Please FIX the Search Engine!!!

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by SPASKIS, May 22, 2017.

  1. SPASKIS

    SPASKIS Registered

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    While it has been already mentioned in other threads, I think it hasn't been specifically denounced. Search engine which is one of the most important tools within a healthy forum doesn't work.

    It is IMO high priority to fix this. What's the purpose of a forum where information is difficult to find? We see it every day with the same questions asked over and over in new threads further desorganizing the forum.

    I don't know how we have reached this situation which seemed to be fixed when forums were moved to actual site. We are exactly in the same situation as we were in isiforums.

    In case some of you are tempted to suggest using Google, please refrain yourself from doing it.

    The purpose of this thread is to get the Search Tool fixed. Newcomers don't know that search engine doesn't work and if they don't find an appropriate answer within the first of results they will open a new thread.

    Thanks in advance for caring
     
  2. MarcG

    MarcG Registered

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    How is it broken exactly? I just searched for "contact patch" and got 10+ pages of results.
     
  3. SPASKIS

    SPASKIS Registered

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    The number of pages is not what it is important but the results it shows.

    Showing results by number of replies or date is not being useful. Some best matching algorithm seems to be missing. Increasing the number of keywords doesn't improve results.
    Screenshot_20170523-004331.png

    Order by number of replies
    Screenshot_20170523-092959.png
    Order by posting date
    Screenshot_20170523-093528.png
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2017
    patchedupdemon and F1Aussie like this.
  4. Flaux

    Flaux Registered

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    Yep. Search engine seems to be broken... I experienced it a few times in the last couple of month, too.

    PS: I wouldn't scream like that in the thread-title though... looks so dramatic haha. No need to...
     
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  5. Marcel Offermans

    Marcel Offermans Registered

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    Well, to be honest, if you think the search engine can be improved, I would suggest you provide some constructive feedback to the people at Xenforo who make the forum. In this case we are merely using it, so there is nothing we can do. And I am going to suggest you use Google instead if you cannot find what you are looking for with the built-in search engine. If you start your query in Google with: site:forum.studio-397.com followed by the keywords you need, you'll get only the results from the forum.
     
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  6. SPASKIS

    SPASKIS Registered

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    As I said, I can use Google.
    This is not my forum. If you think search engine is working fine I have nothing else to say.
     
  7. SPASKIS

    SPASKIS Registered

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    @Marcel Offermans I just visited Xenforo and within their search engine I can find a most relevant option for ordering results.
    Can this be included into this forum to see if it improves results?
    Screenshot_20170523-102444.png
     
  8. demerzel

    demerzel Registered

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    @SPASKIS Try in this way:


    [​IMG]

    Ups... Already recommended. My bad :p
     
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  9. SPASKIS

    SPASKIS Registered

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    Don't worry.
    However, I was expecting to read about the possible implementation of "relevant" in the sorting order. This option is available in the xenforo forums which is obviously using their own forum engine. I previuosly posted a picture of their forums search which for the rest is the same as in rF2 forum.

    The idea of this request is not to help me. I have no problems using Google. The claimed problem is that when using default searching options, many of the results are irrelevant.

    At the moment, it is the posting date (or number of replies) what provides the highest ranking in the result list, provided it has at least one matching word. Many of the relevant results get buried by many other less significant results.

    This is probably one of the reasons why many new threads asking for help are started. You cannot expect a newcomer to know the details about the result sorting order. He will just type the keywords and press Enter. If he doesn't find an answer in the first 2 pages of results, he will likely give up and open a thread to try to solve his problem.
     
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  10. MarcG

    MarcG Registered

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    Or they do what a lot of people do, ignore the search engine altogether and start a new topic regardless... this happens on every forum!
     
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  11. Flaux

    Flaux Registered

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    I hate to write new topics when the answere to my question is already there.... somewhere....

    I like Spaskis recommendation regarding the advanced search filtering for "relevance"
     
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  12. SPASKIS

    SPASKIS Registered

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    You are right. Let's not give them the chance to have an excuse. When I have the feeling of being that the case, I never reply to those threads. If search engine worked as it should, opening a thread for asking something already asked and easily found, should be solely replied to, with the link of the results to the related search. It would even be educative.
     
  13. patchedupdemon

    patchedupdemon Registered

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    This search engine is no worst than any other on any of the games I play,it must be hard to design a search engine that can narrow down or read minds,admin of the threads must be a nightmare too,I don't envy the guys that do this stuff
     
  14. SPASKIS

    SPASKIS Registered

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  15. Christopher Elliott

    Christopher Elliott Registered

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    We know about Enhanced Search, but that's not something we will be adding at this time. We will look into another option maybe, but it's not a top priority. :)
     
  16. Enhanced search is an add-on which actually requires owners of xenforo to buy - however xenforo is already in beta with their new and improved forum software. This might/might not include a better search.

    As Marcel said - the forum software is "out of the box" so with the current options there is little they can do.
    However knowing xenforo - the search is not bad at all - if you type in words it will simply search threads for these words. So incase you want to narrow it down - search the subforums you want to search in - or even threads.
     
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  17. Will Mazeo

    Will Mazeo Registered

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    I never found a forum I can only use its own search engine, always using Google with "site:" here
     
  18. SPASKIS

    SPASKIS Registered

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    I really appreciate the reply. For sure it is not top priority. I agree that there are more important things. Hopefully, in the near future it could have some synergies with other projects, especially those regarding documentation.

    In our racing website we are also using XenForo and we don't have Enhanced Search implemented either. It would be interesting to know how well it performs. I just saw it installed in own XenForo where it is difficult for me to judge it. Maybe someone with knowledge about forums could evaluate it by querying for known questions and checking obtained results with different sorting options. I will ask the admin of our website to do it.

    The obtained info could be helpful in the future. It could perfectly happen that it is not worth it.
     
  19. Marcel Offermans

    Marcel Offermans Registered

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    I have a reasonable amount of knowledge about search engines in general and elasticsearch (which that Xenforo solution is using) in particular and from that experience I can say that such a search engine can only outperform Google if we spend a considerable amount of time feeding it very specific knowledge about our domain (stuff like synonyms that are specific to simracing, disambiguated meanings of certain words giving the simracing context, etc.). That is a lot of work on top of buying/installing/configuring the enhanced search engine. Time better spent working on rFactor 2 itself.

    @SPASKIS if you want to learn more about this stuff, search for "elasticsearch" as there are many articles on the net about how to use it as a search engine.
     
  20. Radar

    Radar Registered

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    I use XenForo myself and to save duplicate threads we use the Resource add-on called Similar Threads. ( https://xenforo.com/community/resources/similar-threads-plus.5150/ )

    The developer is great, will keep the add-on up to date but usually I find he only updates it if XenForo implement code changes. If it ain't broken don't try and fix it :)
     
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