Forum:The Search Box.

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Not one time, ONE FUCKING TIME, did the search box get me to the article I want. It's really too completely retarded to be a search box. :3

Okay that's a lie. It did get me to the article I'm looking for sometimes. And by sometimes I mean one or two times. Since when did search engines become case sensitive? I see an article, decide I'm going to continue reading it again tomorrow. But when tomorrow comes, I can't find it. POOF. Gone. Why? Because I didn't type the first letter in the articles title in freaking upper-case.

I've been to many wiki's and none of them has a search box that retarded. Can't we do anything about that? Create a shitload of redirects maybe? Relevant redirects, of course. Or is it just something with the site coding? Because having to use Google to find articles on this site can get annoying... J.D. Soufi 09:41, December 28, 2011 (UTC)

I'm probably the last person qualified to be answering this question, but I think all the qualified people are asleep. If memory serves, the search box's retardation is something we can't do very much about, and it's a problem that the community shares your frustration in. I think it has something to do with Wikia (because everything is their fault), but I'm not sure. Your mention of google gives me an idea though. Perhaps we could create a page wherein a user could type what they're searching for into a search box that automatically takes them to the google results, thereby surpassing the annoyance of typing in the whole thing there (which is the annoyance I assume you're talking about). I'm relatively slightly almost probably certain that that could be done with a minimum of fancy coding. Having said that, I'll now wait for the more qualified people to wake up and propose a much more well-thought out solution. -RAHB 09:53, December 28, 2011 (UTC)

I'm also pretty dang tired about having to do little workarounds to find the article I want, in the namespace I want. Lyrithya knows the most about what the problem is, since it emerged around the time of the skin change and I hounded her about it for a while, so I would direct all complaints directly to her, in the loudest, meanest language you could possibly muster. Nah I'm just messin', it's probably Wikia's fault. But the google thing is a nice idea for another workaround until the bar could actually be fixed. -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 10:01, December 28, 2011 (UTC)

The joyous difficulty of creating a different search bar is that unless we use the search that Wikia have kindly given us, we can't create a text field box to put a search into. Of course, you could always use google like this (replacing the word test) but it's a little unwieldy. Pup 11:54 28 Dec '11

I would also like to express my all-consuming hatred for the search bar in its current virtually useless state. That's all for now, folks. —Sir Socky (talk) (stalk) GUN SotM UotM PMotM UotY PotM WotM 00:01, 29 December 2011

Yeah, that "search" bar (I use that term loosely) sucks so hard, I haven't used it since I joined. Instead, I search from my browser's address bar, using g site:uncyclopedia.wikia.com search terms for Opera; for Chrome, I drop the "g"; Firefox requires an extension to search from the address bar. Another solution is to make a bookmark with the following code in it, and then stick it to your bookmarks bar for easy access: javascript:document.location.href="http://www.google.com/search?q=site:uncyclopedia.wikia.com+" + prompt( "Search Uncyclopedia: " )

At any rate, we KNOW wikia is capable of supplying a decent search box -- wikipedia's search box works just fine. THANK YOU WIKIA!  ~ BB ~ (T) ~ Thu, Dec 29 '11 21:24 (UTC)

Too lazy to work out script myself, so I'll ask here. Can you throw together a script that would sit in User:Bizzeebeever.js that add in an input bar and then load a page (if it exists) based on

1. The case that it's entered into the input bar
2. Sentence case
3. Title case

And if all that fails, then open a google page that has the search added into it? This could potentially then be tested by a few users in order to iron out the bugs in it (if any) and possibly added into the site's js as a workaround. Pup 12:54 30 Dec '11

In the meantime, does the searchbar I added at the top here do anything more for anyone? Pup 01:01 30 Dec '11

My Internet connection is very slow, so I use noscript. Therefore, I can't say for sure, but doesn't the drop-down search-suggestion box that somebody (possibly Lyrithya) designed already do what you're referring to?  ~ BB ~ (T) ~ Fri, Dec 30 '11 15:59 (UTC)

As for the search box you added, it doesn't seem to work any differently from the one up in the corner. Also, I use the "vector" scheme.  ~ BB ~ (T) ~ Fri, Dec 30 '11 15:28 (UTC)

I keep my search box on the left side, and it works fine. Gives lots of choices, and when I hit "Go" it goes. I don't see the problem. Please leave it be, pretty please?Aleister 1:03 30-12-'11

We all know it 'goes' dude, but that just doesn't make it good. It doesn't give you the results you're looking for, and unless the input is 100% identical, you won't find the article. J.D. Soufi 09:09, December 30, 2011 (UTC)

Much like Al, I actually have little issue with it. I just tested with Thank God it's Friday as all lower, all caps, and some caps some not, and still managed to get there. I finally killed it with thank god its friday and couldn't find it. A full text search (like in the search bar at top of this page) found it straight away. I wonder as well if Al is using the vector skin. If the search bar he's using is not the one on vector, it may be that the vector skin (which isn't a true skin) uses a fussier search. Pup 09:26 30 Dec '11

Try this: "User talk:Puppyontheradio". Hilarious failure ensues.

Another pathetic failure occurs when searching for pages whose full title you don't know: if your search is a word or two off, the results might be completely blank. COMPLETELY! NO full-text search, no partial title matches, just a "Create the page [such and such] on this wiki!" Yeah, real helpful. Meanwhile, the page you're looking for will be first, or close to the top, in the Google results. Example:

a search for "HowTo:Cut your head off with a chainsaw" (The actual page title is HowTo:Cut your own head off with a chainsaw. Interestingly, Lyrithya's search-suggestion dropdown works fairly well in this instance, suggesting the proper article title after I typed in "HowTo:Cut".)

Another problem: the results often list huffed pages -- and not recently huffed, either.

Yet another problem: let's say I enter "User talk:PuppyOnTheRadio". Three times in ten, the search box will spit back a results page with the following words: "The page User talk:PuppyOnTheRadio exists on this wiki." No shit, Sherlock. Try taking me there!

...And don't get me started on the pile of "fail" which is our image-search.  ~ BB ~ (T) ~ Fri, Dec 30 '11 15:28 (UTC)

Yes! Beezer is completely correct. It tells you that it exists, but doesn't take you there. Well, I know you can still click on the link and it'll take you there, but we don't need to be troll'd by the search bar so often... J.D. Soufi 16:35, December 30, 2011 (UTC)

I am mystified and goshdarned. I have none of these problems, everything works fine. Do all of you know that to look for a pic all you do is start typing [[File:Pic and the results come up, then you hit the little down arrow way in the right-hand bottom corner and you can see each individual pic and make your selection. I'm confused about what the problem is with the search box, and fear that a change will screw mine up. Aleister 2:18 2-1-'12

That's link suggest, an editing tool that operates in the same way as the search suggest, but has nothing to do with the actual search box. So long as Wikia doesn't screw up the API too monumentally, that should continue to work.

1234 ~ 05:55, 2 January 2012

Some things

1. MediaWiki's search engine isn't very good.
2. Wikia has been in the process of attempting to improve upon it for some time now.
3. So far, they've just made it worse:
   1. Cached results
   2. Failure to recognise namespaces
   3. Failure to actually perform the search
   4. Failure to convert cases
   5. Random swapping between those and other issues, being fine one moment and bonkers the next
   6. Etc.
4. The search suggest is an api-based script probably included in one of the installed extensions
5. MediaWiki's search engine is designed to convert cases automatically
6. The search suggest isn't
7. The 'vector' and monobook skins use exactly the same search engine and whatnot; the only thing that is different is which button is default and what it looks like visually
8. The only non-stylistic change done to modify the search thing on our end (Uncyclopedia users) was when Skullthumper turned on the search suggest based on what a french fellow had told him; the functionality was already there, just not on
9. Any problems encountered with the search engine are thus probably Wikia's fault; please use the contact form to inform them how much they fail... er, I mean, to file a bug report if you find new ones

I hope this clears things up. 1234 ~ 02:12, 2 January 2012