posts: 212

Help with searching

Fairly new with the forum.
I have tried searching for several topics here but it seems every time I search a word or phrase I get allot of posts that have nothing to do with what I am searching for.

Is there a help I can read on how to get specific search results?
Thanks

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#2 2023-07-02 14:51:15

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,550
Website

Re: Help with searching

Not much advice here - but I can acknowlege that this forum's search tools really really suck.  A handful of us absorb a lot of forum content not because we can search for it, but because we are actively reading most new threads as they are posted.  But I've had countless experiences where I knew I just saw something in a recent thread, and it still took me ages to find it again via a search of the forum and the 30 second cooldown between searches sucks balls.  I get that it's to stop spammy bot searches, but a first search is often too broad and requires an immediate follow-up - a good design might allow a few back-to-back searches after which a cooldown period is enforced.  It really breaks the flow to do an initial search, then from the results identify how it was too broad and what needs to be added only to then say "shit, I need to go get a coffee before I can do the next search".  By the time we come back from the coffee our semi-ADHD has led us down some other path and we may have forgotten why we were even searching the forums!

So, no help, but some emphathy.

Searching the WIKI, however, works pretty well (notwithstanding the quirk of results being returned for countless languages, often with the users native language not being anywhere near the top of the list ... so okay, that kinda sucks too, but at least theres no cooldown period).


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#4 2023-07-02 16:04:48

ewaller
Administrator
From: Pasadena, CA
Registered: 2009-07-13
Posts: 19,803

Re: Help with searching

Google search does do a great job.  But be advised, we use flags to ask the search engines not to index "Off-Topic", "Topics Going Nowhere" or "Dustbin"

When using the forum search, I strongly recommend that under "Select how to view search results" -> "Show Results As" you select "Posts" rather than "Topics"


Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
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How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

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