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LeadZeppelin
Feb 21, 2011, 8:29 PM
Post #1 of 2
(1367 views)
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Registered: Dec 28, 2010
Posts: 12
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I think the search function is fairly lacking compared to most forum software. Things that would be nice:
1. Searching thread titles. This is really big. Right now even if you search by subject, the entire first two pages of search results could be from the same thread. So even if I search for "rope" I could find my entire search results like this:
Rope Suggestions
RE: Rope Suggestions
RE: Rope Suggestions
RE: Rope Suggestions
RE: Rope Suggestions
RE: Rope Suggestions
etc. That's not useful. There should at least be an option for selecting distinct threads (which should be as easy as SELECT DISTINCT) and letting us search only thread titles as opposed to post titles.
2. Searching by post subject is broken when also sorting by post time. To see this, search "rope" in Gear Heads, only in subject, and sort by post time. Right now, this is the results I'm getting:
Re: [naitch] It has arrived...
Re: [socalclimber] It has arrived...
Re: [mattm] How many quickdraws?
Re: [caughtinside] How many quickdraws?
Re: [ilikepargo] Trango Alpine Equalizer, Your going to Die?
Re: [socalclimber] It has arrived...
You get the idea. There's no mention of "rope" in these subject titles, even though that's what my search term was asking for (the term rope was in the body of each of these posts).
This is a major issue, because of the first problem I listed, and because of how old rc.com is. For many search terms it's useless to look at threads from 8 years ago, yet those are always the posts that come up first in a search. This is especially true in threads which contain a lot of links to outside content, since links from that long ago rarely ever work. Besides that, newer posts are usually more relevant anyway.
I spend most of my time lurking, so in turn I spend a lot of time searching. This is my 5th post in six months (it took awhile for me to sign up once I started lurking) and I've spent a ton of time on the forums. I use the search a lot and I feel like these two fixes would make them exponentially more useful. I cringe when I hear people here yell at people, "Use the search! We always get these topics!" After all, it's hard to get mad at people for making repeat threads when the search functions are so difficult to use. :)
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ddt
Feb 22, 2011, 6:08 AM
Post #2 of 2
(1337 views)
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Registered: May 21, 2005
Posts: 2304
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Thanks for the feedback and ideas.
Yes, our search function (which is an integral part of our forum software) has many shortcomings. So has the rest of the forum functionality in comparison with most other modern forums.
To fix the issue we can either spend some serious time customizing and improving the current software, or look at a complete upgrade of the forums. Currently we're thinking through both scenarios to decide which is the most feasible.
Bottome-line: Yes, we agree and understand, but this is going to some time and effort.
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