The Mountaineer Nation

DAE wrote:What's up with the search engine? Every time I search for something that I know was a topic of discussion at some point, it seems to give me only a handful of results, none of which was what I was looking for. There was something in particular last month that I searched that failed to come up in the search engine, but I was able to find on my own by going back through page after page of a long thread.

I use it now and then but I never try to use the "Search" function. I usually have decent results by using the "Advanced Search".

I've had the same luck with advanced. For instance, a couple of months ago, someone in the BP was saying something that sounded like the opposite of what they argued 6 or so months ago. I tried every which way from Sunday to search for it but nothing came up. I then went to the thread where I thought it occurred and zeroed in on the approximate dates I thought it happened, and sure enough, it was there, including the key words I searched. I've had similar experiences in other instances as well.

Here's a random example. When I search "false dichotomy" (even without quotes), I get one hit, and it happens to be something I said in a post in the BP on religion. Not too surprising as I am one who studies formal logic and has a tendency to use that language. However, I find it really hard to believe that I'm the ONLY person who's said "false dichotomy" and that it was only said once. I seem to vaguely recall Mike saying it at least once or something along those lines. Now, I'm not sure if anyone else said it, but I myself definitely said it more than once, as is evidenced by this post I found on taxing the wealthy:

http://themountaineernation.com/viewtop ... 2&start=45" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

See my second post, first sentence on that page. You'll find that it's not the same as the one result that the search produces. No doubt if it missed that one, it could be missing others.

This was just a random example that I just found 10 minutes ago too. I clicked 5 pages back in the BP, scrolled backward through the thread until I found a substantial post by me with a fairly uncommon word or phrase, searched it, and discovered it was not detected by the search engine.

Funny enough, you'll now find two matches for that phrase because of my previous post here, but the one from the wealthy thread is still undetected.

someone in the BP was saying something that sounded like the opposite of what they argued 6 or so months ago.

I was willing to take a look at search but now I know you're lying based on the statement above. NOBODY EVER says anything contradictory or hypocritical in the BP.

Seriously, several months ago I had to change the way search was running because of a database error. It was either switch it or have a catastrophic failure. The bulk of my time on the site has been working on the database to fix the error. The goal is to have the site back to normal, full operations by a week from tomorrow.

Once the database is fixed I'll have to re-index the site (all 250,000+ posts and the such) so it will take some time before search is giving full, complete results. It is being corrected though.

I've had the same issues before. I thought it was user error

Oh.... No problem. Thanks Kevin. Wasn't sure if it was a real issue or not, or whether anyone was aware if it was.

DAE wrote:Oh.... No problem. Thanks Kevin. Wasn't sure if it was a real issue or not, or whether anyone was aware if it was.

I appreciate you mentioning it. I thought I was the only one that used search. I should have asked when it went down; I could have expedited a fix.

It's alright. Get to it when you get to it. We appreciate everything you do. I actually use it pretty often, and while I've been encountering that issue, it just finally bugged me the other day.

Ever attentive, Kevin. Thank you for your work. What you've done here is... make a digital place that's become a community center. I design environments but you design a digital framework for what makes environments successful in the overlay of personal experience and I think I'm not alone when I say your talent is more than appreciated. I couldn't do it myself, and I definitely couldn't make it as seamless and elegant as TMN is without having your unique mentality.

Tito.... No jumping on "unique." Ahem.

5thfoot wrote:Ever attentive, Kevin. Thank you for your work. What you've done here is... make a digital place that's become a community center. I design environments but you design a digital framework for what makes environments successful in the overlay of personal experience and I think I'm not alone when I say your talent is more than appreciated. I couldn't do it myself, and I definitely couldn't make it as seamless and elegant as TMN is without having your unique mentality.

Tito.... No jumping on "unique." Ahem.

Yes, we are extremely fortunate to have Kevin. Now, please!...Shhh.. Don't interact with members of the audience while we're witnessing this magnificent professional presentation.

Sorry Kevin. I shoulda just said "thanks, dude."

You just HAD to drag bait me into this!

Tito wrote:You just HAD to drag bait me into this!

Any chance I can get to distract you from rotating the tomatoes get you out of your feather boa to have some fun, I will take.

We had a couple server issues this evening. Instead of telling me what happened they tried to make something up, which is a no-no when the other person is a sysadmin. Anyway, if it happens again we will move the site to another hosting provider.

Sorry for any inconvenience.