Should search prioritize recent topics over older topics?

[sam (Sam Saffron)]

It works, added it a few months back.

After v1 I intend to polish this and integrate into search UI.

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

@cpradio

It just doesn’t stack up to what is expected from a user perspective.

Search rarely if ever does. I dealt with constant complaints about search through the entire history of Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange.

Problem is you are constantly compared with Google, which is of course completely unfair, but that’s the way the world works.

¯\_(シ)_/¯

It’s helpful to propose specific detailed improvements like

Gee, we could prioritize recent topics over ancient ones in search results

or

Gosh the “SHOW MORE” didn’t appear when it should have

or

It would be helpful to show the category of the topic in the results

versus

I typed words and did not get the results I wanted, this sucks, you suck, everything sucks

[cpradio]

@codinghorror

Problem is you are constantly compared with Google, which is of course completely unfair, but that’s the way the world works.

I’m not. I’m comparing you to vBulletin I know no one will compare to Google, it isn’t fair for me to compare you to Google. It is fair for me to compare you to vBulletin, phpBB, etc.

I added details to my responses on why I felt it lacked (every one of them), so I’m not trying to leave you hanging…

[sam (Sam Saffron)]

I really think this is a real estate issue, there is only so much information you can fit into a tiny pop-up, the first and biggest issue is having a full screen version.

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

Remember, this entire topic is based on a bug, namely SHOW MORE did not appear, as documented about 12 times so far… I’d focus on that first. Can you find a repro? Because clearly that happened, and to fix it, we need a repro.

That’s helpful, addressing specific known issues, in digestible detailed chunks, versus “let’s reimagineer everything about search!” which would take months.

[cpradio]

I’m working on it. I am still doing roughly 5 searches every few hours to see if I can find a pattern or recreate it Trust me, I’m trying

[jaming]

Hello,

I am not positive if this is a repo of the “show more” bug, but I think it is.
When I search:

I get these results which do not include this thread, and I do not get the “show more” option implying these are the only results. However, when I search:

I am not sure what is supposed to happen here. But I find this behavior odd. Adding search terms should reduce my results–not introduce new ones.

I am purposely not putting the search terms in the body of this post in the hopes that the repo remains consistent.

P. S. Huh, not only, can’t new users upload images, but also, they can’t link to images. That is helpful for when trying to post a bug repo.

[sam (Sam Saffron)]

Yes this looks like a good repro, will try it out on local.

[tobiaseigen]

@cpradio

I’d be happy if entering a search and pressing enter took me there!

+1 I agree with this - being sent to this search results page would make more sense to me than what happens now, which is that you are taken to the first result in the list. If the search results page also had some “advanced search” options that would help those who are looking for more sophisticated search options.

[TechnoBear]

[quote=“codinghorror, post:38, topic:19099”]
I dispute your account,
[/quote]I can assure you, I’m not given to posting false information and I find the insinuation that I am being untruthful offensive.

[quote=“codinghorror, post:48, topic:19099, full:true”]
Remember, this entire topic is based on a bug, namely SHOW MORE did not appear, as documented about 12 times so far… I’d focus on that first.
[/quote]I would have to disagree with your assessment. The topic is based on the fact that a number of us have experienced real difficulty in using Discourse search and would appreciate some improvements.

The “show more” bug emerged in the course of this discussion, and was reported as a bug here:
https://meta.discourse.org/t/show-more-not-being-displayed-in-search/19133

[cpradio]

@codinghorror

Remember, this entire topic is based on a bug, namely SHOW MORE did not appear, as documented about 12 times so far… I’d focus on that first. Can you find a repro? Because clearly that happened, and to fix it, we need a repro.

@TechnoBear

I would have to disagree with your assessment. The topic is based on the fact that a number of us have experienced real difficulty in using Discourse search and would appreciate some improvements.

The “show more” bug emerged in the course of this discussion, and was reported as a bug here:

I just want to point out that the work @sam has done up to this point for ?search=search_terms_here is a big step in showing that the current narrow viewport doesn’t actually show everything!

Every time I find a search that is three items, I then use the ?search=same_terms and I get a full list! I seem to always get more items when I utilize that method.

Example:

Better example:

[InsaneMosquito]

@codinghorror

Well, you can search via google as well

This is not a productive option. Why not integrate Google’s search features into Discourse if this is the option you propose? It also has the benefit of the Discourse team being able to focus on other aspects of the software and letting Google do what they do best.

I also find it somewhat odd that one of the choices for the technology stack was based around it’s superior full text search capability and now you suggest leaving the site to search via Google, completely negating that advantage.

https://meta.discourse.org/t/why-not-support-mysql/2568/3

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

@InsaneMosquito

Why not integrate Google’s search features into Discourse if this is the option you propose?

It’s a substitute for advanced full-page search until we have time to build it. Alternately, feel free to submit a PR for full-page search, if you can’t wait…

@TechnoBear

The topic is based on the fact that a number of us have experienced real difficulty in using Discourse search

That’s fine, but the core premise of this topic is the fact that SHOW MORE did not appear and should have, and we don’t know why that happened, nor can it be reproduced:

//assets-meta-cdck-prod-meta.s3.dualstack.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/optimized/3X/b/1/b1c8bcf683b5aeeb74a6e28d0ef6d227073ebd1c_1_690x280.png

At any rate, the “canary” search as noted in a different bug is a pretty good repro of something consistently odd, and hopefuly enough for us to find fixes.

[codinghorror (Jeff Atwood)]

I do think there’s a case to be made that more recent topics should show above older ones, but given that the discussion here is so fragmented, and the underlying/original cause…

@codinghorror

My developer spidey sense says UI is somehow screwing up and “thinks” there are not enough results to trigger SHOW MORE. I strongly suspect an error or logic bug in the SHOW MORE UI codepath. I just don’t know how to trigger it.

vs.

@codinghorror

Oddly enough, the drop-down search was only searching the first post and title. But! And this is a big but!

If you had enough results from that initial search of just first post and title to trigger show more (5+), SHOW MORE would then, and onnnnly then, search all posts.

… is resolved, going to close this. Feel free to re-open a similar topic on order of results appearing now that everything is showing in the initial search the way it should.

Thanks for your patience everyone.