Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

JHromadka · Oct 19, 2003, 07:04 PM

The 30 second limit between searches sucks:

vBulletin Message
Sorry! The administrator has specified that you can only do one search every 30 seconds.

It's a pain when doing searches that end up returning zero results to have to wait.

superlarry · Oct 21, 2003, 02:37 PM

yeah could this be made less time, if only for those 0-result searches?

m a d r a · Oct 23, 2003, 04:46 AM

agreed. especially since vbulletin's search feature is a bit hit'n'miss anyway. i can see the point of having a time-out on posting to keep the flooders out, but having it on searches makes it difficult for people to search in any great depth before posting - which in turn leads to more unneccessary posts. so really it defeats it's own object.

Doc Juansinn · Oct 24, 2003, 01:15 AM

Yes, I concur. How about changing the minimum time bewteen searches to 15 seconds?

Zimphire · Oct 24, 2003, 01:26 AM

This is my guess.

Searching bogs the server. You could get 10 people doing searches right after another and really tax the server.

IMHO of course. Just taking a guess.

OwlBoy · Oct 29, 2003, 01:21 AM

Exactly.

Some think it is slow enough as it is, not that anyone uses the search function...

-Owl

scaught · Nov 2, 2003, 01:45 PM

Originally posted by OwlBoy:
Some think it is slow enough as it is, not that anyone uses the search function...

Exactly.

thats why i think they should kill the time limit thing on the search function. i really doubt its being "flooded"...

GoGoReggieXPowars · Nov 5, 2003, 01:09 PM

Searching the database is a huge CPU hit, and it's not like the forums charge membership to offset the cost of bandwidth and servers. I say you'll have to just wait, a number of other boards I'm on have similar restrictions on searches.

JHromadka, when did you arrive in Calgary? I got to see some of the fires back in August, totally insane walking around downtown smelling smoke and seeing the sunsets bright red.

l008com · Nov 10, 2003, 10:50 PM

I definitely agree that the time should be lowered. Its an easy setting in the admin control panel. What also pisses me off is the 3 character minimum word length. As far as I know, there is no easy way to change it without hacking the php, but it makes searching for 'os x' for example, really difficult.

ReggieX · Nov 12, 2003, 07:45 PM

Originally posted by l008com:
What also pisses me off is the 3 character minimum word length.

The problem with that is that going lower than 3 characters makes the search database almost pointless: it would have to store every instance of "to, it, in, at" etc. and have to run through that mess every time someone did a search.

Heck, 4 characters would suffice for most searches.

benb · Nov 14, 2003, 10:20 PM

Originally posted by ReggieX:
The problem with that is that going lower than 3 characters makes the search database almost pointless: it would have to store every instance of "to, it, in, at" etc. and have to run through that mess every time someone did a search.

Heck, 4 characters would suffice for most searches.

Well, could it be made to search less than 3 letters if you quoted it? Like "xml"? It would allow those who really use the search to continue using it and use it well, and those who don't know crap don't search anyway.

JHromadka · Nov 23, 2003, 12:26 AM

Originally posted by GoGoReggieXPowars:
JHromadka, when did you arrive in Calgary? I got to see some of the fires back in August, totally insane walking around downtown smelling smoke and seeing the sunsets bright red.

Got here after the middle of September, so I missed the fires. Now I'm enjoying the cold weather!

voodoo · Dec 10, 2003, 10:17 AM

When you can't search for terms like

cd
g3, g4 and g5
dc
ls
av
id
et
al

the search function is very limited.

l008com · Dec 10, 2003, 11:40 AM

Originally posted by voodoo:
When you can't search for terms like

cd
g3, g4 and g5
dc
ls
av
id
et
al

the search function is very limited.

OS X

mac freak · Dec 10, 2003, 08:40 PM

Hell, it won't even let you search for, in quotes, "mac os x".
Silly search function.

voodoo · Dec 18, 2003, 07:18 AM

How about using google?

like

"os x" site:forums.macnn.com

or something.. it kind of works.

GoGoReggieXPowars · Dec 23, 2003, 12:15 PM

Originally posted by mac freak:
Hell, it won't even let you search for, in quotes, "mac os x".
Silly search function.

Again, as I stated above: the build search index routine would have to capture "Mac", "OS," and "X" as separate words, resulting in a gigantic search index, putting huge loads on the server each time a search was done; putting the terms in quotes only concatenates the search variables.

l008com · Dec 23, 2003, 12:24 PM

Yes but that still means you can't search for os x, and when you post a question that someone else asked already, you get the "Dude search before you post" crap, but you cant'! And you can't possibly expect use to spend 20 minutes manually scanning through posts looking to make sure no one has asked our question recently. Thats absurd.

iNeusch · Dec 23, 2003, 12:54 PM

30 secs is too much
it's very common to do 2 searches one after the other seeing you did a typo...

taking care of the server is important, but taking care of the users is better

iNeusch · Dec 23, 2003, 12:57 PM

Originally posted by l008com:
Yes but that still means you can't search for os x, and when you post a question that someone else asked already, you get the "Dude search before you post" crap, but you cant'! And you can't possibly expect use to spend 20 minutes manually scanning through posts looking to make sure no one has asked our question recently. Thats absurd.

Just do a search in the OSX related forums
That's a LOT easier...

l008com · Dec 23, 2003, 12:58 PM

Originally posted by iNeusch:
30 secs is too much
it's very common to do 2 searches one after the other seeing you did a typo...

taking care of the server is important, but taking care of the users is better

Agreed. How about a dynamic time limit, like 5 secs for the first, then 15, then 30, 45, a minute and so on... now thats something the makers of the forum would have to integrate not you.