search engine

[doris]

to me, the search engine is one of the most valueable assets wci has. however when i search for example for one of the for carvers interesting topics as

eye, ear, dog, cat, owl

i get an error message saying

The search term you specified (owl) is under the minimum word length (4) and therefore will not be found. Please make this term longer.

now, of course, sometimes there are workarounds, i can search for eyes instead of eye, however i might miss the interesting thread of a carver showing how to carve a studystick with a single eye on it, and hence he always talks about "eye" and not "eyes"...

so, my request would be, to consider on next update of wci to relax the length restriction on words for the searchengine...

[Paul_Guraedy]

I sympathize and agree totally with Doris. This has been most frustrating to me as I try and figure out some way of making the search engine find exactly what I am looking for.

I suppose that the minimum holds true no matter how many words are used (if all are under 4) since I have had it reject this type search also. Maybe I just don't understand how to make it work. I have had a little better luck by using the advance search option.

[doris]

if only one word has length less than 4 the error box occurs, and advanced search did not help me,,sadly,,.. yes, sometimes i find workaround, but how can i find all threads with owl in them ? i dont know all the english names for all kind of owls, and then maybe some really just write owl... yes, i really hope for they relax this restriction of length

[CarverFromNoWhere]

I feel exactly the same when I have been having trouble finding a certain post I just search for the WCI member screen name who started the thread except that doesn't work very well if you don't know who started it .

They should change it
Carl

[thebugleboy]

Originally Posted by doris

to me, the search engine is one of the most valueable assets wci has. however when i search for example for one of the for carvers interesting topics as

eye, ear, dog, cat, owl

i get an error message saying

now, of course, sometimes there are workarounds, i can search for eyes instead of eye, however i might miss the interesting thread of a carver showing how to carve a studystick with a single eye on it, and hence he always talks about "eye" and not "eyes"...

so, my request would be, to consider on next update of wci to relax the length restriction on words for the searchengine...

Can you insert a wildcard like an asterisk with three character search titles?

[doris]

good that you said "like an asterisk", since i never knew what "wildcard" is (does translate to german words that not make sense to me in combination with searching) ... and it does work !!! yippiee, i find now all "owl" threads. thanks a lot, thebugleboy, that was best tip of the year !

[thebugleboy]

Much obliged, Ma'am.

[CarverFromNoWhere]

Thanks a ton Bugleboy Thumbs Up.
Carl

[thebugleboy]

Originally Posted by Carver/Turner_FromNowhere

Thanks a ton Bugleboy Thumbs Up.
Carl

You are quite welcome. Any small thing I can contribute makes me feel good. You folks have given much on this site. Thank you.

[admin]

Fixing this is on my todo list. To do it I need to take the forum offline and rebuild the database's indexes, so I need some free time when the forum is not too busy. We might schedule a forum upgrade and role this in with it to minimize any downtime.

One work around that you might want to try in the interim is using quotes for your searches. This actually can often yield better results as well. If you are searching for "eye" (or any 3 letter word) try searching for something specific to your subject as well but in quotes. Thus try:

"eagle eye"

While with certain nouns this does not always work great, for adjectives it can work wonders. "blue eye" or "red wood" get some good results. In most cases this will bring back fewer results but of a lot better magnitude.


--Claudio