Search Function

[Rocketman]

I've had some problems with the search function. Maybe someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong?

I'm trying to search for threads about C & M Transport. Everytime I try, it tells me that there isn't enough words in my search phrase or something like that. I can't really add a lot to it ya know?

Any help?

Thanks, Rocketman

 

[Turtle]

It's not really word length, as in number of words, but rather the length of any individual word, as in less than 4 letters. You can't search these forums for "God", for example, but you can search for the "Devil". (Sometimes I crack myself up.)

Go to Search, then select Advanced Search, then in the search box, type in:

"C & M Transport"

Making sure to use the quotes.

The quotes fool the MySQL (I'm guessing here) into thinking the word is more than 4 letters long. Of course, that search won't find anything other than that exact phrase but it'll at least find that.

Another one to search is to use the two words "transport" and "they" together in a search, since most any post about a carrier will include some reference to what "they" will do. You'll get more hits, many with nothing to do with C & M, but that may be OK.

 

[Rocketman]

Thanks Turtle, I'll try that..later today though.

The search doesn't have to be perfectly clean. I don't mind looking through some "extras". Just don't wanna have to go through the whole forum, page by page! LOL

Thanks again!

Rocketman

 

[pjjjjj]

Go to Search, then select Advanced Search, then in the search box, type in:

"C & M Transport"

Making sure to use the quotes.

The quotes fool the MySQL (I'm guessing here) into thinking the word is more than 4 letters long. Of course, that search won't find anything other than that exact phrase but it'll at least find that.

Another one to search is to use the two words "transport" and "they" together in a search, since most any post about a carrier will include some reference to what "they" will do. You'll get more hits, many with nothing to do with C & M, but that may be OK.

Thanks for the tip about using the quotes, that was a good one!

Not sure what you are meaning by using 'they', do you mean.. look up.. "c & M they"?

It sucks that you can't look up at least an official carrier's name to get feedback and info on a specific carrier, just becuz carrier happens to have a name with only 3 letters in it.

I can (kinda?) see how it could get huge to have people messing up the boards searching for part-words with less than 4 letters, but there's not much you can do if a carrier's official name is less. And it's useful pertinent info that's potentially being missed by those seeking specific info. Not everyone typing about C&M would bother to type C&M Transport, for example, they might just type 'anyone have any info on C&M?'

Rant over.

 

[Turtle]

By "they" I mean do a search like this:

transport they

And anything that has both the words "transport" and "they" in it will be returned.
Meaning, when people talk about a carrier, they will use they a lot when talking about them.

They'll say things like "C&M Transport. I worked for them. They did this or that." or "They are good to work for."


"Transport" alone might not be enough to work with, but when you add in "they" you get more of a narrowing down about people talking about "they" in reference to something-"transport". You could vary it with "C & M", but not with "C&M" as "C&M" is just three letters long.

The Search function simply limits searches to 4 letters or more, to keep from having to go through and take a look at every single 3 letter word on all the messages. And there's a lot of 3 letter words.


The funny thing about the 3-letter limitation is, you can search for the Devil but ya can't search for God.

 

[pjjjjj]

The funny thing about the 3-letter limitation is, you can search for the Devil but ya can't search for God.

Ya, you crack me up too

 

[ebsprintin]

Hey, someone of authority,

Could we maybe anchor this thread for a while. I finally just remembered how to use the quote marks and was about to post something about this when I decided to do a search for "search" first. Fortunately search isn't a three letter word. And it figures that it was Turtle who has already addressed the topic.

The old forum made me lazy and forget that I could use my quote marks. You should have seen me trying to find the old topics about Sprinter oil.

eb

 

[ebsprintin]

Can anyone tell from my post count today that I had another dry run today? Think I'm batting less than .500 for Monday morning loads out of the Irving, TX UPS yard.

eb

 

[ebsprintin]

Or better yet, anchor something like this in the general topics forum for a while. Just noticed that this thread is way down in the basement where it probably doesn't get much traffic.

eb

 

[Turtle]

I think the FAQ, under the "Can I search the forum?" topic, should contain all the gory details about searches, whether full boolean expressions are allowed, what, if any wildcards are allowed (they are, BTW), how the quotes work, lots of things.

If you search for "search illegal" in quotes, it will only look for that exact phrase. It won't find "illegal search" unless you search for that exact phrase, in quotes. If you search for "search" and "illegal", both words, no quotes, it will find all posts with either the word search or illegal in it.

If you do a search without quotes, "search AND illegal" with the 'AND' in capital letters, it will find all posts that contain both the words search and illegal, just not necessarily that specific phrase.

Same thing with 'OR' instead of 'AND' in that it will find all posts that contain either search OR illegal.

'Illegal NOT search" without quotes will return posts that contain the word "illegal" but do NOT contain the word ""search".

That should cover the Boolean basics, anyway. The drop-down menus lets you further refine your search, like only from a specific user, only in specific forums, returned as threads or posts, etc.

 

[ebsprintin]

Turtle, that is the kind of place I would have expected it to be. I think people are going to just give up and not use features of this site if instructions are in obscure locations or completely nonexistent. So, yes instructions need to be in "gory form" somewhere, but maybe also have the occasional feature that is featured at the top of the forums with the basics and directions to finding the location of the gory details. Something like a feature of the week or month. I think a lot of questions are repeated, because people give up trying to find information via the search function. And I'm sure there are a bazillion useful features to the site that wouldn't even occur to me to go looking for.

A feature of the month would be something like how the forum is announcing the new company forums at the top of the general topics forum (and that people still forget to check or use).

eb

 

[RLENT]

Ok, here's another one - ever do a search for threads originated by a particular author (screen name) 'cause you knew who started the thread ?

...... only to have the Search Function return a list of threads where the author you searched for was clearly not the party who originated the thread ......

 

[pjjjjj]

Yes I've also noticed that, and as well, sometimes piles of posts will be missing from the 'read posters other posts' thingy, if you're looking for something and you know a certain member posted something, and you're searching for it.. it's kinda weird. Or maybe I am.