new and improved search engine help please...

[Scott S.]

The old search engine was fairly simple. It used to be that if I wanted to find, for example, all of John Hinckley's posts that included the word "dip-prime", that was a pretty simple thing to accomplish. Just go to "Advanced Search", type John's name (his member number comes up automatically in the "Member" field), and then fill in "dip-prime" (no quotations) in the search box, and hit ENTER.

This worked incredibly well, reliably and consistently. It would return every Thread that John ever posted in that contained the word "dip-prime" (even if he wasn't the actual poster, I think).

The "new" search engine, does not. It returns ZERO search results given the same search parameters, consistently, even though I am certain that John has used the word "dip-prime" on one or two occasions.


Using the new search engine, how do I find all of the Threads in which John has used the expression "dip-prime"?

[Norris W.]

Re: new and improved search engine help please...

Scott, the cumbersome search is one of many casualties of V Bulletin 4.? This has been discussed before, but basically the new version of V Bulletin sux compared to the old one. As one of the Administrators of a go fast boat website with about 60K members, which was one of the first to make the change, possibly THE first, well over a year ago, there are many features that are blatantly inferior with the new format. Our site owner was told early on that the security features of the new version were greater, there were more moderation/management options and tools and that before long V Bull would no longer offer adequate tech support to the old version. To say it has been a nightmare, triggering hundreds or maybe even thousands of member complaints since the change would be an understatement. One of my other favorite websites, Team Chevelle, which I have no connection to other than as a regular participating member has stayed with the older version and the Admin. told me he has no plans to change and has had no indications from V Bull that the change will ever be mandatory. It runs without a hitch, runs much faster, and has an excellent search engine. If you frequent other websites that are V Bulletin powered there is a convenient way to tell at a glance if they are using the old or newer version. The word "Forum" in the top tool bar has an S on it, "forums" on the older version.

[Scott S.]

Re: new and improved search engine help please...

Norris,

Thanks for the reply. I don't understand why the V-Bulletin designers tried to fix something that wasn't broke, and in a world of constantly increasing complexity, I don't understand why businesses don't make things easier for their clients instead of more difficult, and I don't understand why the marketplace does not punish those who make products that frustrate their customer base (it has always punished me in such circumstances!), and... well, there's a lot that I don't understand.

Currently, I don't know if I'm just doing something wrong, or if the new software should return the same results as the old software (given the same search parameters), but for some reason (e.g., a software bug) isn't doing so. I don't know if the problem is me, or if the problem is with the software.

[Gary C.]

Re: new and improved search engine help please...

Scott,

Recommend you read the FAQ on Searching. Very good information on search strings and test results conducted by Rich M.

Gary
....

[Norris W.]

Re: new and improved search engine help please...

Scott,

Recommend you read the FAQ on Searching. Very good information on search strings and test results conducted by Rich M.

Gary
....

Gary, the problem is, the search function on the new version V Bulletin is just plain sorry and cumbersome. For instance, if I want to see a post or posts from a given member and hit the advanced search in the upper right corner and type in his screen name, it DOES NOT show his most recent posts. As an example, when typing in your name, the newest post that the search shows is: https://www.forums.ncrs.org/showthre...o-Stamp-Survey This post was August 2011, obviously not your most recent. Now it is true that if I click on that post, then your screen name from that post, a box will open with the "view forum posts" option, which will show the recent ones, but it's really pretty aggravating compared to a search that actually works right, like the former version. I don't know what the difference is, but on our website going through the same initial advanced search shows NO posts newer than 2 years ago, so it makes it impossible to even access the current posts of a given user that's been a member less that 2 years UNLESS you can stumble across a current one somewhere and then click on his screen name. What happened was, the computer geeks at V Bull rushed something to market that was not ready and a year later all the kinks are still not ironed out and I'm not sure they ever will be. The older 3.? version was so far superior in so many ways, at least from a user standpoint. I think it's worth pointing out that this is NOT an NCRS issue, but rather totally V Bull. but they don't seem too concerned with fixing the gliches (and the poor search function is not the only one) and there are a LOT of people dissatisfied with it.

[Richard M.]

Re: new and improved search engine help please...

I just did a few experiments. I was confused also. I saw some unexpected results using the "Search Multiple Content Types" function. I had "Posts" & "Forums" checked in the Search Type boxes. I had "Search Entire Posts" selected. I searched User Name: John Hinckley (29964), Keyword: dip-prime.......Nothing showed up. ?????

I then tried it using the "Search Single Content Type". I think default "Search Type" is "Forums". When in this mode it will not show the box where you can select the user name. So I changed "Search Type" box to "Posts", then the User Name box entry appeared. Under Additional Options, I have "Search all open Forums" selected, and "Also search in Child Forums" checked. This is likely important to get both Present and Archive forums included in the search. List results in Thread format selected.

I then tried the same search as above........i.e. User Name: John Hinckley (29964), Keyword: dip-prime..........It gave me 19 results. Not sure if this link will be saved but here is the result.......https://www.forums.ncrs.org/search.php?searchid=29901

I then tried just John's user name with NO keyword, to see if it shows all of his recent posts. It resulted with 338 pages of them, including his most recent ones from yesterday.

I can see where the confusion may be. Strange I didn't get the same results using the "Search Multiple Content Types" function. Maybe a bug?

Scott, if you did not, try it using "Search Single Content Type" and see if it works better. If this it what you used I'm not sure why it didn't work.

Rich

[Richard M.]

Re: new and improved search engine help please...

I just noticed this Help thread where John W. thinks there is a bug in "Search Multiple Content Types"......

https://www.forums.ncrs.org/showthre...me-not-working


Gary, Maybe a Sticky in the TDB Forum to warn others to not use that Search Type for now?

Rich

[John W.]

Re: new and improved search engine help please...

Richard,

I was able to change the default search to "Search Single Content Types". Hopefully that will take care of 99% of the issue. I will await a change in vBulletin to fix the Search Multiple Content Types.