Website Wish List 2023

[R. Steele]

On file searches you should be able to use wildcards. I.e., your idea of searching on "trees" should work if you search on "*trees*".

Yes, that does work, I was not understanding how to use the wildcards...so Charles's proposal of a Search Tutorial or syntax examples would be a good addition.

[magmateus]

Can you guys elaborate on what doesn't work well? File library searches or forum searches?

Personally, I feel very comfortable with the current File Library searches system.
Best regards.
Mateus

[crstagg]

Can you guys elaborate on what doesn't work well? File library searches or forum searches?

EXAMPLE: The search function does not distinguish between words and acronyms. As in up and UP. Of course, searching for ither results in nothing found. But searching for *UP* gets 229 files found. But so does searching for *up*. Because it does not distinguish be words and acronyms. In this example in the first 10 hits there is only one file related to UP - Union Pacific. Three are excusable: One is "MSTS/OR Activity - 12301 UP Howrah New Delhi Rajdhani Express" and the other file is "MSTS Activity--12327 UP HWH DDN Upasna Express" and the third has the phrase " both UP and DN direction".
The other 6 use the word "up" is the file description, As in "building up over the course of two years" or "zipping it up and" or " bring the units up to Open Rails operating standard".

The second page is better, 5 are Union Pacific and 5 are not. Three are UP on the third page.

[crstagg]

Another example: Quotes are not recognized.
Most internet search engines distinguish between Southern Pacific and "Southern Pacific". Both of these searches get 400 files. But using the search for exact phrase tool in the Advanced search the result is 365 files found. Not finding the Canadian Pacific and Norfolk Southern files.

[crstagg]

Searches I cannot explain. Maybe someone else can.
Basic Search for *UP* 229 files found
Advanced search - All these words: for *UP* 229 file found
Advanced search - this exact wording or phrase: for *UP* 229 files found
Advanced search - one or more of these words: for *UP* 3206 files found

[PerryPlatypus]

Another baffling example of strange search behavior:
sd90* yields only 6 results.
sd90mac yields 39 results.

Shouldn't the presence of the * wildcard mean that a search for sd90* should also pull up all results for sd90mac?

Putting the wildcard on both sides of sd90, i.e. *sd90* does not help matters

[rt35ge]

Great example of a piss poor search engine: UP U-50. Zero results. U-50 gets ONLY a cabview model There are 2 files. U50 gets only 1 cabview model. U50C gets 9 results. Should be able to find all 9 files with a simple search of U50.

[rdayt]

Kind of reminiscent of the old Alta Vista.
Ah, the old days.

Randy

[eric]

All duly noted. Fixing search is a priority.

Anything else?

[eric]

I hope nobody thought we forgot about this.

Rick and I found the two halves of the fix necessary, and it should now be possible to search for "New" "Go" "BN" and "UP"

The not-short story on why this broke:

File searches in a database sometimes use what's known as a "stopword list" which will skip certain words, and there's also a default setting in our database that limits searches to words of 4+ characters in length. Both were supposed to be overridden, but there seems to have been a minor database change last June which re-applied the defaults.

I added a copy of that list to the FAQ under "skipped words" if you're really interested in the full list...

If you are still finding searches coming back with no results for something obvious, please let me know. It's a two minute fix to take a stopword out of the list.