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KilaTsunami
October, 2024

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Pay me to fix the NS search

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iLLbiLLy
Posts: 2865 - Karma: 2,631
Cheese and rice the thing sucks...

But on a serious note,
you guys should really implement a independent search index. Lucene (http://lucene.apache.org/core/) is a super powerful/highly optimized solution that I've recently had great luck with.

If your seriously interested in fixing the damn thing, have your developer shoot me an email and I can walk him through the architecture. I'm offering to consult for free because I'm sick of not being able to find anything on this site.
Mar 5 2013 8:10PM
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eheath
Posts: 61603 - Karma: 123,059
Easiest way to search NS:

google.com

type in "site:newschoolers.com:" and follow that with what you want to search for, its very easy to find what you're looking for.
Mar 5 2013 8:56PM
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JWeinstock
Posts: 3439 - Karma: 1,352
exactly. and if they really wanted to fix the search bar they probably could by now
Mar 5 2013 9:21PM
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anti_bunk
Posts: 2629 - Karma: 329
id like to see a tagging system or something similar would be pretty easy to add. Anything that allows you to find the thread/ pic/ vid or whatever your looking for without knowing the exact title will be good.
Mar 5 2013 9:43PM
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Mr.Bishop
Posts: 22708 - Karma: 76,635
Well take you up on this as we're certainly open to ideas. This is on our hitllist to address so more info the better.

Could you wait about a month, and then send in your suggestions to Paul and myself?

nopoles@newschoolers.com and mr.bishop@newschoolers.com

Lots of times this stuff isn't as easy as it seems on the surface, which is why we haven't yet addressed it. However over the summer is the perfect time to open up these discussions and discuss implementation strategies.
Mar 6 2013 9:37AM
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theblackrod
Posts: 2162 - Karma: 575
I will definitely give some ideas to the discussion this summer.

But for now, eheath is right. google "site:newschoolers.com:" and what you're looking for
Mar 6 2013 10:20AM
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jackf
Posts: 231 - Karma: 416
Finally! I'd love to see an improvement here
Mar 6 2013 3:30PM
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iLLbiLLy
Posts: 2865 - Karma: 2,631
yea maybe you guys just get in touch if you ever decide to tackle the problem. I agree its definitely not a small project and google does seem to find what your looking for.

There are definitively advantages to implementing your own algorithms tho; Such as filtering (specific forum, video, picture, etc) and applying custom weights (number of replies, rating, etc).

To interface with NS the process would require a Search Service Layer running either .Net or Java that returns the results (in xml or json) as well as an Indexing Layer where items would queued for processing (whenever a new thread, post, or video is added they would be queued for indexing/reindexing).

This pattern allow you to keep server load down to a minimum (the queued Indexing Layer can be throttled to only run when server load is low eg: 3am-6am) and requires that you only index the entire database once (when first implemented). The searches themselves are executed against independent index's so your database server receives no load (full-text queries like those that are likely currently in being used can bring a RDBMS to a halt).

Its not quite as complicated as it sounds but might be overkill for NS at the moment.
Mar 6 2013 4:29PM
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