But the search was just as cr@p on the old software

I mean you couldn't search in particular forums and you could only return 50 results. Better than sod all, but I'm prepared to wait if it results in a proper search facility.

There must be boards out there who are bigger and don't have as much problems. Is it the software or the servers that can't cope?

 

And it was very slow. And those times when you were trying to load a page and it all ground to a halt? Probably due to people searching!

 

When the search was enabled for the 24 hrs, I did notice the button so I did use it to search for a few things I was interested.

Speed seemed ok, and it found the articles I needed to read.

Roll on the final version.

 

I noticed the button there and gave it a go too - didnt get long playing with it as it got turned off (half way through a search ) but from what I saw it looked much, much improved from the old version.

Hope you can find a way of including the search facility without the speed issues etc... (edit: although I have to say, I wasnt particularly aware of any speed issues while using it).

Regards

John

 

Hi Guys

Search will definitely be included.

The number of sites as large as scoobynet are few and far between - they do exist, obviously, but there are not many. In addition, the profile of our traffic is such that every 100 users online generates more pages than the majority of sites. People move through the site quickly, reading, replying, etc. The catch 22 is that, the quicker you make the site, the quicker people browse through to the next page, so you have to get way ahead of the game in order to keep up

While search was running, we deliberately did not broadcast it, so that those that noticed used it, but we didn't have a sudden flood as everyone pounded it.

Whilst the search engine was fast, and the majority of the time the site ran really smoothly, if someone did a large search that the search engine was not happy with (for whatever reason) the site slowed down dramatically.

As the speed of the site in general is of greater importance than search (although search is obviously very important indeed) we have switched it off (Excpept for plus members) temporarily pending optimising it.

We could have just left it running. But it would have meant a slow site for everyone. It would have meant a lot less work for us, but a reduced experience for everyone else. We have chosen to put the effort into making it work quickly for you.

Please bear with us while we do this, and enjoy the rest of scoobynet in the mean time.

All the best

Simon

 

Thanks Simon.

Les

 

cant argue with that

 

Can't live without the search facility!! Life just isn't the same...need to access all that historic info asap for current and future mods...

Glad you're working on it...

 

I just signed up, can i not use search till im plus? Or will it be available soon for all?


Shawn

 

available soon for all

 

The site itself has to be *the* fastest board I've been on - some others I still use occasionally appear to be run on a 386SX over a 56k modem!

Search was great for us 'noobs' as it saved having to ask the same old questions to some of the Scooby vets here. Still...it's not the end of the world, is it?!

 

When is Search coming peeps?????

 

Totally wicked very very impressed

 

Any ideas on when the rest of us are getting search? The site loses a whole lot of its worth if you can't search for things. Part of why Scoobynet is good is because you can find the answer to pretty much anything you need to know, but its not too easy to find stuff if you can't search!

 

Agree totally with Andi.
How much longer ?????

 

Guys

I'll hand the decision over to you. Would you like me to switch it on and let the site grind to a halt potentially. This would mean the entire site losing it's worth, not just part of it.

On the other hand, would you like us to spend the money and time on getting the search engine working efficiently as quickly as we are able to.

We only have so many hours in the day, and we are using them as best we can.

Regards

Simon

 

On the one hand I do miss being able to search a lot.

On the other hand, there seems to be little point in switching it on and the site becomeing unusable for all.

"We are where we are."

Keep working on it till its ready and not going to affect site performance dramatically.

Buck

 

Whilst I take on board the comments regarding the search and it's effect on the performance of SN as well as there only being so many hours in the day I think that we're all agreed that the search is (or was) about the most useful feature on here.

In light of this might I politely suggest that it may be a good idea to spend the limited amount of hours in the day getting the search working rather than setting up games servers and providing for sale lists etc.

I know it sounds like yet more whinging, but I'm sure I'm only saying what many are thinking and you did say you wanted the views of the community (or one of them anyway).

I used to bitch about the old search, but at least it was there. You never know how good something was until it's gone do you

tiggers.

 

Some good points tiggers, game servers and for sale lists are not as important as the search IMHO.


Buck

 

Guys

If only everything was that simple. The work that is being done on the search engine is not all being done actually by me, and not all of it actually by shaun. We are paying money for this work to be carried out.

In addition, some of the elements of this take time to actually arrive before the next part can be done.

Guys, it would really help if you just trusted us. Having to explain all this stuff continuously is irritating at best, and insulting at worst.

Please leave it to us, as, unlike you (tiggers, especially), we actually know exactly what is necessary, rather than just thinking we do in simplistic terms.

We are working as hard as we are able on this, please trust that. You see the search missing as a problem every time you fancy searching for something whenever you happen to be browsing scoobynet. Shaun and I see it as a problem day and night, every day.

Regards

Simon

 

Firstly you know very little about me so you are in no way qualified to say whether or not I know exactly what is required or whether I am simplistic.

EDITED AS THERE SEEMS LITTLE POINT IN TRYING TO DISCUSS THIS RATIONALLY OR OTHERWISE! SORRY FOR DARING TO ASK THE QUESTIONS EVERYONE ELESE WANTS TO ASK!! I SHAN'T EVER MENTION THE SEARCH AGAIN EVER!!!

 

tiggers

I did not state specifically that your view of the technology was simplistic. I simply stated that your understanding of the *situation* is simplistic, and by your last reply stand by that.

You have attacked me by saying that I have no right to tell you whether you know what is required, and yet you are happy to tell me what is required of my schedule.

Search is being sorted out as quickly as we are able to taking into account all of the financial, logistical, technological, and schedule constraints we have. I will be delighted once I am able to set it live. Until then, I'll continue to work on it with shaun and everyone else who is involved.

Regards

Simon

 

I did not tell you - I made a suggestion. Anyway I've edited my post and like I say shan't discuss this with you again.

All the best,

tiggers.

 

well done tiggers - u said things that i was thinking.
its only giving our view, webmaster.

ur response to tigger was at best a mistake in communication, at worse insulting.

there is no need to slag someone off, belittle them, or insult them.

ur job, in my opinion, is to lead by example. a simple statement that there is a critical path to follow and that u are aware of the importance is all that was needed.

it never ceases to amaze me that ur responses are occasionaly tainted with aspects of non-community spirit.

this is not a post with bad feeling. nor is it a post slagging you off. I dont know u as a person. words are hard to understand without feeling, which u dont get on the net. i am purely stating how you have come across in those last few messages. if you dont get feedback, then you wont know if things are coming across wrongly.

all the best

 

Simon,

I haven't read this entire thread so sorry if this is covered elsewhere.

The old search function felt a little rudimentary. Offering searches only by date range. I recall several threads where the starter had a disclaimer along the lines of "please don't tell me to use search but can you tell me....".

Is the new search function 'enhanced' in any way over the old BBS?

In the interim, is there any way to increase (via my profile?) the number of threads shown per page in the web browser (ie6 for me)? I've been using ie6's find function a little but having to click next page every 20 threads or so makes it hard work.

Thanks,

Jeremy.

 

Hi Guys

The difficulty is that I've answered this question countless times, many times in this thread alone. So I felt a little frustrated about the comments that we should spend more time on search and less on things like game servers.

vindaloo

I believe there is a setting in your control panel which allows you to change the number of threads per page. The search facility is greatly enhanced from the one we used on the old software.

All the best

Simon

 

theres a perfect response

i understand that it can be hard.
i bet that we have all deleted lines in responses before submitting.
I just did it 3 times to phrase that correctly.

ur last response was just right.

 

Right - Update

The status is this. The search facility on vBulletin uses their own indexing facility. It is actually pretty good, but nowhere near as efficient as the in-built MySQL database fulltext search facility.

One of the things we're trying is a modification to re-work the search facility to use the MySQL search engine. Unfortunately, as a test we've started to index a duplicate copy of the scoobynet database to see how long the site would need to be offline prior to search going live.

This has been running for over 48 hours now and there is no way of telling how far it has got through the 3 million posts we have on scoobynet.

This is one of the problems of a huge forum such as ours.

This is concerning as it may be that we've gone down the wrong route as I do not think any of us could justify the forum being down for 2 - 3 days.

I'll let you know how we get on.

All the best

Simon

 

Simon

Any Idea when the search function will be up and running?

Don’t know if anybody has asked yet LOL

Ajax

 

LOL