topic Re: "Forum Search" up the spout? in Community Site Feedback

"Forum Search" up the sprout?

xpcomputers — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 00:34:48 GMT

I was just searching for "drupal" to see if anyone had tried installing it, or asked questions about it with regard to PlusNet.
It came back with a whole hoard of un-related threads with a listed relevancy of less than 50% (none of them mentioned drupal!). I did a similar search for Joomla with equal unsuccess.
So you can imagine my surprise tonight to find a thread about drupal & joomla in the website forum!
Unless I am a complete dufus, then the search feature doesn't appear to be working as it should....
{edited the title temporarily to give a slightly (post-)Christmas feeling!}

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

xpcomputers — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 00:55:51 GMT

Ok.
Just an update. When I now search for "drupal", this thread appears top, with 65% relevance (with another completely drupal unrelated thread just behind it at 64.9%!!!).
The thread about "drupal" I found by hand, appears at 24.7% relevance??? What the!?!
These are the only two threads that get the little quote box with drupal highlighted in the text. None of the pages of other threads have the word drupal in them...
Something very odd going on...

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

billbo — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 20:23:05 GMT

Yep, I'm seeing this to.
A search for Metronet brings up a 69.7% top hit with no mention of Metronet anywhere in the post.
2nd item is a real "hit"; 3rd is a "miss" and so it goes on.
I don't know if it's a bug or not.
Any one else like to give "search" a try to see how common this issue is?

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

spraxyt — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 22:09:35 GMT

I've just tried searching (separately) for mtu and ping. The top hit in both cases is the same but doesn't contain either string.
Hits that do contain the string include a blue text box with the instances marked in yellow, those that don't contain the string have no box. So the search seems to know, but lists them anyway!

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

xpcomputers — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 09:14:05 GMT

Quote from: spraxyt
I've just tried searching (separately) for mtu and ping. The top hit in both cases is the same but doesn't contain either string.
Hits that do contain the string include a blue text box with the instances marked in yellow, those that don't contain the string have no box. So the search seems to know, but lists them anyway!

Yes. That is what I was seeing with my "Drupal" searches. If it finds the word somewhere is gives a quote box and highlights the found word... but most of the "results" didn't have this box in my case.
Also what defines the "relevance" item... I guess it is difficult to separate this out if the main search is messed up, but top search for drupal this thread at only 65%, (only 0.1% ahead of a non-drupal thread) but then pages of other non-drupal threads until 24% where the second mention appears.
I'm assuming that fixing the main issue will resolve the "relevance" ratings too, but if not... how are they devised and can the "formula" for their creation be tweaked?

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

chillypenguin — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 18:14:48 GMT

Has there been any work put into this issue?

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

Colin — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 12:29:30 GMT

Nope. Don't even recall having ever seen the post until now...

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

Colin — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 12:52:16 GMT

Hmm... REALLY random.

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

xpcomputers — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:35:12 GMT

Colin,
Are you getting these same results when you search here?
Mike

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

Colin — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 15:14:46 GMT

I get my post in the Polish forum top each time...

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

billbo — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 21:14:59 GMT

Hi Colin,
Any progress to report.
This issue is starting to become a pain in the ........

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

7th_star — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 02:05:56 GMT

The search feature on the old portal was poor, but I agree this one is worse.
I prefer to use google like this >
Your search term here :site:http://community.plus.net
Which works quite well.
--------------------------------------------------
Edit: Test please ignore this portion of post

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

MikeWhitehead — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 06:49:25 GMT

What's odd is that if you search for "Banana" and select that no boards are to be searched, the search works!

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

Colin — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 08:02:18 GMT

Quote from: James_H
My view is that the in-built search should be ditched, and replaced with a Google search box for this site.

That's something we are considering, using our own Google box. Other than that, no progress to report on the issue.

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

jelv — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:35:30 GMT

The PUG forums are using SMF which is the same as these forums, why does search appear to work over there but not here?

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

MikeWhitehead — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:38:13 GMT

Quote from: jelv
The PUG forums are using SMF which is the same as these forums, why does search appear to work over there but not here?

These forums are fairly heavily modded for styling etc, so it's possible something got messed up during the recoding.

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

xpcomputers — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 09:44:00 GMT

Does this need a PUGIT (Plusnet User Group Issue Tracker) item submitting to keep it on the radar, give it exposure and a formal timed review process?
http://usergroup.plus.net/pugit/
(probably needs an account creating there to see the page)
Mike

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

Colin — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 10:07:12 GMT

Can someone try searching for something...

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

MikeWhitehead — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 10:09:43 GMT

Still broken. Bananas are the way forward.

Re: "Forum Search" up the spout?

MikeWhitehead — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 10:16:42 GMT

Quote from: James_H
Bananas retrieves just this thread......

A search for "banana" brings back several threads, all of which have "banana" in them, but that works even when no boards are selected to search from. I wonder what results come up if you search on no boards for a word that's only ever been used once on the forum.
Extraterestrialspacehoppingbunnies
EDIT: It only brings back the one thread.