Sam - you can search by "last posting date", we intentionally don't include last posting date in determining relevancy, as we have found it pollutes the results.

 

thanks.. when configuring our search engine (in our support site support.ca.com), one of our primary objectives was NOT to have to train the user.. what does 'pollute' mean?

Sam

 

We have the option of doing such a thing (think of it like Google), the issue is, when searching a forum, most people (like Julie for example) knows what post they are looking for, but they may remember entirely different aspects, and we ant to give users the ability to parse it out based on what they remember. I.e. who posted it, when it was posted, what forum, what the topic was on etc. etc.


I don't want to do the whole "its hard", but with trying to search a database the size that FTE is with a full text search its like trying to hit a moving target with a bow and arrow with a stiff side breeze.

 

yes, ADVANCED search (additional input parameters) with date, author, blah bah..
THAT is completely different than default behaviour

Sam

 

Hi Sam,

Yes, the exact thread link is on line 10 of post 26. In post 26 I explained the problem initially but apparently communicated poorly.

Do you remember when you had your one wire alternator hook up problem? That turned out to be an invaluable thread with tons of information collectively that would be very difficult to find in a single source any where else - same thing with that one. Could just be me - what an idiot!

I have saved over 200 of these kinds of threads to Favorites to reference when needed. I did that to elliminate the time and effort of "flipping" through hundreds of pages of "relevent" information that was not "applicable."

All of you guys brought up another great point (as initially mentioned by Ross) and that is if you can remember the date or the poster, you really can elliminate out all the junk in the advanced search. But even with my memory, I can remember all that stuff, if I could, I'd be "in like Flynn!"

 

You have the opportunity to save your own default behavior for the advanced search.

The majority of users will most likely utilize the default (relevancy), more advanced users (such as yourself) might be more inclined to change the default option to "last post date" for example.

 

yeh, but I think the concensus vote out here is that "the default (relevancy)" isn't what we want as the default. based on our experience..

Sam