Improving the "search" function

[fitear1590 2414]

After @chemicalpictures' recent status, I thought it would make sense to have a topic about this:

Is there any way to improve the search function?

I think there are many of us who have encountered problems when searching for kanji/kana. For all intents and purposes, it doesn't work, at least not very well. I've been lucky in the past putting quotation marks (") around what I'm searching for and that somewhat helps, but not always. It's pretty unpredictable.

Have you encountered any other issues, besides those with kanji/kana?

If we see what concrete problems there are with searching, maybe the admins could let us know which ones could be dealt with/fixed within the confines of the forum software.

[doombox 4421]

This is the main reason I try to romanize everything. Also use the name in the tags for band names 3 letters or less. (just in case people are looking for a workaround in the meantime)

 

It would be nice to search in japanese, though.

[shinobu. 252]

I feel like, especially for downloads, people should tag the artists' name both in kanji and romanji. That's what I do, and when I test it by using the search engine, it comes up easier.

[yakihiko 1480]

 Also use the name in the tags for band names 3 letters or less. (just in case people are looking for a workaround in the meantime)

 

This!

I think we can besides doing this and adding kanji, we can put label names like: PSC company, Universal, etc to the tags.

When I sourch for Kra, I had to look for the album names and songs names instead of the band name.

[eiheartx 1310]

yeees. It's a nightmare to search for D's threads xD but in this case (1 letter), I don't know if there is a solution.
 

I feel like, especially for downloads, people should tag the artists' name both in kanji and romanji. That's what I do, and when I test it by using the search engine, it comes up easier.

 
^yes to this . And not only in tags, but in the titles thread too. Not everyone can speak japanese ffs.

But what about this:

• And finally, please do not tag either the release title or artist. These are both searchable through the topic title of each post, respectively.

shiiiit! xDDD

[doombox 4421]

Because of that I would not tag band names that are able to be searched normally, anything 4 letters or more when romanized should come up.

[beni 2149]

Glad someone brought this up. I'm not too fussy though, and I continue to search different words of whatever I'm trying to find, so I don't really know what could improve it. These, however, should be done from now on, I think. Many thanks.

 

And finally, please do not tag either the release title or artist. These are both searchable through the topic title of each post, respectively.

 

I feel like, especially for downloads, people should tag the artists' name both in kanji and romanji. That's what I do, and when I test it by using the search engine, it comes up easier.

[Zeus 7997]

After @chemicalpictures' recent status, I thought it would make sense to have a topic about this:

Is there any way to improve the search function?

I think there are many of us who have encountered problems when searching for kanji/kana. For all intents and purposes, it doesn't work, at least not very well. I've been lucky in the past putting quotation marks (") around what I'm searching for and that somewhat helps, but not always. It's pretty unpredictable.

Have you encountered any other issues, besides those with kanji/kana?

If we see what concrete problems there are with searching, maybe the admins could let us know which ones could be dealt with/fixed within the confines of the forum software.

The short answer is yes.

 

The longer answer is that it's a gigantic pain in the ass due to limitations of both the database and the forum software, and whatever improvements and I would make would have to be undone when we transition to the newest version of the forum software in a few months. When we do transition, the search function will have been overhauled and hopefully improved enough to be useful. I actually added small improvements to the search function during the last maintenance but it's still a buggy piece of crap. It's really in IPB's court to fix broken core functionality instead of leaving it to the sysops to hack around.

 

 

I feel like, especially for downloads, people should tag the artists' name both in kanji and romanji. That's what I do, and when I test it by using the search engine, it comes up easier.

 

 

• And finally, please do not tag either the release title or artist. These are both searchable through the topic title of each post, respectively.

Kanji/Kana searching is one of those nebulous limitations I was talking about earlier. Finding a band named "D" is damn near impossible without some other type of information as well. As a side note, one of the reasons why -OZ- changed their name is because the character "-" is used as an expression which means "leave this out of the search result". Search engines would interpret -OZ- as "leave out OZ- from my search result of nothing" and Google would actually return nothing. I think they picked up on it after I mentioned it and that's why they changed their name to OZ. You can try it now and see for yourself.

Anyways, both of these are great ideas but make for unenforceable rules. I would much rather leave this as something highly suggested that the community just does because it makes life easier for everyone.

[Owl 347]

yeees. It's a nightmare to search for D's threads xD but in this case (1 letter), I don't know if there is a solution.

 

 

^yes to this . And not only in tags, but in the titles thread too. Not everyone can speak japanese ffs.

But what about this:

• And finally, please do not tag either the release title or artist. These are both searchable through the topic title of each post, respectively.

shiiiit! xDDD

 

In some cases tagging artists' name is the only way to find their releases later. For example you can tag 3 letters long bandnames (And, Sid) (btw I think D could also be tagged like that), this also works for bands with widely used names (Link). I don't think tagging artists' names or releases hurts someone, so it was a good suggestion.