Why is the search function so broken here?

[ds18s20]

Hi everyone,

Why is the search function so broken here? I have to go out to Google to do a keyword search for the raspberrypi.org forums and once I find the relevant posts be linked by Google back to the forums?

Such a hassle!

try searching using the forum's search feature for "rpi-update" -- no hits, really? LOL

Some keywords do produce coherent hits on raspberrypi.org forums but who knows how many don't and going out to Google for a meaningful search is just a hassle!

[gordon77]

This is the most annoying thing....

Information: The following words in your search query were ignored because they are too common words: keyboard.
You must specify at least one word to search for. Each word must consist of at least 3 characters and must not contain more than 14 characters excluding wildcards.

I did specify one word, and everything I type in appears to be 'too common'

[RaTTuS]

because it is - search is not easy ;-p
the - in rpi-update is a bad one
it is much easier to use a separate tab and use google and site:raspberrypi.org so do a search

anyway you don't want to run sudo rpi-update unless you have been told to ...

[davenull]

agree, effing annoying...

[ds18s20]

yep I've been using site:raspberrypi.org with Google search and it produces what I want so there's a solution but just not as elegant. The phpBB forums out in the wild do have Google-quality search capabilities but I guess RPI had to be different...

Anyway my successful search syntax in Google, just as the suggestions here is

Code: Select all

rpi-update site:raspberrypi.org

[Massi]

if you think that the broken search is the most annoying thing of the forum, try to attach an image to a post

Btw, as said a "simple workaround" for search problems is google..

[jamesh]

It's on the list of things to fix, and I believe there may be some work time available soon.

[ds18s20]

You mean like this:



LOL ok I am not being sarcastic but yes it does take ton of fiddling to do the whole img tag thing

[gordon77]

if you think that the broken search is the most annoying thing of the forum, try to attach an image to a post

Btw, as said a "simple workaround" for search problems is google..

You can get an image to attach eventually but you can't make the search work

[DougieLawson]

It's on the list of things to fix, and I believe there may be some work time available soon.

It'll never get fixed while the forum search box uses phpBB3's built-in search. That's been broken on all phpBB3 forums forever. Unfortunately you can't disable it or the forum moderation and forum admin functions break. So there quite simply isn't any way to fix it within phpBB3.

The only thing folks need to learn is site:raspberrypi.org/forums as an added keyword for their Google searches.

[davenull]

is it not possible to just drop keywords from sort of a "excluding-keyword-list" to be considered as "too common" ?

[DougieLawson]

What part of "use Google" did you miss?

[davenull]

nothing, but nevertheless I would prefer to have a better working phpbb-integrated forum's search

in our own phpbb3 forum we also use the integrated forum's search, and there is no rejecting of keywords, e.g. like "keyboard" (or, in German, even of: "Tastatur")

http://www.mindstormsforum.de/search.ph ... s=keyboard

[DougieLawson]

The search gets worse as the forum gets busier. It has a hard coded limit before it considers a word too common.

It really is a 100% awful design and a 100% awful implementation.

[davenull]

ahaa, that's the reason why, I see, thanks!