CS>[List Owner] On subject morphing...
From: M. G. Devour
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 16:04:32
http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/m74279.html
[... trim to save everyone's time]
> The search engine at the archives is extremely weak. It will only
> accept search terms of 4 characters or more. It does only logical
> AND searches on multiple terms. No way to do logic OR or to
> exclude results by a NOT function. It's very crude.
> It does, however, search the entire message, Subject line and
> body. Therefore searches will still find a subject based on
> keywords in the body even when the subject line morphs or the
> topic has slid out from under the old Subject.
> So searching will typically be a multi-stage process, using search
> terms to identify an initial set of messages, then clicking on the
> View This Thread link within particular messages, reading that,
> then going back to grab the next thread, and so on.
> Seriously, I can barely see an advantage to *either* method, as
> far as searching is concerned. Meanwhile morphing the Subject to
> keep up with the actual topic has the advantage of being easier to
> skim through a subject or date ordered listing...
[...]
> We should discuss this openly here for now, so everybody can know
> what's being said. I'm listening.
> Mike D.
> da list owner guy
Mike,
It would probably be difficult to set a policy on changing the
subject line. Sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn't, and
any attempt to set a policy would bring endless posts promoting both
sides. As you point out, the archives are invaluable, but searching
is very difficult.
Apparently it only accepts single words of 4 characters or more. I
just tried a phrase that I know exists in the archives, and it
couldn't find it.
I would love to have a chance to write proper search code to search
the list archives, and would be happy to volunteer my time and
effort. Perhaps the best model is Google, where they look for
different spellings for the search terms you entered, and offer a
choice. There are many ways to do this - starting with the Soundex
method and going to more advanced techniques. For someone who loves
high-performance code, this would be an interesting challenge.
Another option is to use one of the the free Google search options,
such as the free Public Service Search described here:
"Google is pleased to offer educational institutions and
non-profit organizations worldwide free SiteSearch, which enables
users to search your website, and free WebSearch, which enables
users to search the Internet."
"The features of the service are listed below:
Free SiteSearch with optional WebSearch
No advertising
Unlimited queries
Traffic reports
High level of customization"
http://services.google.com/publicservice/login
This would give people who are familiar with using Google immediate
access to the archives, and allow the system to improve as Google
adds new features. All it would take is having the site owner allow
Google to crawl the archives, which is a bandwidth issue that costs
money.
But after the site is archived, all searches are done from Google's
cache, which cost the site nothing. So it would actually reduce the
bandwidth cost for searches.
This is definitely worth discussing with the site owner. If it would
make any difference, perhaps we could ask for a vote for all those
in favor of improving the search, and all those against:)
Best Wishes,
Mike Monett
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