Board search not working

[sidhe3141]

Whenever I try to search the forums, I get a blank page. Does anyone know what's going on?

[Keld Denar]

I just tried searching, and it worked fine for me. Did you try using advanced search?

In any case, I hardly ever use the forum search anymore. I go to google and type "site:giantitp.com XXXYYYZZZ". That searches the entire domain of giantitp for your topic. If you know the author and the topic of the thread, you simply add them after the site:giantitp.com text.

Like, I know the Person_Man published a really awesome melee combo guide. If I want to find it, I go to google and do this (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Agiantitp.com+Person_Man+Melee+Combo+Guid e).

[happyturtle]

Yup, google is faster and easier, and (if my understand is correct) it puts the search load on google's servers instead of gitps. Win all around! :smallsmile:

[Trixie]

Yup, google is faster and easier, and (if my understand is correct) it puts the search load on google's servers instead of gitps. Win all around! :smallsmile:

Try to find posts by particular person in particular subforum, search one subforum only, find particular user or phrase, or posts from set date, like a certain two year old WW game, then we'll talk :P

[Dvandemon]

I've mentioned this before. Rawhide said to report any specific terms you used to find the problem. Incidentally, the Board search seems a little lagging to me.

[Zeb The Troll]

Try to find posts by particular person in particular subforum, search one subforum only, find particular user or phrase, or posts from set date, like a certain two year old WW game, then we'll talk :PUse Google's Advanced Search.

This search (http://www.google.com/search?q=Person_Man+%22roleplaying+games%22+site%3 Agiantitp.com%2Fforums&hl=en&biw=1000&bih=815&num=10&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images&tbs=,qdr:m) show's Person_Man's posts in thr Roleplaying Games subforum from the last month.

[happyturtle]

Try to find posts by particular person in particular subforum, search one subforum only, find particular user or phrase, or posts from set date, like a certain two year old WW game, then we'll talk :P

Usually when I do it, I'm trying to locate a ffrp post that could be anywhere from a month to three years old. I've very rarely had complete failure, and when I do, it's because I can't recall the post well enough to think of good search terms.

[Irbis]

Use Google's Advanced Search.

This search (http://www.google.com/search?q=Person_Man+%22roleplaying+games%22+site%3 Agiantitp.com%2Fforums&hl=en&biw=1000&bih=815&num=10&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images&tbs=,qdr:m) show's Person_Man's posts in thr Roleplaying Games subforum from the last month.

<nitpick>This only works for well defined names and will find any thread with words 'Roleplaying Games', not only the ones from subforum</nitpick> :smalltongue:

Take the poster who said that, for example - search for Trixie, and you'll find thousands of posts from Pony thread about pony named Great & Powerful Trixie, another few thousands of posts with users crediting Trixie's avatars in signatures, a few hundred posts with random garbage, and maybe one or two dozen actual Trixie's posts - so no, it doesn't work, really.

[Zeb The Troll]

<nitpick>This only works for well defined names and will find any thread with words 'Roleplaying Games', not only the ones from subforum</nitpick> :smalltongue:

Take the poster who said that, for example - search for Trixie, and you'll find thousands of posts from Pony thread about pony named Great & Powerful Trixie, another few thousands of posts with users crediting Trixie's avatars in signatures, a few hundred posts with random garbage, and maybe one or two dozen actual Trixie's posts - so no, it doesn't work, really.This is true, but I think the subforum names are sufficiently unique to be able to filter out most of the noise. And with sufficient diligence, the search can be refined to filter out what noise remains. For instance, most searches looking for "silly message board games" but not "structured games" will find the majority of the results in the right area. My point, that Trixie's assertion that it won't work is misleading, still stands.

Besides, I'm not saying the forum search tool is useless. I use it all the time. I'm saying that when it's not working for you, more often than not, Google's Advanced Search functions can be sufficiently hammered on to narrow down your results to an acceptable scale.

(As for the thousands of posts, Google, by default, at least consolidates redundant hits from the same thread into one result. If you're looking for a specific post, even the forum search function is ill adapted to help you with that. I'm also willing to bet that you can include "Trixie" but not "Avatar by Trixie" and work towards eliminating posts that simply credit her art.)

[Irbis]

Ok, point taken.

Still, that's a lot of extra work for much more leaky sieve.

[Zeb The Troll]

Ok, point taken.

Still, that's a lot of extra work for much more leaky sieve.But if the built in search function is stalling... :smallcool: