There are a lot of abbreviations used on this forum (UQ, TQ, etc.) and currently the search will not allow any words less than four characters. Can this be changed in the forum settings? If so I recommend it be done.
There are a lot of abbreviations used on this forum (UQ, TQ, etc.) and currently the search will not allow any words less than four characters. Can this be changed in the forum settings? If so I recommend it be done.
"That he is mad, 'tis true, 'tis Pithy, and Pithy 'tis, 'tis true..."
Use google to search the site for short terms.
The issue with changing the forum softwre to allow shorter terms is the increased load and query times involved with looking for such short/common terms, it would slow the site down considerably.
I agree though that it is difficult to find things if all there thats used in the post is the abbreviations. It would be nice if those making articles etc took an extra minute to either fill out the keywords, or at least type out the full name once for each abbreviation to give the search a little more traction.
Some other forums I use have a Google search function built in. Is that something that could be easily implemented here? It certainly makes searching those sites a breeze.
I know nothing about this kind of stuff, so it may be a foolish suggestion.
If your lucky enough to be outdoors, your lucky enough!
I mentioned some of this in a thread yesterday, so I'll re-post that here.
We'll look into a Google Search box, but it will probably be a little while before it's fully implemented.We could change the forum search engine to give results on fewer characters searched for, but that would have two negative impacts. First, it would dramatically increase the search index size, and thus increase the database size and work load. Second, it would actually make many search results worse, since all the places that those letter combinations appeared inside another word would be returned results as well. For instance if the search engine were tweaked to let you search for 'UL', then it would also return result, pulk, bulk, SUL, pull, bull, full, etc... The more results returned, the less specific the results become.
So, it's a balance of several factors with the search string length. Where we're at isn't ideal. But it does work if you don't search for terms that are too generic (like underquilt).
Using Google to search the forum can be helpful sometimes. Their search algorithms are better than ours will ever be. And we should probably work on adding a Google search box to the site at some point, but there are some considerations with that as well.
In the meantime, consider that searches for terms common enough to be abbreviations won't be very helpful anyway, since they are used so often. Try searching for the other criteria you're looking for (presumably there's something specific about an UQ or TQ that you want to find). And if you're just looking for the definitions of the abbreviations, check the list.
“I think that when the lies are all told and forgot the truth will be there yet. It dont move about from place to place and it dont change from time to time. You cant corrupt it any more than you can salt salt.” - Cormac McCarthy
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