Difficulty searching forums

[Jancis]

I am having difficulty using the forum search engine - have been for some time actually but put it down to me being an idiot

For example, on the main forum tonight, Mjaqmac has posted a thread about her book and Tender Face has posted that she has given a review on the Raising Awareness section. Well I just wanted to find that review so went to advanced search and tried to find either the title of the book and or the author's name in conjunction with the poster's name... but no luck whatsoever. Does anyone else have probs with the search engine?

 

[jenniferpa]

Could you be specific about the term you were searching for? There are several traps for the unwary when it come to search, but to check if it's actually a bug, one would need to know what you were searching for.

 

[BeckyJan]

I rarely used the Search section and when I do it takes a while to find the right terms for an effective result.

I found what you wanted by simply going to the Raising Awareness section and finding the relevant Thread.

 

[Jancis]

The thread on today's forum was by Mjaqmac: "Money for Memories".
As Tender Face mentioned she had posted a review I searched these keywords "They can't take that away from you" (the title of the book) and an alternative search "Mjaqmac" (the author) both times with the Username "Tender Face".

 

[Jancis]

I rarely used the Search section and when I do it takes a while to find the right terms for an effective result.

I found what you wanted by simply going to the Raising Awareness section and finding the relevant Thread.

I tried this too, but somehow lost the thread..... What is the relevant thread called Jan?

 

[Jancis]

I rarely used the Search section and when I do it takes a while to find the right terms for an effective result.

I found what you wanted by simply going to the Raising Awareness section and finding the relevant Thread.

The search engine should work though - is this a problem that needs sorting?

 

[jenniferpa]

Ok - when I search for Mjaqmac as a keyword in Raising Awareness I find the thread.

If I search for "they can't take that away from me" it doesn't find it because all of those words are considered to "very common, too long, or too short".

It's just the way the search works I'm afraid : any words that a very common or too short or long (although I've never come across one of the latter ones) is simply discarded.

Another way to search for something is to make use of google

So entering this string in google

"they can't take that away from me" site:http://forum.alzheimers.org.uk

shows every entry for this character string.

P.S. the thread in question is here

http://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/showthread.php?35424-They-can-t-take-that-away-from-me

P.S. Having said that the shortest term that used to be searchable was 4 letters so I'll mention this.

 

[Jancis]

Thanks for advice Jennifer, but how do you search within Raising Awareness?

 

[Tender Face]

My apologies. I should have thought to post the link to the previous thread.

Have to agree about the search facility – although I do understand KatherineW is aware of issues and it is ‘on the list’ for the IT team to look at.

Truth I don’t use ‘New Posts’ or Today’s posts’ – always have accessed TP via the individual forums/sub-forums and work my way round. I DO use the search facility heavily though I tend to be looking for something specific from a member or about a topic where I KNOW the darned thing is there SOMEWHERE – but sometimes it does take considerable time trawling one way or another. If I wasn’t certain of what I was looking for, I’d just assume TP hadn’t covered it or I’d imagined something!

Must say, as an aside, this is not in criticism of TP’s search facility. Last place I worked had an upgrade to their database where the search facility was based on phonetic matching. (There’s a posh technical term for it someone is bound to know!) So for example, if you searched for ‘Aricept’, it would also provide you with entries referring to ‘Arricept’, 'Arisept’ and so on .... it would also give you entries for ‘Harry said .....’ (say it quickly!) Terribly clever – but not terribly useful!!!!!! In the same example mis-typing ‘Aripect’ would only replay entries by anyone else who had made the same typo or phonetic matches on a different order of sounds, but not the phonetic matches for what you were actually looking for! I do wonder sometimes these search facilities are simply too sophisticated for their own good when the database (or forum) cannot be assumed to be perfectly ‘input to’ in the first place?

Apologies again ... I see Jennifer has already provided the appropriate link here. I’ll go back and edit my post on Mjaqmac’s thread to try help with this particular issue for now.

Regards, Karen, x

 

[jenniferpa]

Thanks for advice Jennifer, but how do you search within Raising Awareness?

Aha - now that I can tell you - in fact I think I posted pictures somewhere about how to search a forum.

Ah yes here http://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/show...-and-Questions&p=478358&viewfull=1#post478358

and

here
http://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/show...-and-Questions&p=478861&viewfull=1#post478861

 

[Jancis]

Thank you Jennifer.
I've just realised that the default advanced search page on my Mac is "Search Multiple Content Types" not "Single Search Content Type" - whatever these descriptions mean? The "Search Multiple Content Type" page does not have the same interface with the options to search the forums. Not user-friendly at all. And what is the relevance of child forums please? I realise this is templated forum software but it's amazing to me how anyone finds anything - and what about our members who have dementia? Sorry for being so critical and apologies if it's me who is being thick

 

[jenniferpa]

I don't think it's anything to do with you being on a Mac. I'm on a mac. You simply have to choose which of the content type searches you wish to perform.

Another couple of picture:

This is the default



If you want to search a specific forum, just click the tab "search single content type"



Child forums are forums that are nested under a parent forum. If you look at http://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/forum.php you'll see that The Lounge has two sub forums - Tea Room and Poems.

 

[Jancis]

Child forums are forums that are nested under a parent forum.

Sorry, don't understand Jennifer?

 

[jenniferpa]

Child forums are forums that are nested under a parent forum. If you look at http://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/forum.php you'll see that The Lounge has two sub forums - Tea Room and Poems.

So a child forum is another name for a sub forum. If you search The Lounge (the parent forum) you can also elect to search any child forums (Tea Room and Poems).

 

[Jancis]

So a child forum is another name for a sub forum. If you search The Lounge (the parent forum) you can also elect to search any child forums (Tea Room and Poems).

Oh my! I thought a child forum was where children contributed!!!! How out of touch am I?