Re: [Wikitech-l] Search documentation
The true (old) MediaWiki documentation on search is still on Meta, it needs to be rewritten on mediawiki.org (PD and up to date): https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Searching Nobody reads the help pages, sure. That's why they should be linked from the special pages etc. as some extensions already do. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43591 Nemo ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] Search documentation
There were over 300,000 views of [[en:Help:Searching]] in June. [1] It definitely needs some improvement, but having some accurate documentation of MediaWiki search features to work from would really help. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_Project/page_statistics Peter On 18 June 2013 01:59, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com wrote: The true (old) MediaWiki documentation on search is still on Meta, it needs to be rewritten on mediawiki.org (PD and up to date): https://meta.wikimedia.org/**wiki/Help:Searchinghttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Searching Nobody reads the help pages, sure. That's why they should be linked from the special pages etc. as some extensions already do. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.**org/show_bug.cgi?id=43591https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43591 Nemo __**_ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikitech-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] Search documentation
My comments are based mostly on second hand knowledge. People who have tried have often ran into problems, asked for help on #mediawiki, and nobody knowing anything that can help them. Probably a large part of the issue is requiring people to install a separate (non-php) program that's not all that well documented. --bawolff On 6/17/13, Nikolas Everett never...@wikimedia.org wrote: One of our goals while building this has been to make something reasonably easy to install by folks outside of WMF. I've added some notes about this to the page. I'd certainly love to hear ways that'd make it simpler to use. Nik On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 8:23 PM, Brian Wolff bawo...@gmail.com wrote: Just as a note, MediaWiki default (aka crappy) search is very different from the lucene stuff used by Wikimedia. Lucene search is rather difficult to set up, so most third party wikis do not use it. --bawolff On 6/17/13, Nikolas Everett never...@wikimedia.org wrote: I'm not sure about http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Searching but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Searching has lots of things we're going to have to add to our list. My guess is http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Searching is simply out of date. Nik On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 4:33 PM, Chris McMahon cmcma...@wikimedia.orgwrote: On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 1:28 PM, S Page sp...@wikimedia.org wrote: * enwiki says Hello dolly in quotes gives different results, mw directly contradicts this. Even on my local wiki, quotes make a difference. * enwiki disagrees with itself what a dash in front of a word does. I did some research a few weeks ago on the current state of Search and there are a number of discrepancies between the documentation and actual behavior. Some of them have BZ tickets, like https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44238 -Chris ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] Search documentation
On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 11:31 AM, Brian Wolff bawo...@gmail.com wrote: My comments are based mostly on second hand knowledge. People who have tried have often ran into problems, asked for help on #mediawiki, and nobody knowing anything that can help them. Probably a large part of the issue is requiring people to install a separate (non-php) program that's not all that well documented. Well there's only so much we can do for people who are on shared hosting with only FTP and a database at their disposal. We could maybe improve SearchMysql a bit, but that's not really a goal with this project as we'd never use it on WMF sites. Solr, while still an external dependency, at least doesn't require people to build and configure a basically undocumented WMF-specific system to have a sane search. -Chad ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
[Wikitech-l] Search documentation
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/CirrusSearch This made me realize I have a poor sense of the features in search, so I read the documentation. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Searching is bare-bones, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Searching disagrees. Perhaps the former describes the default MediaWiki search features, while WMF has enabled more and different features on its wikis (such as intitle: and incategory: searches). * mw help doesn't mention the * suffix to search for partial matches, or the ~ prefix. Both work on my unmodified local wiki. * enwiki says Hello dolly in quotes gives different results, mw directly contradicts this. Even on my local wiki, quotes make a difference. * enwiki disagrees with itself what a dash in front of a word does. I fixed mw search's explanation of the two-button search box (no longer the default) but I don't know the details on the above. -- =S Page software engineer on Editor Engagement Experiments ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] Search documentation
On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 1:28 PM, S Page sp...@wikimedia.org wrote: * enwiki says Hello dolly in quotes gives different results, mw directly contradicts this. Even on my local wiki, quotes make a difference. * enwiki disagrees with itself what a dash in front of a word does. I did some research a few weeks ago on the current state of Search and there are a number of discrepancies between the documentation and actual behavior. Some of them have BZ tickets, like https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44238 -Chris ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] Search documentation
I'm not sure about http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Searching but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Searching has lots of things we're going to have to add to our list. My guess is http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Searching is simply out of date. Nik On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 4:33 PM, Chris McMahon cmcma...@wikimedia.orgwrote: On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 1:28 PM, S Page sp...@wikimedia.org wrote: * enwiki says Hello dolly in quotes gives different results, mw directly contradicts this. Even on my local wiki, quotes make a difference. * enwiki disagrees with itself what a dash in front of a word does. I did some research a few weeks ago on the current state of Search and there are a number of discrepancies between the documentation and actual behavior. Some of them have BZ tickets, like https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44238 -Chris ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] Search documentation
Just as a note, MediaWiki default (aka crappy) search is very different from the lucene stuff used by Wikimedia. Lucene search is rather difficult to set up, so most third party wikis do not use it. --bawolff On 6/17/13, Nikolas Everett never...@wikimedia.org wrote: I'm not sure about http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Searching but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Searching has lots of things we're going to have to add to our list. My guess is http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Searching is simply out of date. Nik On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 4:33 PM, Chris McMahon cmcma...@wikimedia.orgwrote: On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 1:28 PM, S Page sp...@wikimedia.org wrote: * enwiki says Hello dolly in quotes gives different results, mw directly contradicts this. Even on my local wiki, quotes make a difference. * enwiki disagrees with itself what a dash in front of a word does. I did some research a few weeks ago on the current state of Search and there are a number of discrepancies between the documentation and actual behavior. Some of them have BZ tickets, like https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44238 -Chris ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] Search documentation
One of our goals while building this has been to make something reasonably easy to install by folks outside of WMF. I've added some notes about this to the page. I'd certainly love to hear ways that'd make it simpler to use. Nik On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 8:23 PM, Brian Wolff bawo...@gmail.com wrote: Just as a note, MediaWiki default (aka crappy) search is very different from the lucene stuff used by Wikimedia. Lucene search is rather difficult to set up, so most third party wikis do not use it. --bawolff On 6/17/13, Nikolas Everett never...@wikimedia.org wrote: I'm not sure about http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Searching but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Searching has lots of things we're going to have to add to our list. My guess is http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Searching is simply out of date. Nik On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 4:33 PM, Chris McMahon cmcma...@wikimedia.orgwrote: On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 1:28 PM, S Page sp...@wikimedia.org wrote: * enwiki says Hello dolly in quotes gives different results, mw directly contradicts this. Even on my local wiki, quotes make a difference. * enwiki disagrees with itself what a dash in front of a word does. I did some research a few weeks ago on the current state of Search and there are a number of discrepancies between the documentation and actual behavior. Some of them have BZ tickets, like https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44238 -Chris ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] Search documentation
I think that from user perspective, such help pages are not very useful since most users don't read help pages. Some features (the important ones) should be hinted in the search form itself. In hewiki we modified the [[MediaWiki:Search-summary]][1] to include a small expandable table with hints for features (intitle/incategory e.g). Eran [1] http://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%93%D7%99%D7%94_%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%99:Search-summary?uselang=en On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 3:40 AM, Nikolas Everett never...@wikimedia.orgwrote: One of our goals while building this has been to make something reasonably easy to install by folks outside of WMF. I've added some notes about this to the page. I'd certainly love to hear ways that'd make it simpler to use. Nik On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 8:23 PM, Brian Wolff bawo...@gmail.com wrote: Just as a note, MediaWiki default (aka crappy) search is very different from the lucene stuff used by Wikimedia. Lucene search is rather difficult to set up, so most third party wikis do not use it. --bawolff On 6/17/13, Nikolas Everett never...@wikimedia.org wrote: I'm not sure about http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Searching but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Searching has lots of things we're going to have to add to our list. My guess is http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Searching is simply out of date. Nik On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 4:33 PM, Chris McMahon cmcma...@wikimedia.orgwrote: On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 1:28 PM, S Page sp...@wikimedia.org wrote: * enwiki says Hello dolly in quotes gives different results, mw directly contradicts this. Even on my local wiki, quotes make a difference. * enwiki disagrees with itself what a dash in front of a word does. I did some research a few weeks ago on the current state of Search and there are a number of discrepancies between the documentation and actual behavior. Some of them have BZ tickets, like https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44238 -Chris ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
