Looks like we can only search for words/phrases for no more than a week. Glitch, or intentional downgrading of this useful feature? If the latter .. why?
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Search function crippled
- Thread starter CTListener
- Start date
@CTListener There isn't anything for us to "intentionally downgrade". It just works as is. We haven't touched anything with the search. Can you provide an example as to what you're seeing differently. I just did searches both logged-in and logged-out for "99.1 Cleveland" and "Elvis Duran" and got results dating back to 2005, not just one week.
It's been noted by several participants in the Song Name Game, including myself. I just searched for "Vern Gosdin," a country singer whose songs I've used frequently, with the "this thread" criterion and got "no results" after a longer-than-normal pause. However, using the default criterion of "everywhere" generates a long list of results. AFAIK, the search was working perfectly using "this thread" until a couple of days ago. I know the Games section isn't a priority, and may be on borrowed time (as is your prerogative), but this is still curious. I haven't tried the search on any other forums yet.
It's not going away. Will it be expanded on (or promoted), probably not. But it'll just sit there unless it causes problems.
The more I think I figure out the underlying way things work on this system, the more I'm baffled by it.
One of the other board the admin said his brain is about to implode figuring out the underlying stuff. He jokes about switching to the super old school WWWBoard!
Sometimes that works better for me especially on older threads than the search on this board.
I'm noticing that when searching for some of my former posts, they don't appear in the results either, even though I can find them manually.
Here is one example. You will find posts by me on pages 7 and 10 of this thread:
https://radiodiscussions.com/threads/processing-clips.491867/page-10
However, if you use the forum's advanced search function to search for all posts by my username, those posts of mine in that thread won't be included. (At least, they aren't included for me, when I do it.)
It isn't just a problem with that one thread being picked up, either. I distinctly remember other posts I made around that era that don't appear in the aforementioned results.
Oh, and here's another possible symptom. I noticed when looking at this person's profile recently:
https://radiodiscussions.com/members/ericstein.64536/
... that the forum claims he has posted 2,722 messages. However, when I look here:
https://radiodiscussions.com/search/85661/?c[users]=EricStein&o=date
... only a tiny fraction of his posts are listed.
Not sure what's going on, but FYI.
Do the makers of XenForo offer support for issues like this? Back in the days when vBulletin was all the rage, they would actually go into your server for you and handle installations, database conversions, and generic troubleshooting if you weren't able to do it all yourself.
Here is one example. You will find posts by me on pages 7 and 10 of this thread:
https://radiodiscussions.com/threads/processing-clips.491867/page-10
However, if you use the forum's advanced search function to search for all posts by my username, those posts of mine in that thread won't be included. (At least, they aren't included for me, when I do it.)
It isn't just a problem with that one thread being picked up, either. I distinctly remember other posts I made around that era that don't appear in the aforementioned results.
Oh, and here's another possible symptom. I noticed when looking at this person's profile recently:
https://radiodiscussions.com/members/ericstein.64536/
... that the forum claims he has posted 2,722 messages. However, when I look here:
https://radiodiscussions.com/search/85661/?c[users]=EricStein&o=date
... only a tiny fraction of his posts are listed.
Not sure what's going on, but FYI.
Do the makers of XenForo offer support for issues like this? Back in the days when vBulletin was all the rage, they would actually go into your server for you and handle installations, database conversions, and generic troubleshooting if you weren't able to do it all yourself.
Keep in mind this site is over 25 years old and the database includes posts from the custom coded system we launched in 2004 through subsequent moves to SMF, VBulletin, XenForo and perhaps others. All those imports from different databases may have changed things that will be impossible to reproduce to repair. None of these open source software products have the resources to replicate better search functions you'll find at your search engine of choice (Example: using a site:radiodiscussions.com prefix on Google)
I'll be honest. We're not investing any time/funds into XenForo right now. In the few months since I took over hosting and managing the site, I've seen less and less of what I like about how this software works on the backend and will be exploring alternatives to add features I believe are necessary.
I'll be honest. We're not investing any time/funds into XenForo right now. In the few months since I took over hosting and managing the site, I've seen less and less of what I like about how this software works on the backend and will be exploring alternatives to add features I believe are necessary.
I miss the old vBulletin, before it got bought out. The ham radio board ran on that until about 10 years ago, then went to Invision for a short time then Xenforo. One of the admins on the ham board wanted to just set up a group on Faceplant, but he almost got ran outta town! Unlike RD here, the Ham board is a lot smaller in threads and members.
The "theadminzone dot com" board deals with board platforms and might get some good ideas there. The admin/backend area of XF seams to be lacking in stuff.
The "theadminzone dot com" board deals with board platforms and might get some good ideas there. The admin/backend area of XF seams to be lacking in stuff.
I end up here by accident doing Google searches a lot. Whatever search engine I was using back in the day is I guess how I discovered the place to begin with.
Keep in mind, I've been involved with message board software since 1997. I know the limitations of many of them and how I want to integrate with our other products. It's not so much with board features as most are similar, but creating the best user experience encompassing all of the site platforms.
And the more "features" that are added to most software, the more baffling the configuration becomes. It's just a sign of our times. 🙄
Regarding search, it seems it did randomly delete a period between maybe 2022-2016? Or some forums are now omitted. I’ve searched some call signs I know are discussed and were completely removed despite previously searching it and seeing dozens results that have now vanished. If this wasn’t literally dozens of posts I’d assume people just deleted threads. or posts.
As for alternatives….
Take a look at Invision, this is how it looks.
Additionally, is there a chance some of us would donate to help cover the costs of hosting and software — I would
Could this be of use? https://xenforo.com/community/threads/where-to-find-rebuild-search-index.13590/
This is what I do when I want to search any website, not just this one. Google is better at indexing and searching out content than any internal forum/website search function.
True, but only when your search requirements are simple. The forum software's advanced search page gives you powerful options that Google can't offer, such as displaying results as threads (to eliminate overloads of results when searching common strings), searching only topic lines, only showing results from specific subforums, letting you define time windows to search, and only showing threads with certain numbers of replies.
I vastly prefer the visual appearance of XenForo, myself. In general, the more a forum package resembles designs from the golden years of web forums, the better. Give me lots of visual tables, borders, edges and insets with contrast, and lots of text links to click. The more mobile-centric (reliant on inexplicable clickable pictograms for all interface elements) and "plain white void-y" (Windows 10-ish) web design becomes, the more I feel like I'm trying in vain to get serious things done with "the children's computers" in that "Rascals" episode of Star Trek: Next Generation.
- Status