Forums Advanced Search, is there better?

[uberlube]

Maybe I'm not looking in the right place but I always seem to get more relevant search style results after typing in a thread name while creating one as compared to the forums search tool. Why is this?

[LaRoza]

When using Advanced Search, change it to search titles only.

[Forrest Gumpp]

Could this be because the way you must express the question for a title is probably different to the search terms you would enter in the Forum search or Google?

I note LaRoza's advice as to how to make the Forum search operate the same way as the title comparator, but this does not IMO fully answer the question.

Have you run into any of the mixed messages or delayed or non responses like the ones I have mentioned in these threads:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=702917

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=705517

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=705615



The importance of good titling has been emphasised by Price Child in a post-closure post to Steveneddy's thread, see:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=704706

I cannot help but wonder whether there may be a mechanical reason for the seeming failure of many posters to find answers that have already been posted on the Forum. What triggers the appearance of comparable posts after entry of a question in the title pane: a timeout after inactivity, activity of the mouse, or clicking within the submission pane?

Or is it all just down to my site blindness?

[LaRoza]

I cannot help but wonder whether there may be a mechanical reason for the seeming failure of many posters to find answers that have already been posted on the Forum. What triggers the appearance of comparable posts after entry of a question in the title pane: a timeout after inactivity, activity of the mouse, or clicking within the submission pane?

Or is it all just down to my site blindness?

The search feature of this forum isn't the best, as the servers of UF have to provide every function. The dedicated Google servers are better suited for a complete index, based on content.

I have seen posts that address the same topic on visibile threads. The Thanks feature of this forum (which prompted the sticky I recently wrote) caused many questions. I wrote the sticky to make it easier to get answers in one thread.

The same day I wrote it, a new post came up on the Thanks feature, which asked the same thing that I put in bold in the sticky. Further more, three other threads that asked about the Thanks feature were visible on the first page, one not five threads away from the top.

When I made the sticky, I got the automatic search results showing many threads about the Thanks feature.

So, someone ignored a sticky, three visible threads, and the automated search.

There is only so much that can be done on the forum side...

[kevdog]

The advanced search functionality is very unadvanced. It doesnt pull up posts that I think should be pulled up, attempting to test the feature. This is one of the most annoying things about the forum.

[matthew]

The advanced search functionality is very unadvanced. It doesnt pull up posts that I think should be pulled up, attempting to test the feature. This is one of the most annoying things about the forum.We agree. We are hoping the soon-to-come upgrade to vBulletin 3.7 will improve things.

[uberlube]

Thanks for the feedback. Ill be sure to keep an eye out for the improvements. :)