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[TurboTyne]

Hello,
I was searching for a topic and did not retrieve the posts I was expecting to find. So I then tried searching for posts using the search word "destroyer" since I had made some posts with that word in the heading myself. They are definitely present because I could find them by listing all my own posts (via my profile).That returned a good number of hits but failed to retrieve my own posts.  I then tried the advanced search and restricted it to the board that my posts are in which is  "Navy-military-battleships". That again returned a good number (77) of hits but again it missed the posts I'd made myself. Next I repeated the advanced search but restricted it also to my user name. That then did retrieve my posts.
I'm not bothered about searching for my own psots but if I can't easily retrieve those, then I wonder what else I might be missing when I do other searches.
I assume I am misunderstanding something. If so, can anyone advise where I'm likely to be going wrong? Or is there a limitation on what Search can find?ThanksMike

[Colin Bishop]

It doesn't work very well unfortunately. There was a post some time ago which suggested using an external internet search which worked OK but I can't recall the details. Maybe someone else can recall it.

Colin

[tigertiger]

The best way to search any site using Google Chrome is as follows.

Type in the address bar
site:subject

That is site(the URL for the website you want to search):(colon)subject(the thing you are searching for)

Eg. If you want to search Mayhem for posts on the Boston Typhoon
modelboatmayhem.co.uk:Boston Typhoon.

[TurboTyne]

Thanks for the replies. I just tried tigertiger's search using Google in my usual browser (Firefox). Searching for the word 'destroyer' gave an initial result showing, at the top,  Modelboatmayhem with several lines of text/hyperlinks in small print. On the last line of this group was the option "More results from Modelboatmayhem.co.uk". Clicking on that gave nearly 300 hits, so vastly more than by the inbuilt MBM search engine. However, my own posts on the topic "Advice re: WW1 destroyer scale, displacement etc" were not included, even though that thread included quite a large number of replies. If I searched using the words 'destroyer' and my user name it did report one of the several pages of posts on this topic. If I repeated the search but with the words 'destroyer' and 'displacement' it again found the target thread but not if I searched using 'detroyer' and 'scale'.So it seems the Google search engine is much better but it has some limitations. Obviously, having to search for 'destroyer' plus a username defeats the reason for doing a search in the first place.  I wonder if, in both cases, there is a limit to the number of results that are returned and it is a bit random as to which results get found and/or reported.

[TurboTyne]

I just found that my usual search engine duckduckgo has a similar search function. I entered the following in the search box: 'destroyer scale site:modelboatmayhem.co.uk' That returned several hits on the thread: "Advice re: WW1 destroyer scale, displacement etc". If I searched the same way but with without the word 'scale' it gave lots of hits but none that included my posts. So duckduckgo gave a better result than google, at least for the combination destroyer and scale but I guess this could depend on the particular search terms used in any given case.Mike

[derekwarner]

The 'search function' here on the MBM Web site, has previously worked, year by year without issue....however with the following criteria

a] the minimum required input is two [2] words

If that results in Zero detail found, the search engine by default places these 2 words in a further enhanced search engine box

The results of this will reveal and detail 'results' found by ..........date the leading page with the search engine words highlighted.......page after page after page

I have been here on MBM for 20+years, & the search function has been as detailed above

Tonight I rechecked with a search on the words HMAS Sydney...... the first result was Zero, however the auto defaulted enhanced search on HMAS Sydney.. ...results on 50 individual thread postings over 2 pages, each with the words HMAS Sydney highlighted ........worked perfectly

Derek

[TurboTyne]

Thanks for that guidance Derek. I just tried doing the same search as you describe (i.e. 'HMAS Sydney')starting from the search tab. Initially I inadvertently placed a space before HMAS and that generated 23 hits. I then noticed the space and deleted it. Searching again generated 60 results. Then I searched 'destroyer displacement' and it did pick up a post on the thread that I have been using as a test target. However, repeating the search with 'destroyer scale' failed to find the test target. Next I searched using 'destroyer scale displacement' and that gave just 4 results none of which were the test target. As mentioned before the test target is the topic "Advice re: WW1 destroyer scale, displacement etc".  Then I repeated the search 'destroyer displacement' and that then failed to pick up the test target. At that stage I felt I must be going mad. So my conclusion from available evidence is that one needs to be aware that any given search may well miss some items even though it does return numerous hits. I think I've wasted too much time on this but on the other hand, it seems important to have some understanding of the reliability of a search.

Mike

[derekwarner]

Morning Mike........

The search engine here [as a function of the builder "SMF Simple Machines'] is pretty small  compared to the CIA or the KGB as John Lennon penned

Those two words must be actual words in series or sequential, not just any two-word elements from a sentence in a posting.....

If you have searched on the two words .....destroyer displacement...... without any enhanced result, would indicate that those two words were not penned in series or sequentially any sentence in any of the postings the search engine is looking for

Another suggestion is to use two words only, and do not use italics ".....'.....etc, as the search engine is then looking for words preceded by an '....or "

I believe this SMF search function is reliable, we just need to understand and accept the limitation and functionality of the search engine etc

Derek

[TurboTyne]

Thanks again for for your help Derek. To avoid any misunderstanding I think I should explain that the single inverted commas around my search terms were only used in my message here but were not used in the actual search box.
Anyway I've done some more tests. The post I am using as a test target contains the text "The prototype had a displacement of".  I did a search with those words (without any punctuation marks) and it gave the message that search terms must contain at least 2 characters. I then repeated the search  without the ‘a’. That gave 12 hits. Each of these contained all the words scattered about in various places and not in the same order but my target post was not among them.
 
Another piece of text in the target is "R-class ships". A search with those words gave 100 results containing the word 'ships' but not 'R-class' or even 'class'. Deleting the hyphen and searching with 'Rclass ships' gave no matches. Searching with 'class ships' gave 100 matches with the words in any location. This suggests to me that the hyphen caused the first word to be completely ignored. I then searched with the "R-class ships" between quotation marks and that returned no matches, despite it being in the target post. I'm sure the words 'class' and 'ships' must be in a very large number of posts so I conclude that the search results are limited to 100 matches, which seems a reasonable limitation. But I'm wondering if there is something about the particular test target post that prevents it being detected. If so, then does the same issue affect some other posts also?
I'm not disputing that the search engine is very useful but I just wish I understood it better. The help page on the search function did not help me understand this issue,
Mike

[derekwarner]

Mike...I certainly have no 'behind the scenes' knowledge of the database search functionality, however if you wanted to delve further into the unknown  ...asking questions to the simplemachines forum may provide an answer


https://www.simplemachines.org/about/smf/license.php .....and search the Feature List..........

Naturally I would be interested if such an answer is provided


Derek

[C-3PO]

Did you try searching for the complete line below including double quote marks?

"The prototype had a displacement of"





Also beware of the minus sign !!!
From SMF
Search Modifiers

Using the simple or advanced search methods, you can still use search modifiers. These are powerful special characters which modify the way in which SMF handles your search string.

    Phrase search - use double quotes (") around your term ("search term") to search for the search term as a phrase instead of individual words.
    Excluding terms - use a minus sign in front of terms you would like to exclude from the search result. For instance, "search -term" will search for "search" but not "term". The minus sign must have a space prior to it.

More search modifiers may be found at Google's help page. Not all of them may be useful in SMF at the present time.


Regards
C-3PO

[TurboTyne]

Thanks 3-CPO. Yes I did try that search and the only hit was on a message in the current topic (i.e. 'How reliable is the search function?')
Regards,Mike

[TurboTyne]

Sorry I should have said C-3PO.

[Martin (Admin)]

It doesn't work very well unfortunately. There was a post some time ago which suggested using an external internet search which worked OK but I can't recall the details. Maybe someone else can recall it.

Colin

I remember that post too Colin... ironically I can't find it either!   

Basically, go back to home page: https://www.modelboatmayhem.co.uk/forum/  ... and use search from there.
( SMF forum software is really showing it age but the designers / owners seem to be stuck in a 1990's time ! )
 
 
 
 

[tigertiger]

( SMF forum software is really showing it age but the designers / owners seem to be stuck in a 1990's time ! )
 
 



  They probably don't want to spend any more time on an obsolescent bit if software. The original creators may have retired by now, and so it is no longer anyone's 'baby'.

[derekwarner]

Not so, the Simple Machines forum have confirmed a latest update patch as Version 2.1.4 in year 2023.......so are still in control of the engine 

SMF still powers many hundreds of WEB Forums

extract from SMF website
-------------------------
Sat, 10 Jun 2023 17:18:17 GMTSMF 2.1.3 Released
Dear Members,Simple Machines is pleased to announce a new patch for the 2.1.x line of SMF, which pushes the version number to 2.1.3
Notable changes in SMF 2.1.