Tag Search Testing

February 2, 2006 3:00 PM

I'm testing out tag search on MeFi. Here's a search for "goo" and one for "music" showing typical results. It can be reached on the search page. Post any bugs or further suggestions inside.
posted by mathowie to Feature Requests at 3:00 PM (35 comments total)

I'm also working on thread search, and will be bringing both thread search and tag search to ask mefi when any bugs are worked out.

I'll be sure to link the tag and thread search on the front page posting pages for both sites, and write a short tutorial on avoiding double posts. I just need a day or so to work that stuff up and fix any problems.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:15 PM on February 2, 2006

I see that the search for tags must be at least three characters. Sometimes people add tags that are one- or two-letter words, like tv, though for the most part it's people making a sentence into tags, or making a joke or something. Should maybe tags be limited to three characters or more so as to cut down on that? Or allow the search to be any number or characters? Or, non-issue?

It also looks like there's a wildcard on the end of words -- searching for "flash" will bring up "flashfriday" and "flashmob," but searching for "mob" doesn't bring up "flashmob," only tags that start with "mob." Is that important to anybody?
posted by Gator at 3:16 PM on February 2, 2006

Is that important to anybody?

The tyranny of the leftmost! It's not a huge deal but being able to do a true character search would be cool, but if it's a headache, no biggie.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:18 PM on February 2, 2006

yeah, I could search for *flash* instead of just flash* but doing that same search for "goo" turns up like 100 results for anything that remotely has "goo" somewhere in it.

That's good for finding random tags but easy to get lost in the results.

And I could go down to 2 characters as a minimum.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:22 PM on February 2, 2006

Wildcards would be nice, e.g. *us* would return music, muse, use, bonus, etc.
posted by Rothko at 3:23 PM on February 2, 2006

hmm, the "us" search is a nightmare. I'm going to paginate it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:24 PM on February 2, 2006

Consider requiring wildcards be specified, or some default order, perhaps exact matches first. Searching on "us", the "US" tag is fifth down the list.
posted by Rothko at 3:34 PM on February 2, 2006

would it be possible to add a "Deleted" tag to all deleted threads? Maybe a "Metafilter", "MetaTalk", "AskMe" to their respective threads?
posted by blue_beetle at 3:35 PM on February 2, 2006

beetle causes an error for me. Oh the huge manatee!
posted by blue_beetle at 3:37 PM on February 2, 2006

nevermind, it's fixed now. Someone must be doing development on the live system.
posted by blue_beetle at 3:38 PM on February 2, 2006

The thread search looks great (or it did a minute ago when it was working, heh), and best of all the results are ordered by date. Awesome.

It (apparently) only searches the FPPs though, and not the comments; maybe it'd be useful to add a reminder note to the effect that people should still use Yahoo/Google if they're looking for a particular comment? (Or will you be adding comments to the thread search too?)
posted by Gator at 3:38 PM on February 2, 2006

I'm still working on it, so it'll be kinda messed up for the next hour or so.

Gator, comment search has been off the table for the past two years, and the search page used to reflect that, and will eventually, to make sure people know it's just a thread search and only a thread search. Comments can be searched with google or yahoo.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:40 PM on February 2, 2006

blue_beetle, this tag search only searches tagged mefi posts, so adding "Maybe a "Metafilter", "MetaTalk", "AskMe" to their respective threads?" isn't necessary.

I need to do some fixes to account for tagged, but deleted threads, but that's a separate issue from searching for tags.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:42 PM on February 2, 2006

How does the _ work in searches? q_ gave me a strange result in that page 4 onwards just repeats. It also gives me different results when I use _q
posted by tellurian at 3:50 PM on February 2, 2006

regex, perhaps?
posted by odinsdream at 3:55 PM on February 2, 2006

Thank jebus!

And Matt.
posted by tristeza at 4:01 PM on February 2, 2006

tellurian, it appears that _ characters are ignored.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:23 PM on February 2, 2006

I would not have guessed that "thread search" means it only search the text of the FPP. In my mind, the thread is the FPP + comments.
posted by smackfu at 4:35 PM on February 2, 2006

sorry, I'll call it "Post search" from here on out then. And it's back up to three characters minimum, since the post search is dreadfully slow.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:46 PM on February 2, 2006

How does the _ work in searches? q_ gave me a strange result in that page 4 onwards just repeats. It also gives me different results when I use _q

In SQL, an underscore is a wildcard that matches any single character (example). Note the difference between this and this.
posted by cillit bang at 5:32 PM on February 2, 2006

cillit bang: underscore is a wildcard
Fantastic, thanks.
posted by tellurian at 6:09 PM on February 2, 2006

Batshitinsane works. Do we really need any others?
posted by duck at 9:04 PM on February 2, 2006

Thanks Matthew.








Any chance of getting the user search back?
posted by timeistight at 10:18 PM on February 2, 2006

Cool beans, #1.
posted by klangklangston at 10:23 PM on February 2, 2006

naw, no user search. I can barely bring post search back.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:47 PM on February 2, 2006

Batshitinsane works. Do we really need any others?

ahem.
posted by jonson at 11:40 PM on February 2, 2006

[this is _____goo_____]
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:30 AM on February 3, 2006

There 41 results for "goo" in the following tags
Should be There are...
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:34 AM on February 3, 2006

naw, no user search. I can barely bring post search back.

How about opening them up for google etc. then?
posted by timeistight at 4:55 AM on February 3, 2006

Searching for related tag combinations (iraq+war) doesn't work via search, which would be very nice.

Is there a way to limit searches as well (iraq-war, for example)? That would be a pony with a bright pink ribbon in its tail.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 4:57 AM on February 3, 2006

As a micropony, can I suggest that if a user hits a search button (in the top or bottom nav) while leaving the search box itself blank, he or she should be taken to the main search page rather than Yahoo's home page? I'd find this easier than looking around for the little "Search" text.
posted by whir at 10:13 AM on February 3, 2006

Searching for related tag combinations (iraq+war) doesn't work via search, which would be very nice.

This isn't really possible in the search, but it's already sort of there.

Search for one tag, then go to the tag page for it, which carries links along the side to shared terms (the little + sign is a link to that). Click the + sign to see tag1 AND tag2 threads.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:21 AM on February 3, 2006

whir, the searchbox goes directly to yahoo, so they treat empty searches in their own way (just as if google was the default search).

You shouldn't expect form elements to be used as navigation, they were never designed in that way (the header and footer already have "Search" links).
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:22 AM on February 3, 2006

I made a metafilter tag search/rss feed button for the new google toolbar incase anyone wants it:

Code follows (cut and paste this into the advanced button editor in the google toolbar -- the beta v4 toolbar)

<custombuttons xmlns=\"http://toolbar.google.com/custombuttons/\">
<button>
<search>http://www.metafilter.com/searched.mefi?search={query}&option=1</search>
<site>http://www.metafilter.com/search.mefi</site>
<title>metafilter</title>
<feed>http://xml.metafilter.com/rss.xml</feed>
<description>Search Metafilter Tags</description>
<icon mode=\"base64\">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</icon>
</button>
</custombuttons>
posted by empath at 1:07 PM on February 3, 2006

slight change of plans, but I'm going to take down search for the weekend and see if I can retool it. The server's been down a bunch today and that's the last change I made before stability became a problem.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:32 PM on February 3, 2006