New Idea for the Forum

[res0o7eb]

leave it the way it is .............it works well enough
general discussions can and do answer many questions
as for mods moving posts around ,that could get a little complicated LOL
these forums are very informative ,personally i would rather see 10 forums busy than 20 forums with few threads in them

I completely disagree.
One General Discussion Forum is not the solution and doesn't work well without a decent search capability.
More forums with categorized content -with moderators/volunteers moving it around - is needed to FIND THE ANSWERS to those questions.

OR A MUCH BETTER SEARCH FEATURE!

[res0o7eb]

leave it the way it is .............it works well enough
general discussions can and do answer many questions
as for mods moving posts around ,that could get a little complicated LOL
these forums are very informative ,personally i would rather see 10 forums busy than 20 forums with few threads in them

I completely disagree.
One General Discussion Forum is not the solution and doesn't work well without a decent search capability.
More forums with categorized content - with moderators/volunteers moving it around - is needed to FIND THE ANSWERS to those questions.

OR A MUCH BETTER SEARCH FEATURE!

[monzamess]

What specifically is bad with using Google as the search engine?

P.S. Trust me, the one that came with phpBB2 is no better, plus it uses up lots of server resources.

[spyder_xlch]

What specifically is bad with using Google as the search engine?

P.S. Trust me, the one that came with phpBB2 is no better, plus it uses up lots of server resources.

There are times when I search for something that I know has been talked about and it doesn't show up on the search. But I don't have a big problem with it (unlike Tom, he whines if his ice cream is too cold). I do think posts need to be put in the correct forum though. Look at how many engine topics are in the general forum. To me the general forum should be about "got my Monza running today" "went for a ride in my Vega" "saw a nice Sunbird drive by" etc. Not "why isn't my car getting gas?" I'm guilty of it too at times.

[SunbirdMan]

What specifically is bad with using Google as the search engine?

Right now on the first page of the General Forum there are threads with the words:
"clock"
"gussets"
"catalytic"
If I do a search for these threads using these words they don't show up.

[monzamess]

Those are all very new posts.

There WILL be a lag.

Even if we use the phpBB built-in search, I repeat, there WILL be a lag. In fact, the lag is likely to be worse, since the phpBB search only rebuilds its index on command, meaning, someone has to tell it to rebuild every so often. This rebuild operation is very resource intensive so you can't just do it every day.

At least with Google, new stuff is picked up automatically.

FWIW, the "catalytic" post appears now via Google search, first result.

[SunbirdMan]

Try something we haven't talked abpot in awhile. Like "vista vent".

[res0o7eb]

... (unlike Tom, he whines if his ice cream is too cold).

And if my beer is warm and my coffee is too hot.
Dennis,
I thought you had mentioned a while ago that you recognized that there were issues with the Google search. And that it could and would be fixed someday.
No hurry, though.

[monzamess]

Tom, Roger,

I now see a problem. Earlier, I did not see one--people would report problems, but others including myself would not have those problems and I would assume it was a cookie or customization issue for that one person.

Anyway, the problem I see now, based on a tip from Roger, is that really "deep" pages aren't searched by Google. For example, something on the 200th page of posts in the Gm H-Body archive isn't on Google, while everything on the first however-many pages IS there.

Right now I'm at a loss how to fix this, but I haven't looked into it much yet.

I can say right now that going back to phpBB-based search is not an option. Bottom line, it puts a high strain on the server and will get our site kicked off the host.

Other suggestions are welcome...

[SunbirdMan]

Its easy for me to come up with more work for you, so how about this. Some forums have search features where you can choose the sub-forum you want to search. Would this get better results or put less strain on the site?

[spyder_xlch]

Its easy for me to come up with more work for you, so how about this. Some forums have search features where you can choose the sub-forum you want to search. Would this get better results or put less strain on the site?

But when posts aren't in the correct forum how do you know which forum to search?

[spyder_xlch]

... (unlike Tom, he whines if his ice cream is too cold).

And if my beer is warm and my coffee is too hot.

Actually I do bitch if my ice cream is too cold. I usually have to microwave it to scoop it.

[monzamess]

Its easy for me to come up with more work for you, so how about this. Some forums have search features where you can choose the sub-forum you want to search. Would this get better results or put less strain on the site?

That might help a little--creating a search index would take the same amount of resource since the computing cost is per-message, but each search might be a little better. But creating that sort of interface would be a nightmare. Maybe phpBB3 has something like that?

I'm still in the camp of using an off-site search. Maybe another search engine has indexed this site better than Google? Or the unindexed pages could be submitted to Google?

[monzamess]

... (unlike Tom, he whines if his ice cream is too cold).

And if my beer is warm and my coffee is too hot.

Actually I do bitch if my ice cream is too cold. I usually have to microwave it to scoop it.

Hey Matt, this thing really works.

http://www.pamperedchef.com/our_product ... oryCode=KW

Better than a bent spoon any day.

[spyder_xlch]

We have a couple of scoopers. I like my ice cream alittle melted is all. And I have bent and broke spoons before.