The Search Engine Is Kinda Crap June 27, 2003 9:06 AM Subscribe
When I search for the user "signal", I get one hit. I click on it, and see asterisk's home page. Surely that ain't right?
Working as designed. From asterisk's user page:
I came up with it back in the day of AOL busy signals and kids sitting in chat rooms for no particular reason.posted by timeistight at 9:11 AM on June 27, 2003
Oh rats. I'm stupid. It was matching a word. If I search for "all years" then I find a bunch of links and one is his.
Search results could be presented better, though. So I'm not completely and totally at fault, right? And it's probably my parent's fault for not feeding me correctly when I was little, or something, that's made me stupid.
Hey, signal, an email coming to you from that stupid stalker guy whose been posting crap to meta...
posted by andrew cooke at 9:11 AM on June 27, 2003
Search results could be presented better, though. So I'm not completely and totally at fault, right? And it's probably my parent's fault for not feeding me correctly when I was little, or something, that's made me stupid.
Hey, signal, an email coming to you from that stupid stalker guy whose been posting crap to meta...
posted by andrew cooke at 9:11 AM on June 27, 2003
yeah, as they said. sorry.
posted by andrew cooke at 9:12 AM on June 27, 2003
posted by andrew cooke at 9:12 AM on June 27, 2003
It searches all user profiles for the word "signal". And why search when you know the nick? Just use http://www.metafilter.com/username.mefi/signal
posted by riffola at 9:13 AM on June 27, 2003
posted by riffola at 9:13 AM on June 27, 2003
Yeah, the search engine is kind of crap.
I've also found that using the google search for "posted by signal" would give you every thread and comment that user posted.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:27 AM on June 27, 2003
I've also found that using the google search for "posted by signal" would give you every thread and comment that user posted.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:27 AM on June 27, 2003
Yea... I agree andrew. If I do a search on 'witty' (since day one), I get nine results... all of which are presented as equally weighed results. I guess that's true. But it would be nice to know which ones are $username and which ones are just instances of the word 'witty' in someone's profile.
posted by Witty at 9:30 AM on June 27, 2003
posted by Witty at 9:30 AM on June 27, 2003
Yeah, the search engine is kind of crap.
I disagree. The only way I could see to improve it would be to offer more filtering options (e.g., search by particular field or fields). What would be the point of that when people don't seem to understand the filtering it already has?
posted by timeistight at 9:47 AM on June 27, 2003
I disagree. The only way I could see to improve it would be to offer more filtering options (e.g., search by particular field or fields). What would be the point of that when people don't seem to understand the filtering it already has?
posted by timeistight at 9:47 AM on June 27, 2003
I've also found that using the google search for "posted by signal" would give you every thread and comment that user posted.
Not every one. When I search on myself this way, I'm only coming up with less than 1/10 the hits there should be.
posted by rushmc at 9:48 AM on June 27, 2003
Not every one. When I search on myself this way, I'm only coming up with less than 1/10 the hits there should be.
posted by rushmc at 9:48 AM on June 27, 2003
Not every one.
Sorry, I meant "every one [google knows about]." It's moot though, since the original poster was looking for the person's email, so one result leading to their user page would be enough.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:13 AM on June 27, 2003
Sorry, I meant "every one [google knows about]." It's moot though, since the original poster was looking for the person's email, so one result leading to their user page would be enough.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:13 AM on June 27, 2003
What I find almost ineffably cool is that I am now "the real signal".
posted by signal at 12:15 PM on June 27, 2003
posted by signal at 12:15 PM on June 27, 2003
The search engine is crap, but if you use it to search for a link and you can't find the link so you post the link, but it turns out to be a double post, we'll still jump on your ass about it.
posted by padraigin at 1:15 PM on June 27, 2003
posted by padraigin at 1:15 PM on June 27, 2003
Sorry, I meant "every one [google knows about]."
That's what I find so interesting, that Google is missing 90+% of them.
posted by rushmc at 6:53 PM on June 27, 2003
That's what I find so interesting, that Google is missing 90+% of them.
posted by rushmc at 6:53 PM on June 27, 2003
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posted by yhbc at 9:08 AM on June 27, 2003