Can we correct the search result grammar?

May 4, 2001 7:56 AM

This may be pedantic, and it may have already been covered - I couldn't find a search option for metatalk, nor did I feel like looking through the whole request archive

I noticed that when you search for a topic on metafilter, if only 1 hit results, it says "There were 1 results for...". Would it be possible to put a check for singular results in the script and make the response grammatically correct?
posted by starvingartist to Feature Requests at 7:56 AM (17 comments total)

Remember that all this is the work, unpaid, of one person. I think this should be *really* low on Matt's list of priorities.
posted by rodii at 9:27 AM on May 4, 2001

I don't think we have to view "pedantic" as a pejorative. On the other hand, if you do a cost/benefit ratio analysis of all potential changes on MF, I'm guessing this one doesn't stack up too well.

Actually, I'd far rather see mandatory spell checking. But since it's not going to happen, let me make a plea. All you (you as in MF'ers, not you as in starvingartist) have to do is click on the "Spell Check" button. It's fast, it's easy, and it's even fun (some of the suggested alternatives to words that aren't in the dictionary crack me up).

MF is, after all, a written medium. Fairly or not, many people will discount the value of your ideas if your posts contain misspelled words and poor grammar. To me, these sorts of errors indicate a disorganized mind and a lack of respect for readers.

posted by anapestic at 9:27 AM on May 4, 2001

I can spell. I often misspell words on purpose. So there.
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:13 AM on May 4, 2001

It's a simple conditional that I forgot to add, will do today.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:28 AM on May 4, 2001

Thanks, Matt! Take that, rodii! Phthbbtttt! (Let's see spell check take on that one!)
posted by starvingartist at 11:45 AM on May 4, 2001

done.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:37 PM on May 4, 2001

Obviously Matt's not busy enough. :)
posted by rodii at 1:14 PM on May 4, 2001

Yay! I see you also added the ctrl-key combos. I missed those.

Actually, I miss those on a lot of sites ...
posted by dhartung at 1:34 PM on May 4, 2001

Someone posted this in an earlier metatalk thread. An easy way to search metatalk is to go to google and enter into the search field: "site:metatalk.metafilter.com" followed by your query.
posted by gramcracker at 3:04 PM on May 4, 2001

I wonder how effective a form with a text input for searchin that posts to Google from the "Post a Link" (or Comment in MeTa) page would be. The querystring is just:

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ametatalk.metafilter.com+[search text].

(replace 'metatalk' with 'www' will search MeFi proper, for those that don't speak QueryString)

I guess you can't name a form element "q=site%3Ametatalk.metafilter.com+" and expect it to parse properly, but some reasonably low-level serverside scripting or javascript could do it.
posted by cCranium at 9:46 PM on May 4, 2001

All you (you as in MF'ers, not you as in starvingartist) have to do is click on the "Spell Check" button. It's fast, it's easy, and it's even fun (some of the suggested alternatives to words that aren't in the dictionary crack me up)

I have appaling spelling and the spell check feature doesn't work for me. I guess I should report that as a bug (Opera 5.1).

ps. My girlfriend just corrected me on my spelling. I'll leave it 'as is' to show you how atrocious I am.
posted by holloway at 11:30 PM on May 4, 2001

I guess you can't name a form element "q=site%3Ametatalk.metafilter.com+" and expect it to parse properly, but some reasonably low-level serverside scripting or javascript could do it.

Don't need to get that clever -- that's what hidden form elements are for.
posted by kindall at 11:43 PM on May 5, 2001

I was thinking of a hidden form element, but there'd still have to be some mangling. Even if you were to do something like

<input type="hidden" name="q" value="site:metatalk.metafilter.com+">

you'd have to append some other form element through scripting would you not? Or am I just blatantly missing something?
posted by cCranium at 9:54 AM on May 7, 2001

Whoops, you're right of course. I was thinking the "site:" was in a separate field, but it's all part of a single query string.
posted by kindall at 5:31 PM on May 8, 2001

I was wishing I wasn't right, because it'd be a nifty little tool to add to personal web sites, rather than using Atomz or something like that. Either way, the JavaScript's reasonably simple (onsubmit="javascript:document.form.q.value += document.form.searchbox.value;"), and server-side is probably even easier, but would require a redirect.
posted by cCranium at 6:20 AM on May 9, 2001

AFAIC, that's a deal... ;-)
posted by fooljay at 1:29 AM on May 14, 2001