A .pdf guide for new Dumpshockers.

LINK

Wait. The search function needs a 4 megabyte pdf document to be usable?

The PDF is 8 very short pages. With about once sentence to explain each step. However, each page also has a screenshot of the dumpshock search page. The images are probably not compressed, which is why it's 4 megs. But, given the state of the internet, 4 megs is really nothing (it downloaded in about 30 seconds for me).

Anyway, it's very nicely made. I like it.

Yeah I wasn't really worrying about file size. I could compress it, but its already been more effort than its probably worth.

It just occurred to me last night that constantly telling newbies to "Use the search function!??!?!" after they've already tried isn't all that helpful. Maybe this can be.

Need? No, not as such. But for the newbies and other Dumpshockers who default to Logic because they didn't see the need to take any Data Search, it's not a horrible thing to have. It could be a bit more optimized for size perhaps...

Of course if more people just used the advanced search and read the Advanced Usage Help, even that wouldn't really be neccessary. I would argue that a well crafted search that searches post content is actually more useful than a title only search, but that does require a tiny modicum of effort.

The search function also doesn't allow words less than 4 characters, so that would have been something important to put in your PDF, esp with all the free space you have in there.

I find the content search to be hit or miss for the kinds of things that new users frequently post, because the tend to be very general. Content searches for things like "payment" "map" "music" or "movie" will give you so many spurious hits as to be almost useless. For specifics like "Harlequin" "Jerusalem" and "Desert Wars" it does much better.

That occurred to me after posting. If I have an overwhelming urge to revise it I will certainly take your advice.

What about the fact that I've had it return a result for a search term that didn't appear in the entire thread?

No, I don't remember what the search term was.

? If it were within my power to fix the search I would. I'm just trying to help work with what we've got.

I think there should be a moratorium on posts that say "use search lol noob." IMO, the proper netiquette should be to politely answer the question, provide a link to a previous thread, or STFU. People who just say "use the search" are not contributing anything, it's just an eWang pump that makes your post count bigger. If people don't start posting about using the search function and just answer the question right off, the poster gets the answers he wants, and the thread dies again. Or, if there are people who didn't participate in the last one, they may want to start the debate back up. That should be fine IMO, as long as it's kept civil. The one problem I see is that certain topics attract certain unsavory characters, though most of them have either been chased off or just gone quiet recently so it shouldn't be a big deal

That said, I think this guide is a good thing. Lots of people want to use the search, and if they could make it work right, they wouldn't post their redundant threads.

I agree with Larme. I will readily admit that I am guilty of "Use the search noob" posts in the past. But just recently I am actively trying to move away from that because as Larme stated it doesn't prevent the repetitive posts anyway and I worry that it may drive new users away if their first post is met with such a response. Thats bad for the forum (which already has a poor reputation on some other gaming boards) and arguably bad for the game (no one wants to engage in a hobby with a propensity for attracting a-holes).

Its seems to me that for whatever reason (the SR4A release? Summer?) we are getting a lot of new users and a deluge of the same repetitive topics. It seems like this is a prime time to A.) post an official FAQ or B.) revamp the search function to make it more user friendly. Since neither official intervention seems to be forthcoming, I figured why not look to the community for some solutions.

Put the pdf in your sig Method. Then instead of use the search, I will tell people to use your sig.

The most common thing I perceive happening with the search is people not choosing for topics older then 30 days. If it wasn't last week, they don't find it.

Yup. A link and the search options they should use to search for it is hugely more useful.

Why would I search when I can just hit 'New Topic' and get a reply within minutes?

Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now.

(Just kidding, I do try - but sometimes even when using explicit searches you just can't see it.

Although if I see another question regarding bloody SR inspired movies/music, I may decapitate someone with a monofilament whip).

- J.

The big problem with the current search engine is that it doesn't permit exact phrases that contain words that are under four characters. The former search engine did, just so long as the whole thing over four characters.

This is very annoying when searching for old conversations, since exact phrases tend to contain words that are less than four characters; this very sentence, for example, contains "is", "for", "old", "to", "are", and "and".

Or THE. Probably THE most important Word in THE whole english "language".
BTL is impossible too. And other such 3-letter Words.

Actually, you can dispense with words like "the" and still be understood. For instance:

Man went to park, walked dog, answered phone.

It loses some of its meaning, but it's not like you can't do without "the."

In fact, "Arocdnicg to rsceearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer are in the rghit pcale. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit pobelrm. Tihs is buseace the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."

That's actually not true. When you start using longer words you have to arrange things carefully or it falls apart.

For instancec:

Dlitsaeismbnsthsieaainrm

I probably picked a word that will still be recognizable, but you wouldn't be able to pull the right word out as fast as "amzanig pwoer of teh huamn mnid."

If you look at the constructed sentence you provided you'll notice that nearly every word maintains some semblance to the original. University almost maintains letters withing syllabic groups. University -> u·ni·ver·si·ty -> uni·ver·sity -> Uin·erv·tisy. Cambridge -> Cam·bridge -> Cma·brigde (a mere two swaps). Every word maintains a collection of letters that is pronounceable, that is, no strings of 5+ consonants, unlike my example.

Try this one one for size:

Cbirdgame Uinvertsry

"birdgame" is very obvious, "inverts" less so.

Edit:
Here's what I uncovered about the last time I saw this. Here's what I wrote:

Nargus wrote:
>Ah! preahps, preahps So, the brian did qeruy a wrod maeinng jsut by lokonig
>at the frist and lsat cahacretr? Cool!

I tihnk, so. It mhgit elxiapn why I can clnsitoetnsy minsosrcuopne lnog wdors.

Note how "consistently" and "misconstrue" are exceedingly difficult to parse.

Yeah, except you're doing it wrong. You have to keep the same letters, but rearrange them, leaving the first and last ones in place. Misconstrue does not have a p in it. Consistently is pretty easy to read because you did it right, but misconstrue looks like gibberish because you substituted a letter. Furthermore, long words might become indeciperable out of context, but if you put them inside of a sentence, I imagine it would be easy to understand. Anyway, I don't think the point was to show that the order of letters don't matter, only to show that we can decipher most words regardless of how they are jumbled, as long as the first and last letters are correct. It's not like showing corner cases where it doesn't work disproves the entire study, the idea that it's supposed to be true for all words in all contexts is nothing but a straw man. [/off topic]

Copy/pasted from a post I made years ago. Just for giggles:

I tihnk, so. It mhgit elxiapn why I can clnsitoetnsy minsosrcute lnog wdors.

There was an extra 'n', an extra 'o', and a missing t besides. It still looks unreadable.

Method, it would be very useful to explain how to do logical AND searches. To do this precede each word with a '+' sign. The search engine will then look for posts that have all the words. The default is an OR search, which locates posts that have any of the words that you specify.

Using the AND version of the search can turn a search that is otherwise near useless into something quite feasible. For example "chicken" returns 18 pages, "fire" returns 16 pages, and "chicken fire" returns 16 pages. The search engine actually caps the result list for the latter two at 1000 hits so you aren't even given all the matches. But "+chicken +fire" returns only 2 pages. Not only is the AND result list the one you are likely to be inclined to look through, if you got the right words then it is also the one that you are far less likely to miss the post you want.

Alright, I've revised the file to incorporate some of the feedback. It is smaller (2.7 mb), shorter (4 pages) and includes tips about the three-letter keyword error and logic strings.

The link above is updated or you can click here.

Mind, I never said that the size was an issue, it was just humorous that it takes that much explanation.

I can read it just fine

Looking better but there is a mistake in the logical string instructions. For the string "chicken and fire" the search engine does NOT recognize and treat the "and" as a logical operator. I don't know why, it doesn't report an error but it also doesn't treat it like an AND ("chicken and fire" still gives 16 pages of results). You have to use the method of prepending '+' characters.

Yes but there was a lot of wasted space in the first version, so this works better.

Doah! You're right. I thought that worked when I tried it earlier. Must have just been lucky with my search string.

{edit}Fixed