I've recently noticed some oddness with the site's search function. It seems that I'm unable to search for my works/posts that predate 2013 (or so). I can search by keyword or author, and in either case, I get nothing. If I manually page through sub forums, I can find the posts; but I'd rather slit my wrists than do that on a regular basis. The problem seems to be most pronounced when using the Advanced search for multiple content types: https://www.writingforums.org/search.php
The search has definitely degraded after one of the not-all-that-recent site software upgrades. It's no longer possible to do complete searches, even if the total number of results would be small. It's a nuisance as a site member, but was crippling when I was a moderator.
I just find myself thrashing my keyboard when I know that a thread exists, and I want to reference it, but I cannot find it. I guess we'll have to cut people some slack now when they post a tired old topic; no more "Ues teh search button n00b!" replies.
Search still works pretty well for finding recent threads, so go ahead and facepalm to your heart's content. Lawdy, if I see one more "How long should a chapter be" thread, I'll scream. Again.
I've noticed this too. I'm currently rebuilding the search index. It should help, but I doubt it'll give us full search results. While I rebuild the index the search might not work at all - should be finished in about an hour.
Don't know anything about the rebuild, but should it fail, I find you can search forums using Google if you can remember something key in the thread or the title. For example, "writingforums search button"
I very well may add Google search as another option. It was in the past. I did update the index. The results seem better to me, but I'm not sure if they're complete. Thoughts?
I went ahead and added google search as a replacement for our search box. The results aren't pretty - still need to do a little styling - but it's Google, so it's more accurate. You can still use the built-in search feature by doing an Advanced Search (needed if you want to search the Writing Workshop or a private section of the site or based on a particular member, etc.)
