Forum search function — how to use

Everyday living
1

Can someone please explain how to use the forum’s search function to locate information.

For example if I type in ‘scooter’ (without the quotes) I only get one hit.

Intuition tells me that the search should be returning a large number of forum postings.

What am I doing wrong and how what action should I take to correct it.

What does the search function search?

  • Message text?
  • Tags?
  • Titles?
  • None of these?

Does the search function support Boolean searches?

The wisdom and guidance of the spirit of the forum will be much appreciated.

N

2

Not exactly sure myself, but you could direct your question to somebody like ‘gregchivs’ to get an authoritative answer.

3

mrbobowen,

Thanks for your suggestion and I will follow it up.

I do hope that it’s me not using the search function correctly is the problem and not that the search function has been intentionally restricted for some reason.

A forum without an effective search function reduces considerably the value of the information contained in the posts.

Again thanks for taking the time to respond. It is much appreciated and I’ll update the forum when I get an answer from Greg Chivers.

N

4

There was definitely a long period when the search fuction just didnt work effectively and people were making the same point. I thought it had been fixed recently and when I tried it, it was much better. Perhaps it has reverted back to how it was. However, I did just try a few searches and it seemed to be returning quite a few hits. In reality, I have used it much less than I envisaged because I was expecting to use it to find old posts that I begun or had reponded to. However, this is easily done now because they are listed for each user already on their profile page.

5

mrbonowen,

Thanks for responding once more.

I’ve just tried the search function using the term ‘scooter’. This time it has returned a large number of forum posts.

However, they are all for 2011.

I then tried ‘travelscoot’ (a term used by myself and others for posts in 2012).

It returns only one post. You guessed it — for 2011.

I conclude from this there is a problem with the forum search function.

If you hadn’t responded I wouldn’t have checked again, so thank you for once more.

Best wishes

N

PS When I receive a response from Greg Chivers of the MS Webteam I’ll share the contents. N:o)

6

It seems to me, that on the searches that I have done, you have to put the correct title wording for the post that you are trying to find.

Looks like the search engine has problems picking up some words in isolation, but will work on others - this is not the only forum to have this problem.

All you can do if a post or thread interests you, it to mark it as a favourite - and then clear out the list of favourites on a regular basis.

I have just opened this website in a separate browser, and searched for “Copaxone” - this got exactly four hits, none of them in the forum, even though I had already seen the word before I got to this thread. A similar search for “DMD” got just three hits, while one for “DMDs” produced 31. Since the term “DMDs” includes the term “DMD”, one can only conclude that the search engine is not working very well.

Tried “Copaxone” again, in this exact forum) and got over 40 hits - but only four for this year (and none of them recent)

Geoff

7

Geoff,

Thanks for your contribution to the thread.

It seems to confirm that the search function is not working correctly which is a great pity particularly if you’re trying to read up on something.

I think its interesting that your search returned results only for 2012.

Thank you only also for your suggestion below.

In the right circumstances that will be a very good work around.

In the meantime I look forward to reading what the MS Webteam’s assessment of the situation.

N:o)

8

Hi Nimrod

When I search for scooter (no quotes) on Everyday Living it returns nearly two pages of threads with only two from 2012. You can refine searches by highlighting tags but remember that tagging isn’t compulsory on the system so this will dramatically reduce the number of hits you get.

As far as I’m aware it searches the title and the content, not the tags, and I douby Sounds like the search is missing some posts from what you’re saying. If you could provide me with some links to examples of where you’ve used terms like travelscoot in 2012 I can go to our developers with the bug.

Greg [admin]

9

Greg,

Thank you for your response. I’ve just tried a further search (1pm) for ‘scooter’ (no quotes) and the returns included two for 2012.

When I did the same search this morning (around 8am) the list of two pages didn’t include any 2012 threads.

I’ve tried once more to search ‘travelscoot’ (no quotes). No returns.

Here is address of the forum post that included ‘travelscoot’.

http://www.mssociety.org.uk/forum/everyday-living/light-weight-mobility-scooters

I have a copy of this link as I started the thread.

I know that there are other threads posted by patrick_b which also mention the word: travelscoot.

Again thanks for progressing this query and I look forward to learning the outcome of your investigations.

N:o)

10

Just out of interest, I tried a search on travelscoot and foumd a different post to the one that nimrod showed.

http://www.mssociety.org.uk/forum/everyday-living/travelscoot

I guess that you really should talk to the developers, Greg, and maybe ask them just how they designed the search function, and how they tested it.

Geoff

11

Our developers are now aware and plugged into this thread so please continue to add any comments/observations here.

Greg [admin]