Search problem (1 Viewer)

[Henry Gale]

I've had a couple of occasions this week where a search that should have found ALL (recent) references to a subject did not.

In both cases I limited the search to topic headers only.

Tonight I wanted the main Black Hawk Down threads, so I searched, only to find the longest one (36 replies) had been closed. I went to the last post and found Robert Crawfords link to the Official "BLACK HAWK DOWN" discussion

thread. But why had that not shown up in my search? Searching again I used the quotes and upper case to see if that was the secret. It was not.

What am I missing here?

Jim

 

[Henry Gale]

Now I know where I fouled up, I should have suggested the the term SEARCH was confusing and needed to be changed.

 

[Henry Gale]

I lost 37 no, 79, eh, 500 POSTS! Yeah, that's the ticket!

 

[Parker Clack]

Jim:

You ok buddy! You seem to be talking to yourself here.

Parker

 

[Henry Gale]

Welcome back Parker! Yeah, I'm fine, just trying to amuse myself and keep my first post in view 'til you could see it.

Did you notice the first one Packy? It's totally legit.

Jim

 

[Henry Gale]

[c]CANDYGRAM! [/c]

 

[Parker Clack]

I thought you had figured out what was going on already. Are you still having an issue with the search?

Parker

 

[Henry Gale]

Yes.
posts 2 & 3 were merely satires of other threads in FEEDBACK. Their purpose was to keep me on the field of play, at patient 24 hour intervals.
My subtlety was the downfall, or perhaps the downfall was my subtlety :b
To review:
Why was I not able to find THE relevant Black Hawk Down thread in a search? This was not a unique episode for me and since the lack of searching causes so much extra work for the mods I thought it might be a common problem.
Jim
Of course, the fact that no one else contributed to this thread indicates.....well, shit, I don't know what it indicates.
The CANDYGRAM is, of course, for your birthday.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Jim,

Just to make you feel better- I have had similar experiences. I cannot explain it- but sometimes it takes 3-4 combinations of terms to get to the thread I was looking for.

Might be a bug in the search- or some sort of wacked relavence ranking. I usually attribute it to SOLAR FLARES.

Dunno for sure, but I have seen it happen as well. I think unless we can figure out exactly why it happens, or at least provide a half dozen specific example of what was searched and threads that contain the text string but didn't show up... well it might be a wild goose chase for Parker.

-V

 

[Henry Gale]

Thanks for your response Vince. I thought the question was worth asking since so many queries here are greeted with a terse, "Try searching!"

Jim

 

[Parker Clack]

Jim:

It might be a problem with the any date option. When I used any date I didn't get the "Official Black Hawk Down...." thread but when I set this to 30 days or more it shows up. I am not sure what is going on with the coding but that helped.

Also, if you know what forum that a particular thread might be in, say the Movies area, then use the "Search This Forum" textarea at the top or bottom on the right of that particular forum area.

Parker