Site search feature

Hey guys and gals.

We've fixed search. A bit. It still needs some improvements--I'm open to suggestions on what those should be--but now it should be working quite a lot better than before.

If you tell me the kinds of things you typically search for, that'll also help with testing, optimizing, and choosing other refinements and options.

I've already noticed that it doesn't happily accept a dollar sign (search for 2010 Challenge, not $2010 Challenge). Looking forward to input from the rest of you.

part of the fix should include making me smart enough to remember what the thread title was .. so I could help the search function do it's job

Fantastic!

I did a test search for "argument" and got lots of results.

Entered S197

Yes, it works... WIN!

Groovy! My first test search for "aluminum radiator" (sans quotes) brought up the thread I was after in the first few results.

OTOH, I just tried for Ditchdigger's really bad idea Triumph project and "really bad idea" (again without quotes) didn't turn it up anywhere near the top.

While I certainly will frequently want to find threads I'd never heard of before by searching on general content, frequently I'm after a particular thread, and I often try to remember distinctive wording from the title... So showing matches on title first followed by matches on full text could be cool.

It's also possible that that's a terrible idea; it's just the first thing I ran into.

Yay!

Nice. Search is a hard problem to solve. One of the hardest, really.

Just throwing an idea out there, is there a way to display approximate thread dates for the search results? Just thinking that might help filter the results for those looking for a recent topic.

Thanks!! I appreciate all the work y'all put into this.

Tim Baxter wrote: Nice. Search is a hard problem to solve. One of the hardest, really.

I thought it would be easy to solve. Enter text. Click search. Open new window with the google results of your text and site:grassrootsmotorsports.com

Sure, you're sending people to Google, but it's a lot better to get pretty good results on another site than garbage on your own, until it's figured out at least.

I searched for "bryce n600" here (me? self-centered?) and got a "sorry" message.

Meanwhile, if I follow the very first google search:

https://www.google.com/#q=site:grassrootsmotorsports.com+bryce+n600

It takes me here:

https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/2011-n600-west-coast-challenger/33452/page1/

Google still wins. In fairness, I only tried one search term. You know the old saying. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me...you can't get fooled again.

A for effort. C- for success. Sucks to have Google set the bar, eh?

Bryce

Thank you!

In reply to Nashco:

I think you just proved my point. Google makes search look easy because they've thrown an immense amount of time, money, brainpower and hardware at it. Which has made them one of -- if not the -- largest internet companies around, precisely because they solved the very hard problem. However, most sites don't have entire server farms or an army of the best developers on the planet to throw at the problem.

And it is a horrible, horrible problem. For example, when you searched for "bryce n600", what exactly were you hoping to find. Where? From which parts of the site? How current? In what order? How should the results be weighted? All of those questions come into play in how you try to tackle search, and your answers are not the same as my answers. In fact, your answers aren't even the same as they might be for another search. For example, if you searched for "Baxter" what do you really want? My profile? Posts I started? Posts I'm mentioned in? It all changes the underlying work.

If search was easy, everyone would have a google-level search engine. But it's not, so google wins, and most sites -- not just this one -- have awful search functions.

So I'm applauding GRM. Even a not-great search is not a trivial thing.

"BoxheadTim miata build" brought up my build thread again, so that's great . It also brought up a long forgotten thread about building a Miata engine, so something seems to be working.

Thanks!

Stunned amazement

All praise the F.S.M. for his devine mercy.

I searched my username and the first thing I got was a $2014 ad I posted in 2009 that go no replies to it. Why would that be the first thing? Was that my first post?

Adrian_Thompson wrote: All praise the F.S.M. for his devine mercy.

All praise the Heavenly Cone!

Tim Baxter wrote: In reply to Nashco: I think you just proved my point. Google makes search look easy because they've thrown an immense amount of time, money, brainpower and hardware at it. Which has made them one of -- if not *the* -- largest internet companies around, precisely because they solved the very hard problem. However, most sites don't have entire server farms or an army of the best developers on the planet to throw at the problem. And it is a horrible, horrible problem. For example, when you searched for "bryce n600", what *exactly* were you hoping to find. Where? From which parts of the site? How current? In what order? How should the results be weighted? All of those questions come into play in how you try to tackle search, and your answers are not the same as my answers. In fact, your answers aren't even the same as they might be for another search. For example, if you searched for "Baxter" what do you *really* want? My profile? Posts I started? Posts I'm mentioned in? It all changes the underlying work. If search was easy, everyone would have a google-level search engine. But it's not, so google wins, and most sites -- not just this one -- have awful search functions. So I'm applauding GRM. Even a not-great search is not a trivial thing.

I'd be happy if I could search for "Thread started by"

Typically I'll know who (or myself) created a thread, but don't remember the title. EVERY car forum on the planet has this basic functionality.

I know, I know, this is a home cooked thing, yada yada, just saying it's one of the more annoying features.

Along with them not bringing back the Forum Jump buttons on the bottom. Those can't be that hard to add in the Page Layout/CSS

z31maniac wrote: Along with them not bringing back the Forum Jump buttons on the bottom. Those can't be that hard to add in the Page Layout/CSS

The Forum Jump feature is next on the list. It's coming back. Please to be having with patience, jumping grass insect.

Thank you for your feedback, everyone. I'll see what else we can do to improve search based on your requests. It sounds like we're off to a good start, and for that I'm glad.

In reply to Alan Cesar:

That's nice and all, but I'd rather have world peace.

Alan Cesar wrote: The Forum Jump feature is next on the list. It's coming back.

Thank the Spaghetti Monster indeed!

Thank you.

While I accept Tim's feedback about the difficulty of search, I am a little curious.

I have had similar experiences to z31 maniac- most of the sites I have seen have "Thread started by", or ability to search by poster.

What is the difference? Are they using a platform that is inferior in some other way? Is there an advantage to what GRM has, or is it kind of a legacy scenario?

I'm really just trying to learn a little here.

Thanks for all the hard work!

Many other fora use vBulletin software, which is one of the largest (if not the largest, though definitely not the only) forum-management softwares out there. Much of that functionality is written into vBulletin. For various reasons, which are their own, GRm has opted to go a different way. Obviously I can't speak to that.

I for one, embrace the unique-ness that is GRM, right down to the forum software.

Duke wrote: Many other fora use vBulletin software, which is one of the largest (if not the largest, though definitely not the only) forum-management softwares out there. Much of that functionality is written into vBulletin. For various reasons, which are their own, GRm has opted to go a different way. Obviously I can't speak to that.

You mentioned vBulletin. Prepare to be castigated, which is better than castrated, but still not fun.