Search Function Ineffective

[joe6167]

I've often noticed that the search function in GOC seems to be permanently affected by the so-called "Mandela Effect," and I've seen others comment, "I know we had a thread but I can't find it"...

Anyway, I just did a search for the "Brandon Herrera's AK-50" thread by typing "AK-50" into the search box, only to be told "Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms."

https://www.gunownersofcanada.ca/sho...errera-s-AK-50

Other previous times when doing an "advanced search" I often get a message that the search phrase was too short... but this is a gun forum... if we can't search for things using model numbers, I guess we're kinda screwed... like if I want to search for "M1" for example.

So if I plug in "M1" into the advanced search screen it tells me:

"The following words are either very common, too long, or too short and were not included in your search"

One final note...

What's up with THIS???



Is this the work of RCMP bots looking to see if we're talking about anything "interesting"?

[awndray]

I've said it before. The public nature of this site is a bad idea. Most should be restricted to members only. And even as members, you should require a minimum post count (call it a contribution to the community) to see even further restricted sections.

Those search tags are highly suspicious.

[SwissArmyMan]

Pretty useless search function but may it's there for a reason

[JustBen]

Does the shiny side of the tinfoil go out or in?

[awndray]

If you only have enough for one player, shiny side out. Ideally, you have enough for two layers so that both sides are shiny.

[joe6167]

I've said it before. The public nature of this site is a bad idea. Most should be restricted to members only. And even as members, you should require a minimum post count (call it a contribution to the community) to see even further restricted sections.

Those search tags are highly suspicious.

I agree. I can only imagine how many government agencies are just waiting to torpedo this site or use it in propaganda.

Meanwhile, who are Gerhard Baur and Arthur Porter? And why are they some of the top search terms on this site? And who knew Stephen Blaney is so popular? Is he even in government anymore?

[awndray]

Click on the Baur and Porter tags. It'll bring you to a thread I started about a local (to me) rifle builder.

[RangeBob]

When I post in the Laugh thread in the wee hours of the morning, there's usually me and just over 10 'guests' and no one else reading the thread. I assume all the 'guests' are bots.

I further assume that the bots have been set to look for keywords, some keywords being set over a decade ago, and never removed. Because automation makes it easy to leave the old stuff around.
It's actually a bit unfriendly in another way -- instead of the bot using up its bandwidth/CPU reading and indexing all the articles, the bot is using the CPU of the website to do the searches and I'd bet that those searches really hits the performance of GoC.
The algorithm of using a website's search, probably explains why News and Off Topics are not searchable on CGN and why mods move questionable discussions quickly into Off Topics.



I wouldn't assume it's all RCMP/CSIS. It's probably several international organizations too.
jwirecom109 could probably look at the website statistics to see what countries the 'guests' or 'bots' are from.

[joe6167]

Another thought, that chart is of "search TAGS", and the search function does have a separate field to search by "tag".

When I clicked on the "tag" for "Arthur Porter" it does indeed bring up just the one article that Awndray posted, and at the bottom of that article I notice it does have a list of tags.

So I looked at some current threads and did not see such a list, nor do I see a way to add them.

Is this a feature that was phased out/abandoned/went out of style at some point?

If so, that list probably hasn't been updated in quite some time.

[joe6167]

When I post in the Laugh thread in the wee hours of the morning, there's usually me and just over 10 'guests' and no one else reading the thread. I assume all the 'guests' are bots.

I further assume that the bots have been set to look for keywords, some keywords being set over a decade ago, and never removed. Because automation makes it easy to leave the old stuff around.
It's actually a bit unfriendly in another way -- instead of the bot using up its bandwidth/CPU reading and indexing all the articles, the bot is using the CPU of the website to do the searches and I'd bet that those searches really hits the performance of GoC.
The algorithm of using a website's search, probably explains why News and Off Topics are not searchable on CGN and why mods move questionable discussions quickly into Off Topics.



I wouldn't assume it's all RCMP/CSIS. It's probably several international organizations too.
jwirecom109 could probably look at the website statistics to see what countries the 'guests' or 'bots' are from.

Would moving more of the site to "members only" alleviate these problems?

One (of the many reasons) I avoid CGN is precisely because those sections are not searchable, meaning it's almost impossible to use as a reference... much like I use GOC

[awndray]

When I post in the Laugh thread in the wee hours of the morning, there's usually me and just over 10 'guests' and no one else reading the thread. I assume all the 'guests' are bots.

At the time of writing, there are currently 396 users online. 10 members and 386 guests. Nothing good come of this.

[JustBen]

At the time of writing, there are currently 396 users online. 10 members and 386 guests. Nothing good come of this.

Probably not.

[Dewey Cox]

I assume that any traffic makes the stats look better for potential advertisers.
If it was my site I'd likely do the same thing.

[joe6167]

At the time of writing, there are currently 396 users online. 10 members and 386 guests. Nothing good come of this.

Since this is a "gun forum," perhaps the whole "Lifestyle" section and anything else not directly firearms related should be "members only" or "controlled access" in the way the Off Topics forum is?

[awndray]

I've always thought so.