Posted on 09/30/2001 4:46:44 AM PDT by John Robinson
However, it was that search of the "to" field (which happened every Self-Search as well as the "to:" field searches) that caused massive slow-downs and prevented more than 10 or so days worth of history in the Self-Search. I solved these problems by only accepting valid screen names in the "To:" field and storing these in a search-friendly way.
With that, I had the problem of still accepting the "fake" users such as bang_list, etc that people had adopted. I created the "Bump List Register" to essentially register a fake user for the purpose of addressing into the "To:" field.
Make sense?
I was right!
Unfortunately, all that work that you and I did indexing the "calpowercrisis" articles is still lost down the memory hole.
I just tried a search for "calpowercrisis" and came up with less than 50 hits out of at least 1500 articles that you and I and others tagged that way in the "To:" field. The oldest one was posted three weeks ago.
If I search for "snopercod", I get hundreds (maybe thousands) of hits. I don't have enough time to find how far "my comments" would go back in time.
I guess I just don't understand why a search on "calpowercrisis" couldn't do the same if that word could be "registered" as a user.
Or maybe FR needs it's own search engine on a separate server. Make it available to those who donate towards the cost of setting it up and operating it. All I know is that something needs to be done.
No, we need bump lists back. There's a reason thousands of us continue to use bump lists on a daily basis even though it's been a year since we've been able to create any new ones: Because bump lists work and keywords don't.
I'm the one that started tagging all the Columbia threads with STS107. It hasn't worked. If 50% of the shuttle threads have been tagged, I'd be surprised. And if 15% of FR knows they can go to http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/keyword/STS107 to get a list of shuttle threads, I'd be even more surprised.
I can understand why JohnRob turned them off; the list was getting ratty, full of mistake bump lists that got no use whatsoever, etc. But I've volunteered more than once to serve as Bump List Manager, and keep the list up-to-date and coherent.
FWIW, you have my agreement and support. The old bump list system was superior for research and documenting stories and events.
As far as I know, if you don't remember the title, there is no way to find anything--and that only works if the article you want is in the first 30. As far as I know, there is absolutely no way to search for a keyword. And you can't even find much by going to google anymore.
All you have to do to set any keyword up is to click on the phrase "Click to Add Keyword" located at the end of the first post in every thread. It opens up a page with a little box, and you can enter any keyword or multiple keywords, as long as each one is no more than 20 characters in length. From that point on, you can, in theory, see all threads containing that keyword by opening the url "http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/keyword/whateverthekeywordis". But as you noted below, the software only returns the 20 most recent posts with said keyword.
As far as I know, if you don't remember the title, there is no way to find anything--and that only works if the article you want is in the first 30. As far as I know, there is absolutely no way to search for a keyword.
First 20, as far as keywords are concerned, but at least you can run said search as shown above.
You're right that the text of FR threads has never been searchable. And even searching on title words has been pretty hit-or-miss lately, for reasons unknown, so you often don't even get the most recent 20 or 30.
And you can't even find much by going to google anymore.
That's more a function of Google than of FR. Google chooses what pages to list depending on how many other pages link to that page. So if, for example, 30 different sites linked to that Columbia thread where we beat everyone in the news media by 11 minutes in reporting a problem with the shuttle, that thread will almost certainly be listed by Google. But the vast majority of FR threads, which never get linked to by anyone outside of FR, will never show up there.
However, there's nothing stopping FR from signing up for Google's Free SiteSearch feature, which would index most, if not all, FR threads. (Even better, FR could splurge for a Google Search Appliance and make up the cost during the next Freepathon. Well, maybe not; the cheapest Appliance is $28,000.) But there are all sorts of free and paid solutions Google offers that would allow us to conduct full-text searches on every thread ever posted.
By the way, as I understand it, the whole keyword thing was some rather detailed plan JohnRob had worked up, but for whatever reason, only the bare bones of it were ever programmed and implemented, which is why it doesn't really work.
Registered just started a Yahoo Group for his parodies. Every new one gets posted to the list as soon as he finishes it.
BTW, I agree about going back to the bump list. If it were renamed the "file list" or "subject list", I think people would understand its purpose better.
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