Forum Search Syntax (split from "Who killed...?")

[bigdjiver]

... This forum is a veritable goldmine. There is a lot of good stuff, buried deep in it, but you have to do a lot of sifting to find it. I've often wondered whether the idea of rating threads was possible, rather than just pinning them - that way very good threads would be more likely to stay alive. See, we're now also getting to the stage where my constant criticism of the vBulletin search facilities is justified - being able to find the good stuff from long ago is a right PITA...

Google, and, perhaps, some other search engines, understand the site search syntax like such

site:cerocscotland.com/forum whatever -rubbish


Split off from "Who Killed The Ceroc Scotland Forum?" as requested in a Reported Post - DavidY

[Dreadful Scathe]

Google, and, perhaps, some other search engines, understand the site search syntax like such

site:cerocscotland.com/forum whatever -rubbish

I tried that. It returned everything

[Beowulf]

site:cerocscotland.com/forum whatever -rubbish

or form a url query such as..

http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/tags.php?tag=CAKE

replacing cake with "whatever"

[David Franklin]

or form a url query such as..

http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/tags.php?tag=CAKE

Spookily, I tried that with the new GlaDOS search engine, and this is what came out...

This was a triumph.
I'm making a note here: huge flamage!
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction!

Ceroc-Scotland-Forum
we post what we must
because we can
for the good of all of us
except the ones who have left

But there's no use crying over every bad post
you just keep on flaming till the forum is toast
and the banter goes on
and you make a neat pun
for the people who are still around.

I'm not even angry.
I'm being so sincere right now.
Even though you broke the rules
and killed me.
And tore threads to pieces.
And threw every piece into a flame war.
As they burned it hurt because the popcorn was gone

Now these post of outrage are a beautiful crime
And we're out of popcorn - time for cheesecake with lime
So I'm glad folks got burned,
think of all the things we learned
for the people who are still around.

Go ahead and leave me.
I think I prefer to stay with Franck.
Maybe you'll find someone else to help you.
Maybe it's Rocky,
THAT WAS A JOKE.
HAHA. FAT CHANCE.

Anyway, this cake is great.
It's so delicious and moist.

Look at me still talking
when there's posting to do.
When I look out there, it makes me GLaD I'm not you.
I've trolls to run.
There's insulting to be done.
On the people who are still around.

And believe me I am still alive.
I'm hosting banter and I'm still alive.
I feel FANTASTIC and I'm still alive.
While you're leaving I'll be still alive.
And when you've left I will be still alive.

STILL ALIVE (x2)

[StokeBloke]

Spookily, I tried that with the new GlaDOS search engine, and this is what came out...

This was a triumph.
I'm making a note here: huge flamage!
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction!

Ceroc-Scotland-Forum
we post what we must...

{snip weird poem}

...And when you've left I will be still alive.

STILL ALIVE (x2)

... You! You made me do this, your tainted blood in me! [A cartoon laughs from the TV] Don't laugh at me, mother! Don't laugh at me!

[bigdjiver]

I tried that. It returned everything

What exactly were you looking for, and what exactly did you type in?

[bigdjiver]

I tried that. It returned everything

I tried that syntax too. If used correctly a google search can return results down to a single post, e.g. I used the search string:

site:cerocscotland.com/forum "neg rep" scathe "22nd-January-2007" pathetic

The syntax I posted works. By posting wrong information you have damaged my efforts to help other forumites, and wasted my time.

[Dreadful Scathe]

The syntax I posted works. By posting wrong information you have damaged my efforts to help other forumites, and wasted my time.

it was a joke, and clearly went way over your head. You wasted your own time.

[bigdjiver]

it was a joke, and clearly went way over your head. You wasted your own time.

How is posting false information funny? Wouldn't that search tip help lots of forumites, and anybody else that may come across it? It is not the first time you have tried to sabotage carefully researched posts of mine designed to share things I have learned. Are you so devoid of talent that you have nothing more useful to do?

[Dreadful Scathe]

How is posting false information funny?

The people who repped me thought it was funny You suggested a flag to search the forum for "rubbish", i suggested it returned everything. Thats not false information, its a joke. A joke is not meant to be factual and if a joke has to be explained it is not as funny (something you said to me once on this very forum)

It is not the first time you have tried to sabotage carefully researched posts of mine designed to share things I have learned.

Sabotage? Your posts either stand up on their own or they don't. All I can do is reply in the same thread with an opinion. People can ignore either of us as they see fit.

[bigdjiver]

The people who repped me thought it was funny

There are people who think putting drunken mates into rubbish bins is funny.

You suggested a flag to search the forum for "rubbish", i suggested it returned everything...

No, I did not. I was demonstrating syntax. To do that I suggested a flag to exclude rubbish, that is what -rubbish does

Thats not false information,

Yes it is. You said you had tried it. You said it had returned everything.

... its a joke. A joke is not meant to be factual...

The best jokes containn an inner truth, hence the saying "Many a true word is spoken in jest." Those that understood the meaning of "syntax" and the significance of the - sign in front of a search term, the very people who would have most to benefit from using that search technique, may well have taken your word for the fact that you had tried it and the joke was that I had made a colossal **** up. Hence my anger.

Having seen that your reply was based on an excusable ignorance of the significance of the - sign in searches I aplogise for the severity of my reaction.

However I am not above using it to make another educational point. When I quote stats about searches for dance classes I do not include synonyms, such as dance lessons, dance class, which lowers the estimates of searchers, nor do I include terms like -lap -pole -sexy which raise the number of results. There does seem to be a significant gap in the market for lap dance classes.

Sabotage? Your posts either stand up on their own or they don't.

That is why I was angry. My post does stand up on its own. When you replied "I've tried it" and you had not. That lie destroyed it.

...All I can do is reply in the same thread with an opinion. People can ignore either of us as they see fit...

You did not reply with an "opinion" you replied with a false statement that I now accept you intended as a joke.

My anger is mostly caused because this is not the first time. I am spending my retirement doing hundreds of hours of work in order to help the spread of MJ. There are those that will sieze on any crumb in order not to have to take my work seriously, and you are supplying some of those crumbs.

[David Franklin]

No, I did not. I was demonstrating syntax. To do that I suggested a flag to exclude rubbish, that is what -rubbish does.

To be honest, you probably should have given more explanation. If DS misunderstood what "-rubbish" meant (which is what I think happened), odds are a lot of other people did as well.

The best jokes containn an inner truth, hence the saying "Many a true word is spoken in jest." Those that understood the meaning of "syntax" and the significance of the - sign in front of a search term, the very people who would have most to benefit from using that search technique, may well have taken your word for the fact that you had tried it and the joke was that I had made a colossal **** up.

Those that understood the significant of those terms would surely have realised that if the search really did return everything, it was because the vBulletin search function is a colossal **** up. (And let's face it, the default assumption with anything to do with the vBulletin search function is "colossal **** up").

That is why I was angry. My post does stand up on its own. When you replied "I've tried it" and you had not. That lie destroyed it.

I don't actually think that's true. Your post was pretty brief - I suspect anyone who could understand it would also have understood that DS was making a joke. (Slightly complicated by the fact that DS got the joke wrong. He should have said "I tried that, and it returned nothing").

My anger is mostly caused because this is not the first time. I am spending my retirement doing hundreds of hours of work in order to help the spread of MJ. There are those that will sieze on any crumb in order not to have to take my work seriously, and you are supplying some of those crumbs.

I really don't mean this unkindly, but does it ever occur to you that you're going about it all wrong?

A very large number of your posts basically come down to "If only organizers had the sense to do this, MJ would be so much more successful". Often with subsidiary anecdotes about you telling a venue manager what to do and them ignoring you. I see very little evidence in your postings here that you've ever convinced anyone you're right.

There's a saying: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

There's also the 'meta' point that you are lecturing everyone about marketing, and yet it seems you're having very little success marketing your ideas to us. It puts your persuasive skills into question.

[I don't have the answer, and I don't doubt your sincerity, and I'm sure the situation is incredibly frustrating for you. But I think you need to rethink your strategy ].

[pmjd]

You suggested a flag to search the forum for "rubbish", i suggested it returned everything...

No, I did not. I was demonstrating syntax. To do that I suggested a flag to exclude rubbish, that is what -rubbish does

Yes it is. You said you had tried it. You said it had returned everything.

The best jokes containn an inner truth, hence the saying "Many a true word is spoken in jest." Those that understood the meaning of "syntax" and the significance of the - sign in front of a search term, the very people who would have most to benefit from using that search technique, may well have taken your word for the fact that you had tried it and the joke was that I had made a colossal **** up. Hence my anger.

Seriously, let it go...I can see the tongue in cheek side of the original comment by DS a mile off and appreciate the humour in his comment.

The search syntax was useful thought, so thank you for that, though as the private lounge is barred to google spiders (or whatever they are called), for somethings we are stuck with the poor VB search.

[Magic Hans]

...

The search syntax was useful thought, so thank you for that, though as the private lounge is barred to google spiders (or whatever they are called), for somethings we are stuck with the poor VB search.

I tried your second search example too ... and found it useful, as well as informative. Mind you I do have a (mainframe) programming background!!

[Dreadful Scathe]

No, I did not. I was demonstrating syntax. To do that I suggested a flag to exclude rubbish, that is what -rubbish does

Not everyone will understand "-" to mean "not include" and anyway, the word "rubbish" is much more noticeable, thus my joke. A joke, like many jokes, which was written purely to entertain anyone within 6 miles of a sense of humour.

the very people who would have most to benefit from using that search technique, may well have taken your word for the fact that you had tried it

I was surprised that you didn't get the joke, ill be even more surprised if there is anyone else.

That is why I was angry. My post does stand up on its own. When you replied "I've tried it" and you had not. That lie destroyed it.

Yes, you're right. Totally destroyed. I'm on my second monitor now The first one is a charred and smoking ruin after I forced it to display the sheer devastation of my reply. I got a phone call from the UN about it, but I pretended I was out.

There are those that will sieze on any crumb in order not to have to take my work seriously, and you are supplying some of those crumbs.

I have years of experience of crumb seizing on this forum. The slightest crumb can be a veritable digestive of a joke - sometimes a cheesecake.

To be honest, you probably should have given more explanation. If DS misunderstood what "-rubbish" meant (which is what I think happened), odds are a lot of other people did as well.

Well I do know what the "-" is for, as I'm sure Gav does too, and from his thanks for the post, I expect he got the joke and chuckled inwardly for at least 2 blinks.

I don't actually think that's true. Your post was pretty brief - I suspect anyone who could understand it would also have understood that DS was making a joke. (Slightly complicated by the fact that DS got the joke wrong. He should have said "I tried that, and it returned nothing").

That would not have been as funny. I think people would see "rubbish" and get the joke, but would be slower to get "-" as a "not" even if they did understand the significance. I think there are 3 "joke" reading camps involved here; got the joke, didn't got the joke, got the hump. The fact that any of the 3 camps may contain cheesecake lovers, is surely beside the point.

[I don't have the answer, and I don't doubt your sincerity, and I'm sure the situation is incredibly frustrating for you. But I think you need to rethink your strategy ].

I have to agree with this. In all seriousness bigdjiver, you are trying to make a difference and it may affect something i still enjoy doing. This is admirable and I appreciate it.

[Dreadful Scathe]

and now i feel really stupid for replying to this at all...

[bigdjiver]

Not everyone will understand "-" to mean "not include" and anyway, the word "rubbish" is much more noticeable, thus my joke. A joke, like many jokes, which was written purely to entertain anyone within 6 miles of a sense of humour...

Once again you resort to insult. There is no way on earth I could have seen that as a joke if I knew what I had written meant.

I was surprised that you didn't get the joke,

We can only guess why someone else is smiling, a smillie tagged on the end of a sentence does not mean "this is not true". My apologies for making the first assumption that you were being honest.

... Well I do know what the "-" is for ...

and were relying on those that did not to think it was funny, that the example I gave was actually searching for rubbish, and that the punch line is that everything written on this forum is rubbish?

... That would not have been as funny. I think people would see "rubbish" and get the joke, but would be slower to get "-" as a "not" even if they did understand the significance. I think there are 3 "joke" reading camps involved here; got the joke, didn't got the joke, got the hump...

When you are in a hole stop digging. To anybody that read and understood what I had written there is no joke.

The effectiveness of a forum search is something that affects all those with a serious use for the forum. This forum attests to the great number of us that have had our lifes transformed, mostly in good ways, by our hobby. The Alexa stats show forum matters. What people who have never heard of MJ read here matters. e.g. FWIW I have been helping an author with background info on the history of the Spectrum. He found me via post of mine on this forum, via an Internet search engine. I have, so far,failed to persuade him to go to a Ceroc evening, or to consider writing about MJ. I have just finished sending him a copy of one of the ads that won me a 10,000 contract advertising the launch of Dragon Computer, which sold out, and a two page advertising pull out about a a guy that spent a couple of hours listening to me and made a million. Sometimes I know what I am talking about.

... In all seriousness bigdjiver, you are trying to make a difference and it may affect something i still enjoy doing. This is admirable and I appreciate it.

[David Franklin]

That would not have been as funny

Yes it would.

Actually, I think funniest would have been one of those fake Google screenshots saying:

Your search - site:cerocscotland.com/forum whatever -rubbish - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

* Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
* Try different keywords.
* Try more general keywords.
* Try fewer keywords.
* Don't exclude posts tagged as 'rubbish'

But that's probably just me.

The fact that any of the 3 camps may contain cheesecake lovers, is surely beside the point.

The cheesecake is a lie.

[Dreadful Scathe]

Once again you resort to insult. There is no way on earth I could have seen that as a joke if I knew what I had written meant.

Ironically, that was another joke and not an insult. Lets put this to rest; you took the joke the wrong way, i now understand why and i apologise.

When you are in a hole stop digging.

I like digging, theres comedy gold down there. Pity I never find it, but i'll keep looking.

Actually, I think funniest would have been one of those fake Google screenshots saying:

yes, indeed. I can only agree. In future I will spend longer than 1 second planning any reply containing purile humour.*

The cheesecake is a lie.

but still a triumph, I'm making a note here - huge success


*perhaps 3 seconds or very nearly a nano minute

[David Franklin]

but still a triumph, I'm making a note here - huge success

That original post by BigD. It showed how to search the forum. It made the place navigable for newbies. Nice job breaking it, hero.