Holien Posted August 10, 2001 Share Posted August 10, 2001 Hi folks Is it me or is this search engine a bit rusty? I have seen other people post saying it failed and it has failed to deliver for me on numerous occasions. I am getting quite frustrated now, hence the post. Am I doing something wrong? Any advice or knowledge that might help me. I was trying to confirm my knowledge (or lack of it) on Relative and Absolute spotting. (I wonder why....) So if anyone has threads with this on I would be very grateful. Regards H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Weiss Posted August 10, 2001 Share Posted August 10, 2001 It used to work a long time ago, but in the last several months I haven't been able to get the thing to work either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philistine Posted August 10, 2001 Share Posted August 10, 2001 One way to get old threads that you know are there (if you, or someone you know participated) is to use the "search by member #" function. This will list the thread titles that the member has posted in, so at least you can find some of them. --Philistine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shatter Posted August 10, 2001 Share Posted August 10, 2001 You guys need to include as much info as possible, to fine tune the search. The more info you enter the less time it will take. It will eventually bring up the info you are searching for, but will take a long long time (possibly hours), if you only search for a single word. You have to remember if you don't fine tune your search, the search engine will have to go through more than 20,000 threads. I think even alot more than that if I am not mistaken. I believe there are alot of posts from the old board. I used it last night and the night before with no troubles. Hope this helps Shatter [ 08-10-2001: Message edited by: Shatter ] [ 08-10-2001: Message edited by: Shatter ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holien Posted August 10, 2001 Author Share Posted August 10, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Shatter: You guys need to include as much info as possible, to fine tune the search. The more info you enter the less time it will take. It will eventually bring up the info you are searching for, but will take a long long time (possibly hours), if you only search for a single word. You have to remember if you don't fine tune your search, the search engine will have to go through more than 20,000 threads. I think even alot more than that if I am not mistaken. I believe there are alot of posts from the old board. I used it last night and the night before with no troubles. Hope this helps Shatter <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Thxs for that Shatter. I think my search was pretty refined and I only selected the last 30 days and just looking for the word "spotting" in the title. It still came up with connection timed out. Now is there a way with IE5 to increase the "time out" time? Maybe that is what is going wrong? H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzer Leader Posted August 10, 2001 Share Posted August 10, 2001 20 THOUSAND POSTS! Holy cow! And when I use my browsers function it goes through what, 20 MILLION web-sites in a few seconds to give me results? I don't think it's the sheer quantity of data, the thing is broken. Yesterday I typed in "Peng CHallenge" search in title-only (personal reasons, shut up!) I have a cable modem and it timed out after about 1 hour. I could have done it by hand faster than that. It's broke. :confused: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marlow Posted August 10, 2001 Share Posted August 10, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Panzer Leader: 20 THOUSAND POSTS! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That is to say 20,000 Topics and a Quarter million posts. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Yesterday I typed in "Peng CHallenge" search in title-only (personal reasons, shut up!) I have a cable modem and it timed out after about 1 hour. I could have done it by hand faster than that.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> It is only protecting you. The accumulated knowledge of The One True Cess has been known to drive wise men the the brink of insanity. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> It's broke.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Did you try entering the secret password? Seriously, the search does work better if you narrow it by using a member number. While this may restrict your search results a little, depending on the subject, it is usually possible to figure someone who would likely have posted there. For example, in seaching for the MBT use Elvis' number, as his trademark "Wankers" post has appeared in most, if not all, of the Peng Challenges. Likewise, if you are looking for something on the comparative firepower ratings of the UberPanzerWeufer Mark XXIX auf F1 as compared to the UberPanzerWeufer Mark XXIX auf F2, then use the number of the appropriate Grog. [ 08-10-2001: Message edited by: Marlow ] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisl Posted August 10, 2001 Share Posted August 10, 2001 There are only some 20,000 threads, but some 250,000 posts. The search engine on UBB is probably nowhere near as sophisticated as the average web search engine. Those don't search on demand for you, instead they have daemons that roam the web, indexing the contents of everything they find. When you type something in they just look in their index and spit out the contents. I find the opposite of what Shatter suggested works here on the board-- if I use one word then I get a response in a few minutes, if I use more than one my browser times out and says the document contained no data. I haven't found a way to change the browser time out (and I have a DSL connection, so my connection doesn't time out) but there may be something that can be changed in the UBB server software to make it go longer before timing out. You can also search using a regular browser, since they index the contents of the CM board, but you'll get a lot of responses from the original Peng thread, which contains just about everything worth searching for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzer Leader Posted August 10, 2001 Share Posted August 10, 2001 Yeah, chrisl, I noticed on my third attempt (it was evening, so I had the computer chugging away while I did other stuff) that when I simply typed "peng" and had it look in both titles AND message, it actually came up with 244 or so threads. That is what leads me to believ it is broke. I think it can only support 1 word searches or it flips out and calls it a day. Needless to say, my search, even with the 244 finds, was ultimiately fruitless and futile, but then again, isn't everything in life ultimately fruitless and futile? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fieldmarshall Posted August 10, 2001 Share Posted August 10, 2001 Hiya! Panzerleader Check out the latest post on the CMHQ Panther Mod post, REPLY TO IT! -Field Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfish Posted August 10, 2001 Share Posted August 10, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Philistine: One way to get old threads that you know are there (if you, or someone you know participated) is to use the "search by member #" function. This will list the thread titles that the member has posted in, so at least you can find some of them. --Philistine<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Apparently this doesn't help much either, as there seems to be a problem with the way the search function stores old threads. I just did a search under my member number, choosing the 'any date' option. Since I average a post a day, give or take, I should get hits going back to June of 2000. However, what I got was 2 hits for this month and 198 hits from June thru September of 2000. That means there's about a years worth of posts I can't access. Anyone else have this problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greenman Posted August 10, 2001 Share Posted August 10, 2001 Did you try searching the old threads on the search engine? I'm sure the answer's already been posted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Username Posted August 10, 2001 Share Posted August 10, 2001 Perhaps the database can be broken up by 1/4 years. So you can only search by spring 2001 or Fall 2000 lets say. The search function was really a great part of the board experience here. Lewis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruno Weiss Posted August 10, 2001 Share Posted August 10, 2001 I've tried limiting a search to the last five days on a specific title and still it didn't work. I think it is soooo ready for IBM. Then again, its free so... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirtweasle Posted August 10, 2001 Share Posted August 10, 2001 What happens after you do an effective search, for me anyway, is then you get the little list, and once you click one of the entries you cannot go back to the list, so you have to do it over again and again... It's so close to broke it ought to just be disabled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark IV Posted August 11, 2001 Share Posted August 11, 2001 When Search works at all, the Back button has always taken me back to the original Search results, after viewing one of the choices from the list. I guess I would rather have CM2, if I have to choose, but I was fond of the Search. I would like it to be fixed someday. It really isn't worth it anymore, even though once in a while it turns something up. And for the record, I hate having to use member numbers instead of handles. Phooey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shatter Posted August 11, 2001 Share Posted August 11, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Marlow: Did you try entering the secret password? Seriously, the search does work better if you narrow it by using a member number. While this may restrict your search results a little, depending on the subject, it is usually possible to figure someone who would likely have posted there. For example, in seaching for the MBT use Elvis' number, as his trademark "Wankers" post has appeared in most, if not all, of the Peng Challenges. Likewise, if you are looking for something on the comparative firepower ratings of the UberPanzerWeufer Mark XXIX auf F1 as compared to the UberPanzerWeufer Mark XXIX auf F2, then use the number of the appropriate Grog. [ 08-10-2001: Message edited by: Marlow ]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> --------------------------------------------- Thanks for clearing that up, I believe I type 20,000 threads, not posts. Some people are just ready to be a critic. If they would only actually read what was posted, it would all be clear. Yes the Search function, I am sure is not nearly as sophisticated as a browser. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subvet Posted August 11, 2001 Share Posted August 11, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dirtweasle: What happens after you do an effective search, for me anyway, is then you get the little list, and once you click one of the entries you cannot go back to the list, so you have to do it over again and again... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Try using a right click instead, then choosing "open link in new window." This assumes you are using the common computer type and software of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dirtweasle Posted August 11, 2001 Share Posted August 11, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Subvet: Try using a right click instead, then choosing "open link in new window." This assumes you are using the common computer type and software of course. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That's it, thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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