×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
Search function doesn't work




Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Bugs & Technical Questions
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
The King of Harts



Joined: 05 May 2009
Posts: 6712
Location: Mount Crawford, Virginia
PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 2:25 pm Reply with quote
Technically it does work, it just stinks because it's wildly inconsistent. I've had problems with the search function for a long time, but I'm at the point where I can't take it anymore. It seems like two thirds of the time it can't "find anything" even though I can manually find posts with the words I want.

For example:

Word: yearly

User: the king of harts

Results: No topics or posts met your search criteria

Actual Results: Well, here's at least one I found with the word yearly in it.

I know I've used the word yearly in at least a 100 posts, and yet none were able to be found.

Hell, I can't even get results for the word "anime"! Seriously, it can't find anytime I've used the word anime on an anime forum. Nor can it find any of the hundreds of post I've used the word "blood" or "blood-", who I've conversed with many times over the years. Although, if you change the author to Blood- and search either "harts", "KOH", or "TKOH" you get about 200 results, which I doubt is even close half the posts that contain those words.

Now, when it does actually work for me, it's still not showing all the results. When I look for "Japan" under my username I get a whopping two results, both of which are from the last four days. Well, here's a post from earlier this same month with the word Japan, and it's one of the hundreds of posts I've made that didn't show up.

The search function is just bunk. It either "can't find" results or doesn't show you all of them. It's bad. Can it please be fixed?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
Tempest
I Run this place.
ANN Publisher


Joined: 29 Dec 2001
Posts: 10420
Location: Do not message me for support.
PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 10:08 pm Reply with quote
Hi,

Yeah, we know the Forum's search feature sucks. But we didn't develop it and we can't do anything about it.

We could replace it with a Google seacrh, but that would actually be even more limited as it wouldn't allow you any options such as "search by" and it wouldn't search the community forum.

Sorry, we're stuck with this piece of crap till we upgrade or replace phpbb.

-t
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail My Anime My Manga
Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 25 Oct 2003
Posts: 7580
Location: Wales
PostPosted: Mon Aug 19, 2013 1:38 pm Reply with quote
You sometimes get better results using Google, depending on how common the words are and how often you post. E.g.
Code:
site:animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/ "yearly" "The King of Harts"

It doesn't look like the NEAR operator is supported any more unfortunately so you get all pages from threads where you posted and someone used the word "yearly" but if there is a specific post you are looking for it with a bit of manual work you should be able to find it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website AIM Address Yahoo Messenger MSN Messenger ICQ Number My Anime My Manga
Shirow Otaku



Joined: 26 Jul 2013
Posts: 17
PostPosted: Fri Aug 23, 2013 1:00 pm Reply with quote
I am also a little frustrated; I've been [lightly] scolded by the moderators to use existing threads, yet I'm stuck with a broke search function or manually thumbing through hundreds of threads.

Specifically, I'm looking for GitS SAC thread, and the search function literally does nothing to filter topics. I may be missing something, because it seems like the above people's problem is a little different than mine; But c'mon, search options on a website aren't rocket sience.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Shirow Otaku



Joined: 26 Jul 2013
Posts: 17
PostPosted: Fri Aug 23, 2013 1:18 pm Reply with quote
To clarify, results pop up. It's not a blank page or "no results" like most other complaints.

I've tried using "", searching by topic, message text, sorting by topic, arthur, subject, anime only/manga only ect.

I get threads from all over the place.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 25 Oct 2003
Posts: 7580
Location: Wales
PostPosted: Fri Aug 23, 2013 2:01 pm Reply with quote
The forum search doesn't have a "title only" option.

The following google search returns threads with "stand alone complex" in the title while filtering out most talkback threads:

Code:
site:animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/ intitle:"Stand alone complex" -intitle:"news" -intitle:"Review"
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website AIM Address Yahoo Messenger MSN Messenger ICQ Number My Anime My Manga
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Bugs & Technical Questions All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group