Yes that is absolutely correct and I'm glad you are on board with that fact.

I've brought this up before with you guys many number of times, and it rolled over and died - every time. And that is the new search engine you guys installed when you did the upgrade. It turned the reliable historical reference capability of the site - which used to be VERY GOOD - to pure carp (sp) - and I have been highly critical of it ever since - and to no avail. The new search engine is ABSOLUTELY USELESS!!!!!!

All the info we need is already here. It's just that no one - you, us, them, can find anything any more because the search engine we have is as stupid as Ron Whites tire guy at Sears.

I have gone back through my own (3000 of them) posts and saved to favorites the ones that seem to be recurring - I have about 100 saved. (Although in various threads the photo's don't work any more because the picture thing here has changed so much as well - different issue/different day).

But, I would be more than happy to help you find the data by forwarding you my list of saved threads (urls) if that would help.

One other suggestion is to reinstall the old search engine or an equivelant that functions with the upgrade that actually works. You guys seem to be making a lot of new work to avoid reinstalling something that used to work very well! I'm sure you have IT reasons, but that is one thing that really should be done before inventing and implementing new ways to reference data that already exists.

Not intending to be critical, or start a witch hunt, but since you are asking, I though it prudent to remind you that the question you are asking (or rather difficulty you are expressing) has already been asked and answered. Long story short - there needs to be an effective and intelligent search engine installed on the site - not more infrastructure to navigate through to find the information that already exists here. The info is going to have to be found and catalogued either way - and it can be done with a search engine or manually....you gonna do that? End result - reliable search engine - to support this effort or replace it. No third solution - No kidding!

 

Adrian, one subject i havent been abel to find is conecting non stock steering columns to the stock 48,49,50 box on the F-1. cutting and useing smooth weld on adapters, or what ?. i havent had any luck in the tech, past posts (or classifeids id love to buy a used column and keep it stock if possible) thanks Jimmy P.S. how come more people dont support $. iv pulled thousands worth of info from all the many awsome and giving people that help 24/7 THANKS TO ALL

 

Bed Making

Those sheets are confusing, and the pillow cases! lol, sorry

I think this place pretty much has the answer to anything, but its not collected in an easy to use way... but if it was it be a book, so...

I find I'm often in need of measurements that you'd have no idea why you'd need it til you go to plan something and then need it. Course just regular old measurements on one year of a truck would be a book as well.

 

Adrian,

The reason our FAQ stickied thread exists at the top of this forum is because we needed some place to copy all our ( Niolon's, mine, Chuck's and the IF series) articles into because a good percentage of the links in the Tech article section didn't work. For example - the 11 or 12 part front suspension series - one of the sections didn't have a link ( as I recall) and another the link was broken. A few of mine ( and I put a lot of hours into them) were broken as well.

(It's been so long since we did it, I can't recall which.)

I don't get along with the management of this website, so it was easier just to put them all into the FAQ thread...

Regards,

 

Julie - have you tried saving your searching preferences to return your search results via relevancy? (see attached screenshot )
I hope that rectifies the issue with the search engine you seem to have.
Oh - it could just be me, but they seem to work ok for me?
Section where they are located: https://www.ford-trucks.com/article/idx/10/0/

Links to articles:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/article/..._Part_One.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/article/..._Part_Two.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/article/...art_Three.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/article/...Part_Four.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/article/...Part_Five.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/article/..._Part_Six.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/article/...art_Seven.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/article/...art_Eight.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/article/...Part_Nine.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/article/..._Part_Ten.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/article/...rt_Eleven.html

Some great tech info there too BTW!
I don't know what tech article you had that could be accessed, but if you tell me the title, and I will see if I can find it. If its not there for whatever reason I might get you to resend it and I can get it re-uploaded.

Thanks!
Adrian

 

Yes, and I've also tried putting the "subject" in quotes as was suggested. It does not find the material requested.

There have bee at least two threads discussed here as affective alternatives in how to actually find the information needed in the historical threads because NO ONE can find anything using the site search engine.

Adrian - listen carefully, again, please - it's the search engine - it's GARBAGE and USELESS, and that IS the issue!

 

Can you provide me an example of what terms you have been trying to search?

I understand you are frustrated with the search engine, but I am pretty perplexed as to what the issue you are having with it, and I need to understand that exactly to fix it.
The majority of users seem to be happy with it thats all:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/7...-function.html

 

I have never had any problem when using Advanced Search. The quotes don't seem to help that much. This forum uses the same interface as several other forums I go to, no complaints on those forums about Search, other than most forums are much harder on folks who don't use it before posting.

 

I use an alternate method that usually yields better search results.

For example to find info on turn signal switches try this:

step 1 - go to google

step 2 - type the following - site:ford-trucks.com 1948-1960 turn signal switch

The google search gives you a sentence or two in the search results which I find to be helpful. You can even add a user name (or multiple user names for that matter) to get even better results if you can remember who posted what you are looking for.

Example - site:ford-trucks.com 1948-1960 turn signal switch Julies Cool F1


Hope this helps. Your mileage may vary. Batteries not included. I'm not a doctor but I play one on tv.

 

Adrian,

Wow! I'm impressed. As I said, when the thread at the top was created, the links to several of our articles were broken, wrong or simply gone.

I have just spent some time wondering around in the article section and I see that someone has done a great job of fixing them, cleaning them up, organizing. Every one that I can think of is there.

What really impressed me is that one of the first articles I ever contributed was posted with the formatting all messed up and 1/2 of the thing missing. After my complaining, they attempted to fix it and made no improvement whatsoever. I gave up. I see that someone has actually fixed it - posted it complete and in it's proper format. After all the time I spent compiling it, it does my heart good to see it finally fixed.

So! Apoligies and thanks.

Later,

 

Search Engine:

Well I got into the advanced search and it is much better, and would probably be fine.

But if you want an example, here it is:

Someone is looking for seals for a carrier bearing for an early Bonus Built.

So you type into the main search : "Carrier Bearing" and the first 9 threads that come up have the words "carrier" or "bearing" in the posts but have nothing to do with the subject - some of these threads have over 30 posts you have to search through to find the relevance. If you look long enough you will find the first thread that is relevant is the 10th post down (which happens to be the one we are looking for BTW). In some cases where you need to find something from 6 months or a year ago, you may have to page through hundreds of posts to find what you want.

If you use the "Advanced Search", the desired thread does not come up on the list of threads for "Carrier Bearing" at all.

This is the thread we were looking for:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/7...er-needed.html

If you open that thread you will see that there is an incredible amount of reference material provided by a good number of members. It's not one of those "that's purdie" / "yeah it is" types of threads. If it can be easily found, (and I don't consider paging through 9 threads easy) then it is a valuable resource asset. If folks can't find it with a reasonable amount of effort, it's lost - unless you saved it to favorites like I did.

I guess I'm being a little harsh.

The search engine will work for you if you are willing to page through hundreds of posts to find that one thread you need to find to reference the desired subject. It never used to be like that.

Most people, especially the newbies aren't willing to do this and that's why the same questions keep coming up, that have been previously asked and more than adequately answered - a number of times.

Perhaps a "Help Tech" on using the search engine properly - like the "Posting Pictures tech", would be in order.

BTW thanks for posting and participating in this thread - you are a very brave man!

 

Julie,
I did the attached search (see screenshot - please note all the settings I utilized)

Here are the first 4 results I got (which in my personal opinion I think are reasonably relevant)
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/4...r-bearing.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/5...placement.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/8...r-bearing.html
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/3...r-bearing.html

I hope that helps

 

It also helps a lot if you know about how long ago what you are searching for was posted (i.e., restrict the Post Date). Even limiting it down to a year timespan greatly reduces the number of hits. (This assumes you are searching for a post you recall having the information you seek)

 

It doesn't help a whole lot Adrian - AAMOF-not at all. And I think it doesn't (and thank you for the effort by the way) because you are missing (or I am not adequately communicating) the point. I can't seem to get you to unlock and realize that what we need this thing for is not always what you intended it to be or think we need. And this is the perfect example.

When I use the search engine, I'm not looking for general information or threads that might contain "something" on the subject - threads that are related or relevant.

I am looking for a specific thread that I know exists, and I know contains the information, part number, procedure, or drawing I need - most often (99%) to refer another member to that thread to answer his question that has already been discussed and has great answers to.

Lets step back in this scenario......

The new members original question was : "Does anyone have a part number for an F6 carrier bearing - a drawing would be helpful also"

This member is not looking for threads that contain "generally relavant" information about carrier bearings. He is looking for something specific.

Noticing his question I remember that the Forum had discussed that issue a few months prior on a thread that posted not only the part number and drawing the new member specifically needed, but an installation "help" post as well.

I set out to find that specific post to refer the member to (which provided the specific answer to his specific question).

I utilized the serach engine EXACTLY as you demonstrated in your post above and got EXACTLY the same results you did.

But, all it did was provide the four or possibly five links that were generally related to CARRIER BEARINGS. As you read farther through the threads you are starting to read statements like: "I learned to wire when I was on the CARRIER...." or " I can't modify that wall in my shop because it is load BEARING." etc. Completely not related.

But here is the kicker in this scenario:

The search engine FAILED FAILED FAILED to find the specific thread I needed, and knew existed,
to forward to the new member, despite the fact that it was 100% relevant to carrier bearings-words carrier bearings were listed in every post.
Not even on the list.

Why? I don't know. You asked for an example and I gave you one. And this is not an exception, but rather it is TYPICAL.

And we don't need to eat up this thread on the subject any more. You guys aren't going to change this thing, and those of us who regularly post these "reference threads" to other members have engineered alternative processes to find or recall the ones we need. So having a good search engine to use as the tool to accomplish what youare looking for with this thread is really mute at this point. You'll keep thinking the thing is doing the job you want it to do, we will continue to expereience that it doesn't do what we need it to do and coming up with alternatives that do - whatever works.

But, as always I appreciate your effort!

 

Julie, do you have the exact forum entry that WOULD satisfy your search request..
then they can examine WHY this entry was not found.


Adrian,

I also will add that I 'expect' the search engine to honor my syntax request using commonly defined parameters.. if I quote the string, then I am looking for THAT EXACT string.
NOT any of the parts of the string. "CARRIER BEARINGS" means ONLY those two words side by side.. not carrier and not bearings and NOT bearings carrier either.

I also never can understand how relevance can give me the OLDEST post first.. as humans we are ALWAYS concerned with yesterday as compared to last year.
(I've had this problem with the search engine we installed at work too.. which required some algorithm tweaks).

Sam