Phrases search on this forum

[Elethiomel]

When using phrases search on this forum to search for a specifig bug and a possible work-around, I get the feedback that some or all of my words are too short. The phrase I was searching for was "Bao-dur won't talk to me", which is the bug I am experiencing.

 

This phrase is actually 24 characters long, so the search engine's tacit assumption that it will get too many irrelevant results with words that short is obviously not true. Is there a possibility to fix the search so that people experiencing bugs that will most commonly be described with a series of short words can actually search for them, rather than posting new topics like this?

 

Or should the instructions all forum members receive on joining, plus a "read this first" sticky state that people should describe their bugs with long words?

 

Also, a fuller description of my bug:

After landing on dantooine and playing all the possible betting rounds of pazaak against the trandoshan there, when I reenter the Ebon Hawk and try to talk to Bao-Dur, he just turns toward me and continues fiddling as if he was still turned against the machinery in the wall. No conversation is started.

 

When leaving the Ebon Hawk, with Bao-Dur in my party, he doesn't follow the party. He just stands wherever he was last left alone. If controlling Bao-Dur, things work as expected though.

[SteveThaiBinh]

We've criticised the three-letter limit on the search engine before, but apparently there's nothing anyone can do about it, at least not easily.

 

That would be a good point to raise in the Project New Jersey forums - all places and character names must have four or more letters so that the Obsidian forum search engine can handle them.

[metadigital]

Just try looking for the main words in the search phrase (it will be several orders of magnitude faster, too), like: "Bao-Dur" and "talk".

 

You need to take him out exploring with you, so that your PC might gain some influence and further the conversation.

 

[Krookie]

I've had tat happen to before, but when I reloaded, the bug was fixed.

[Elethiomel]

Just try looking for the main words in the search phrase (it will be several orders of magnitude faster, too), like: "Bao-Dur" and "talk".

 

You need to take him out exploring with you, so that your PC might gain some influence and further the conversation.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Thanks! I'll try that.

[Pa3PyX]

Technically: I'm guessing here, but I believe most "search" features only index words, not phrases, so their primary usage is word search (AND/OR). Phrase search is a hack that is tacked on after the fact. Words less than n characters long are not indexed period -- so the engine is unable to search them, whether they occur in phrases or not.

 

Not only that, but punctuation [.,:;?!'` ] is usually not indexed either, so you'll probably be unable to search words with these symbols in them either -- even Google cannot do that (advanced options?); if you type a word with a dot in it, it will return results both with and without dots, for instance. Which can be useful, but can also be very annoying ("I know what I'm looking for, darn it!") -- one must admit, but is a tradeoff between performance and functionality.

[metadigital]

Yeah, I don't fancy upkeeping the indices of databases indexed on every word, punctuation mark and capitalisation phase! That's a large task, not to mention re-indexing after editing ...

[Krookie]

...You don't need to talk to Bao anyway. Unless you haven't built your saber yet.