Moderators (requests and notices)

How convenient.

Building a decent search form doesn't seem to be a priority. I asked years ago, but you might have more luck.

I either use Google to search LFGSS, or the ctrl-F search box, in general - using the Search itself is something I try to avoid, this once I could not as I was trying to find a PM from a user.

Once I had established that the process was as follows it was fine, and only took four hours:

• Post asking how to do it
  
• Use data from second of Hippy's posts
  
• Use Google to find a post that had the users name in it
  
• Click on that, copy their authorId out of the URL of their page
  
• Go back to Hippy's post to check the capitalisation of authorId
  
• Put the correct search term in the box
  
• Get result
  

Did philDAS suggestion not work? (Not sarc, just curious sounded promising)

It definitely doesn't work whilst using safari on Mac or chrome on PC but for some reason works when I'm on safari on my iPhone

Ahh so you have to click comments on the person's profile. Not sure I tried that on the computer. Think I was just searching from the profile.

5 Attachments

Second to last and third to last the wrong way round.
User's profile > comments > search bar > result.

@Dammit
you don't need a search term / use search bar. Both the "conversations" and "comments" links on user profile page are already searches of that profile, just narrowed by different post type.

go to user profile > comments or conversations > "three dots menu" top right > tick messages, untick comments/conversations > result

Super quick and no need to remember search format. You can also narrow down to any event etc.

.

1 Attachment

I get that if I go to all messages (no search term) from someone who hasn't sent me any... Are you sure there are PMs to be found?

Indeed. Plus examples are nice... I can reproduce the queries and apply them to a restored backup to see whether they are working as intended, and then tweak as necessary.

I've just made a set of changes to search that should speed it up as I've noticed it slowing recently as the volume of content has passed some magic number in which the old query structure that once was fast, was becoming slow. A few tweaks and it seems fast again.

The realisation that the conversations and comments links on user profiles are actually searches ("all") of that user's content that you can change the filters on is a bit of a revelation for me. I can never remember the format for how you put user (or anything other than keywords) into the search box, and have had equally frustrating times looking for things...

(btw getting a lot of server error this morning)

(btw getting a lot of server error this morning)

That's me experimenting and tweaking... should be fine now, I've stopped tweaking.

The syntax is authorId:47686

Internally we use different different things in different places, i.e. I track edited_by and created_by... but when searching you don't care, you just care about "bob posted x" and whether a moderator edited it to remove something (extremely rare, can't recall doing it in many moons) shouldn't exclude it from the search result.

So the query reflects the ambiguity of what you're searching on, and calls it authorId.

Also... the search is shit thing is pretty amusing.

Microcosm is weird... everything is search.

• Today page = search
  
• Following page = search
  
• People page = search
  
• Upcoming events = search
  
• hashtag links = search
  
• Messaging = search
  
  

Search powers everything. The site really has 2 queries that do 80% of the work.

The issue is less "search is shit" (because you're using search constantly and it's fine), but more "the interface to search is shit" (because it's so powerful it's really hard to make a tidy HTML form for it).

The issue is less "search is shit" (because you're using search constantly and it's fine), but more "the interface to search is shit"

To the end user, the first is the natural corollary of the second. It doesn't matter how good the engine is if the end user has no access to the controls.

everything is search

Wait, you mean hippy is search?

All of the knobs and twiddles are available and users do have access.

1. They are listed here https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/253146/
   
2. Anything that is a search term in the query string is also a search term in the search box and vice versa
   
3. 90% of those controls are already HTML form elements around the site... i.e. "search within this thread", the search box on the right, already bakes in a few, and so do the form controls on search results pages, a search for just events reveals more, etc
   
   

Why can a vBulletin offer an "advanced search" page and we can't? Because they only search 2 dimensions of data within very narrow parameters, and we search far more.

Even then, if we tried, it would be a weird page... because so many options only make sense in combination with other options. i.e. no point saying "events that between x and y" at the same time as saying "only show conversations" because the terms would preclude each other and result in no results.

Our search is less similar in presentation to a forum search, and more similar to the search on Amazon, you start with a vague term given some localised (i.e. within a forum) context, and we show the controls that make sense given that context to drill down further, i.e. a search for only events suddenly shows event time based controls: https://www.lfgss.com/search/?type=event

Everything is there, it's just not pretending to be something it isn't and couldn't be: vBulletin search. It's different, but it's not less capable, and when people get it they love it, but you're not going to get it if all you want is something that isn't possible on here... the vBulletin Advanced Search page.

All of the knobs and twiddles are available and users do have access

Strictly speaking true. If I got in the cockpit of a 747, I would have "access" to the controls. If I had designed the thing, I'd probably think that the way to operate the controls was obvious. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to allow people who are only qualified on 21st Century motor cars to fly your 747. Expecting users to type query strings and look up ID numbers for users and forums is not providing access to the controls in any meaningful sense. If @Dammit is still having trouble, imagine how horrible the user experience must be for somebody without his considerable geek credentials.

The search isn't that far off from very good. Happy to mock some UI up that might do a better job of presenting the right controls at the right time if people can put together a top five / seven / ten scenarios list.

late to reply - not wanting to repeat what tester said already.

but when I say "I can never remember" - it means exactly that. It means that however obvious it might be to you, and however many times I see it somewhere else in some discussion - I won't remember it. I have to look it up. There is a very useful post on the "how to search" thread where you list all of the ways to search, that I use as a reference when needed.

The "access to controls" I agree with tester - yes absolutely one can do everything and the built-in functionality is great - but I can't without it being cumbersome and non-intuitive. You talk about search as something that microcosm does - but to most users it's the box where that they use to look for something. It has the same name, but it comes across a bit... patronising? to say "Ah, search is actually not shit, of course, everything is search."

It's simply not true to say "when people get it they love it" - it's been a while, I'm not a complete luddite, I definitely don't want the old advanced search page, I can't even remember what it looked like. My brain doesn't seem to retain the things it needs to get this search box to do what I need it to. (This isn't meant to be a massive complaint from me - I don't need to use search much and if I do I can find that reference post etc - I'm just trying to explain how it is for a moderately average user.) Learning how to navigate the user profile page will make things much much easier for me in future - but that doesn't change the search box.

Two thoughts:

1. When you click on the magnifying glass and it takes you to a blank search page (https://www.lfgss.com/search/?q=&defaults=true) could you put a list of the most common search identifier things in that blank space on the page? Or a tiny help button that pops up with similar stuff from the home page. There isn't really a "start search page" at the moment, which would seem to be the obvious place for this stuff - if the magnifying glass looked more button-ish, the blank search result could do for this.

2. The most common thing people struggle to remember is authorId. On the search results page, grey menu on the right, could it be added to Filters as a 4th check box? Check it, and alongside have one of those dropdown things where it turns a name into a link/ID so you don't have to fetch the ID number.

Obviously I don't know how possible any of that is, but wondering whether those things can be added to existing pages/menus. The second one would make a huge difference I think.

(didn't mean for that to be quite so tl:dr)

I would like it if mentioning a user name in a search term prioritised results that were created by, or mention, that user. The latter probably already happens. I would prefer not to have to prefix the username with an @ symbol, but if that slows things down by having to check a username index then I would understand it. Although, really?

You could even put a line at the top of the results, saying "you mentioned @mashton, would you like to see only results created by them?" Linky linky.

@howard, organise a flip chart session in a pub. We'd quickly get ten use cases.

Why does the search need authorId? It seems counterintuitive to require that the person finds the number from the name, then searches on that. A little like making you search for the IP address behind a domain name, if that makes sense.

Early design choice. The ability for people to change their username was a new thing, and people were changing them a lot during the first several months, and that influenced the search as I wanted to make sure that searches were cut 'n' pasteable / bookmarkable... and wouldn't break when someone changed their name.

People change their name far less now, so probably could be revisited.

Well if you know the sender, you're half way there.