username search function

March 2, 2008 5:22 PM

On the change to the search function re: usernames...

It used to be one could search for comments by people using the username and something from the comment, i.e., to find the quote about hamsters by weirdo9, you would search for "weirdo9" and "hamsters" and voila, multiple options would come up.

Now only those options come up where someone has responded, "weirdo9, your thoughts on hamsters intrigue me..." - that is, the username no longer seems to be included in the search (as confirmed here).

Is there any plan to fix this? It was very useful to be able to look up a particular comment this way, as well as to browse what so-and-so has said about topic X over the years.

posted by mdn to Feature Requests at 5:22 PM (23 comments total)

Go to weirdo9's user page, then hit the user search for their history. example: every mention of the word search by mdn
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:25 PM on March 2, 2008

yeah we're hoping search 2.0 will have more faceted search options but for now the search on a user page works pretty well. For searching phrases you can always add "posted by jessamyn" [or whoever] into Google and get decent results.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:21 PM on March 2, 2008

Yeah, this is an annoying lack of functionality.
posted by sneakin at 6:39 PM on March 2, 2008

I haven't used the word "balls" as much as I'd hoped.
posted by SassHat at 7:32 PM on March 2, 2008

sheer elegance.
posted by quonsar at 7:48 PM on March 2, 2008

Yeah, this is an annoying lack of functionality.

Nope, it exists, and we'll implement it in an advanced search page. Previously, it was just using google for search (we never had a magical in-house search engine that did what the original poster describes) and you're welcome to continue doing that. Just search on "username" and "keyword" in google and throw in "site:metafilter.com" and your Google search will give you MeFi-only results for any page that featured the user you are looking for talking about the subject you wanted to find out about.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:22 PM on March 2, 2008

sheer elegance.
posted by quonsar at 10:48 PM on March 2 [+] [!]


Bitch, when did you come back?!
posted by SassHat at 9:15 PM on March 2, 2008

ok - so it just used to be a google search connected on the front page? i guess i can go back to that via the "site:metafilter.com" thing, or go with the user page search if I have something more specific in mind.
In any case, thanks for the responses.
posted by mdn at 10:27 PM on March 2, 2008

mdn, if you're running firefox or IE7 you should be able to add MeFi to the google search bar in the upper right-hand corner of your browser window. Then just click the drop-down menu, select the MeFi icon, and you got your sitewide google search. Here's the MeTa thread where that feature got rolled out.
posted by carsonb at 11:30 PM on March 2, 2008

Thank you! I didn't even notice that the 'search-within-comment' function had become a reality! You guys rock!
posted by maryh at 11:30 PM on March 2, 2008

Err, I skipped a step in there somewhere. Here's the relevant quote:

you might notice being on a mefi site, the upper right search box [in your firefox 2.0/IE7 browser] is glowing or highlighted. If you click it, you can add a server-wide MeFi search (using the Google aggregated results from all *.metafilter.com sites) and search directly from your browser.
posted by carsonb at 11:31 PM on March 2, 2008

Wow, a moment of MeFi history—the very first fishpants comment:

i have fish in my pants.
posted to MeFi by quonsar at 9:41 PM on September 21, 2004
posted by languagehat at 6:56 AM on March 3, 2008

Yeah, it really looks as if quonsar singlehandedly created that fishpants meme on September 21 and 22 in 2004. Am I reading that right, or were other parties involved? Is there more historicity to uncover?
posted by cgc373 at 8:11 AM on March 3, 2008

No, I'm pretty sure quonsar just decided one day he had a fish in his pants and he should tell the world about it.
posted by languagehat at 8:39 AM on March 3, 2008

I always thought it was a reference to the Tom Waits episode of Fishing With John. But possibly I was overthinking the fish in quonsar's pants.
posted by ook at 9:24 AM on March 3, 2008

i have fish in my pants.
posted to MeFi by quonsar at 9:41 PM on September 21, 2004

Some loaves and he's the new Messiahss.
posted by jamjam at 11:41 AM on March 3, 2008

i have fish in my pants.
posted to MeFi by quonsar at 9:41 PM on September 21, 2004

Interestingly, since the plural of "fish" is also "fish", he could, theoretically, have hundreds of them in there.
posted by misha at 11:58 AM on March 3, 2008

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posted by bigmusic at 5:14 PM on March 6, 2008

Did your comment pass?
posted by ook at 12:59 PM on March 11, 2008

It passed me right on by. What's up, bigmusic?
posted by cgc373 at 1:37 AM on March 15, 2008

I was trying to see if there was any way to achive indentation for new paragraphs.
posted by bigmusic at 9:25 AM on March 17, 2008

     Oh. Now you have me curious; I wonder if you can do it with non-breaking spaces ( ) -- they work in live preview but possibly will get stripped out on post. Which I'm about to test with this. Which is probably exactly what you were doing, so this is likely to fail, and I'm wasting my time, but that part we knew already.
posted by ook at 11:35 AM on March 17, 2008

it works!
posted by bigmusic at 12:47 PM on March 17, 2008