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Question I hate being frustrated
- Anne
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Topic Author



Adopt my story: here
Nowhereville discussion
- Malady
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- Anne
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Topic Author
Adopt my story: here
Nowhereville discussion
- null0trooper
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Forum-posted ideas are freely adoptable.
WhatIF Stories: Buy the Book
Discussion Thread
- Malady
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I think it's a new feature? ... The open / close chevron at the left side, could be a bit higher contrast?
Personally, I thought that was just a header, until my screen loaded slowly enough that it appeared open before it closed, and I thought to investigate.
Here's the search for the Forger series: whateleyacademy.net/index.php/content_pa...10912fd48374c8be7013
- Arcanist Lupus
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Does anybody use that search bar? Or could we remove it and/or replace it with something else? Unless someone is getting significant use out of it, I'm inclined to think that having no main site search feature is better than having a frustrating one.
If we were to replace it, I would suggest replacing it with a link to the Wiki. The Wiki's search is pretty good (I should hope so - that's basically it's purpose for existing), and it maintains pages for all the stories with links to those stories. That makes finding a story you are looking for through the wiki pretty simple. Directing people offsite to reach stories onsite isn't the prettiest solution, but it does work.
"Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased — thus do we refute entropy." - Spider Robinson
- Kristin Darken
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Most problems are not caused by the search engine algorithm. It's a result of trying to give the search engine an incorrect title. In this particular case, for instance... searching for "The Secret of Forger's List" will give zero results. Why? Because you've given the system a long series of words and it is trying to find something that matches the whole sequence. And there IS NO title... or place anywhere in the index of phrases that this combination of five words shows up in this order. Because the title is actually "The Secret of THE Forger's List" ... On the other hand... if you had searched for just the word Forger. You would have found five stories. One Imp story that references forging paintings and four chapters of the piece you were searching for.
Don't overthink it. Don't assume you have the right words in your title (This is why you couldn't find Kodiak also, if you remember right). Also... yes, the SORT order kinda sucks if you get a lot of hits. and there isn't an option for 'most relevant to search terms' ... but there ARE other options. You can sort the search results by title alphabetically... going through a couple dozen stories to find the right title is a hell of a lot faster than scanning through all 700 or so.
Fate guard you and grant you a Light to brighten your Way.
- Kristin Darken
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ya... no.Arcanist Lupus wrote: Yeah, the search bar at the top of the site doesn't have a very good algorithm.
the old search bar had problems because we had disabled the indexing system because it wasn't designed to support 12 million words of text. so the only thing it could search through was the tag system. This one... is the basic version of the one that folds out at the top of the stories page. It doesn't give you sorting options and it gives you the results in a different format... but its the same search engine.
Fate guard you and grant you a Light to brighten your Way.
- Arcanist Lupus
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Kristin Darken wrote:
ya... no.Arcanist Lupus wrote: Yeah, the search bar at the top of the site doesn't have a very good algorithm.
the old search bar had problems because we had disabled the indexing system because it wasn't designed to support 12 million words of text. so the only thing it could search through was the tag system. This one... is the basic version of the one that folds out at the top of the stories page. It doesn't give you sorting options and it gives you the results in a different format... but its the same search engine.
I stand by my assertion. Result prioritization is part of what defines a search algorithm. An algorithm that doesn't prioritize the results by relevance is therefore inferior. On the bright side, searching is faster this way.

Also, when I try and change the sorting order, it stops showing results.
Finally, when I searched on Kodiak Winter in the ever-present search bar, it returns 50 results, but when I search using the grey dropdown I don't get any. I can't tell what, if anything, I'm doing differently between them.
On an interesting, but not particularly relevant note, when I google The Secret of Forger's List (no 'the'), I get a link to the wiki article as the first result, and no link at all the story. When I google The Secret of the Forger's List, I do get a link to the story, but as the second item, below the wiki link. Not sure what causes this, but I found it interesting!
"Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased — thus do we refute entropy." - Spider Robinson
- Kristin Darken
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The way the search engine will work best is if we enter keywords into it for every story. It does this to some degree by default when we add tags... so once I finish adding tags to everything, it will work better. But ideally, in addition to adding tags to every story in the collection, someone should be adding meta data to all of them. ie a summary, keywords, etc. This wouldn't take forever to do if we were doing it for every story as its added to the site... but you know... going in and adding all that stuff for 13 years of stories... is a pretty big job. About 5-10 times more involved than tags.
Fate guard you and grant you a Light to brighten your Way.
- Sir Lee
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Here's what I got with various combinations:
"Kodiak" -> 11 pages of results
"Winter" -> 21 pages of results
"Kodiak Winter" -> 0 results
"Kodiak in the Winter" -> 0 results
"Kodiak in Winter -> 1 result
That is, the only reasonably useful result comes from searching for the exact string. The engine is not smart enough to understand "includes all keywords" and does not prioritize words in the title.
There are other stories that would be troublesome to find. I mean, consider "The Bad Seeds" (74 results) or "Whisper" (218 results)
- Kristin Darken
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Enter The Chaka
By Bek D. Corbin
She has the strength of Arnold Schwartzeneggar, the reflexes of Jet Li, the beauty of Halle Berry and the common sense of Lizzie MacGwuire! Toni 'Chaka' Chandler could be a great superhero- IF she can pass High School English!
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Coming Out
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Ayla and the Late Trevor James Goodkind NEW!
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With a special thanks to Kristin Darken, Babs Yerunkle & Hart, without whom there would have been a long delay for editing and getting this piece out.
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And there were 'author' pages in which the same sort of long collection of the above, but just for those authors.
So... while I can understand that people see a search engine and expect Google performance and don't get it and are frustrated by that... but for gods sake people, its a free web site. Quality search engines require more computational power and database performance. Right now, the search engines are indexed to the articles. Not the titles or the author names... but the TEXT of the articles. That means, if you want to find something based on something that is mentioned several times in the story, the search engine is your best bet. Except that 'most' of the time, I'm finding, the query takes too long and Joomla reports a time out error message. Meaning, we're already experiencing evidence of needing more server power (which costs more, remember).
Could I restrict the search engines to just retrieving story titles? Possibly. It seems a waste of a utility though... because is simply isn't that hard to look at a sortable list of stories that you can filter by author name or sort by title alphabetically, or release date. Especially when you're also going to have the ability to search and filter by Tags at some near point in the future.
Most of the time that I hear people are having problems finding something... they're trying to use the Tag cloud or are looking at the sidebar lists. They don't realize that the entire collection is listed in table format in the appropriate part of the site.
Fate guard you and grant you a Light to brighten your Way.
- elrodw
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One time, up to 6 stories. Send a PM and I'll give you a helping hand.
Never give up, Never surrender! Captain Peter Quincy Taggert
- Anne
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Topic Author
Adopt my story: here
Nowhereville discussion
- Valentine
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elrodw wrote: I really don't like to see frustrated readers, so I will make a one-time offer to you, Anne. If you are looking for a story, from experience, I can find it quickly and get you a direct link via the site's messaging. Send me a PM of stories you are looking for - up to 6 - and I'll return a PM with links. This should help you get going on reading while you learn to navigate the system's search features and while Kristin and company work on completing the tagging system.
One time, up to 6 stories. Send a PM and I'll give you a helping hand.
I will make the same offer, and as a bonus, since I have more spare time than Elrod, I will even try to find a story that contains a scene that you remember, but can't remember which story it came out of.
Don't Drick and Drive.
- E M Pisek
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We are spoiled rotten by the likes of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's search capabilities. Sure we can bicker about which is better, but when you really look at it as Kristin said, it has to do with the amount of algorithms as with computing power placed behind it to search through tons of letters, words and sentences. Hence when you come to a small site such as this with its own, it feels like going from a rocket to a trike with only three wheels and ones missing.
Unless your able to afford to latch onto some of that power. It all comes down to cost.
Now I'm sure as Kristen said, more time can be devoted to its capabilities, but how about that time. I'm not going to dredge up old input, look it up throughout the forums. Enough has been said on it.
Personally, I've found that it just takes a bit of reckoning on how one searches. Many go through tried and true steps to get results, but that's when your going through the likes of Google and such. It takes one to go outside the perimeters on how to find things as with having the one thing that many don't want to develop or care for. Patience. Many want 'instant' results with little effort. So when someone can't find something the old way, they get frustrated and then 'complain' (and no I'm not picking on the creator of this thread here really, for its universal.) about not finding results. I can say this as with any other site that I've gone to, to use their search engine. Yes, I'll dig at Fictionmania as if you look in their forum there's those that constantly ask for help, but then when you read some of what their asking, its very vague and I'm surprised at how well Sir Lee is able to help them at his wont.
But anyway this site is not as massive when it comes to stories, and no I'm not complaining, for this site is dedicated to one specific universe whereas the likes of BC, Fictionmania and others contain massive varieties of different genres.
I'm sure that more could be done, if given time, money and effort when available, but the overall line is that those that are working are the ones who are also contributing to writing stories as with 'volunteers' who are working diligently to keep up with the changes as many (I'm sure) are not in the know of whats coming down the pipe in many respects and in doing so, must adjust accordingly.
So, for some I want to thank you for helping those that do have a bit of problem navigating for stories and to others thanks for your efforts in keeping track of what's produce. But overall, I feel that its up to the searcher to be a bit more understanding on what is available unless they are able to provide the necessary funds to incorporate a better tool than what is available. No its not a dig, but when your only able to afford a compact and not a Porsche then you do the best in what you have. (bad analogy I'm sure), but I've learned to be a bit more patient on some things as I've aged. I'm not a good wine, but I'm not vinegar either.
What is - was. What was - is.
- Anne
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Topic Author

Adopt my story: here
Nowhereville discussion
- elrodw
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Never give up, Never surrender! Captain Peter Quincy Taggert
- Astrodragon
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elrodw wrote: Just remember that if you hit a snag, people here will help. Don't beat your head against a wall too long; if you ask for help, someone will show you the door in the adjoining wall.
Actually at Whateley we're more likely to point you at the large hole in the adjoining wall

I love watching their innocent little faces smiling happily as they trip gaily down the garden path, before finding the pit with the rusty spikes.
- Valentine
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Astrodragon wrote:
elrodw wrote: Just remember that if you hit a snag, people here will help. Don't beat your head against a wall too long; if you ask for help, someone will show you the door in the adjoining wall.
Actually at Whateley we're more likely to point you at the large hole in the adjoining wall
The hole is from where we've beaten our head through the wall.
Don't Drick and Drive.
- Kristin Darken
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Fate guard you and grant you a Light to brighten your Way.
- DanZilla
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Now, having said that. If I'm looking through several stories by the same author I'll just go to stories and have it list all of theirs that way.
- Arcanist Lupus
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Which mostly works, but there are a couple of authors who have used multiple different names. Elrod has one story under "ElrodW" (which doesn't actually matter, because 'Elrod' will return both), and JG has stories under both 'JG' and 'Joe Gunnarson'DanZilla wrote: Now, having said that. If I'm looking through several stories by the same author I'll just go to stories and have it list all of theirs that way.
"Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased — thus do we refute entropy." - Spider Robinson
- Phoenix Spiritus
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Arcanist Lupus wrote:
Which mostly works, but there are a couple of authors who have used multiple different names. Elrod has one story under "ElrodW" (which doesn't actually matter, because 'Elrod' will return both), and JG has stories under both 'JG' and 'Joe Gunnarson'DanZilla wrote: Now, having said that. If I'm looking through several stories by the same author I'll just go to stories and have it list all of theirs that way.
Tell us the stories with the issues and we'll fix them.
Usually things like this are us fixing other things that then breaks something else we didn't expect.
- Malady
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From the first page of Elrod results, it seems that Elrod is massively more common than ElrodW., the latter of which whose only story is Intervention .
The JG results are Murphy's Laws of Whateley , Blood-Sister, Blood-Brother , and Siblings & Savages Chapters 1 and 3 ...
And I just listed everything... *Sigh*
- Kristin Darken
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Fate guard you and grant you a Light to brighten your Way.
- jmhyp
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