Rebuilding the search database
 

Hi,

I was wondering if any work is being done on getting the old threads into the search database. The older posts provide a great amount of information, dialogue, and reference on here. I think it would be a shame for it to just be stuffed away on an inaccessible server in cyberspace.

Are there any technical obstacles getting in the way ?

Thanks,
keyshawn

I think the search link should just go here: http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&l...=TFProject.org

It's quicker and doesn't use the site's resources.

^ Ditto to that.

Great idea filtherton!

It IS a great idea, and--as I said in the "what happend to TFP" thread--I volunteer my services to get this thing back on its feet. My services generally go for $80/hour.

For the record, it wasn't my idea, somebody else set it up shortly after the recent upgrade. Unfortunately i can't seem to find where i got that url from. So hats off to whoever is really responible.

It's one of their "business solution" freebies.

http://www.google.com/searchcode.html

Course, you can get the same result (without customizations) by adding site:www.tfproject.org to your search string.

Using google for searches is a temporary solution, at best. Among the things Google won't do when used to search TFP are: sort results by most recently posted, find posts by user, find threads by user, search specific forums, search within a specific date range of posts...the list goes on.

As a temporary solution, it's alright, but it's far from preferable as a more permanent method of searching.

As for the rebuilding of the search database...it's going to take awhile. It uses a lot of resources to do it, so it can only be done during low-traffic periods. Just as an example, after about 6 or 8 hours of letting the database work on rebuilding....it was 3% done. Patience is key.

I also see comments every now and then about how our policy of "search before you post" is unfair due to the broken search database. Sometimes I even see comments that suggest the policy be changed. Regarding this, I'd like to direct you to <a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=105692#1">this post</a>:The number of threads closed since the upgrade due to other threads already existing has been almost none. And the ones that have been closed and linked to older threads were not closed with any negativity towards the thread starter. We're aware the search doesn't work and we do keep that in mind when we see duplicate threads right now.