Website Documentation Search broken?

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Thomas Guettler

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Dec 14, 2011, 4:02:43 AM12/14/11
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Hi,

is the search on https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.3/ broken, or is it just me,
getting no results?

Thomas

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Thomas Guettler, http://www.thomas-guettler.de/
E-Mail: guettli (*) thomas-guettler + de

kenneth gonsalves

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Dec 14, 2011, 4:55:03 AM12/14/11
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On Wed, 2011-12-14 at 10:02 +0100, Thomas Guettler wrote:
> is the search on https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.3/ broken, or is
> it just me,
> getting no results?

afaik search on multiple terms has not been working for a long time:

compare
https://docs.djangoproject.com/search/?q=typed+choice+field&release=5

with

http://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Adocs.djangoproject.com+typed+choice
+field
--
regards
Kenneth Gonsalves

Thomas Guettler

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Dec 14, 2011, 7:29:22 AM12/14/11
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Ignore it, this morning even a single word search had no results. Now it works. All is fine

Thomas

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creecode

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Dec 14, 2011, 11:01:55 AM12/14/11
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Hello all,

I can't say for sure but for some time it seems to me that searching has become more difficult.  I can't put my finger on any specifics.  I have found that some phrases that are in my browser form field cache I've used in that past no longer return results.  And I'm almost certain some of them were previously successful.

I thought that perhaps it was just me remembering wrong but now, maybe, there really is a problem.

Folks, chime in if you've had a feeling the search hasn't been working as well as before.

Toodle-looooooooooooooo...........
creecode

Torsten Bronger

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Dec 14, 2011, 11:21:15 AM12/14/11
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Hall�chen!

creecode writes:

> I can't say for sure but for some time it seems to me that
> searching has become more difficult. I can't put my finger on any
> specifics. I have found that some phrases that are in my browser
> form field cache I've used in that past no longer return results.
> And I'm almost certain some of them were previously successful.

I *think* (though I'm really not sure) that the search used to work
through Google. Be that as it may, it used to be significantly
better. Were there legal problems with the old search?

If I searched for "queryset api", the first result was, well, the
QuerySet API. Now, it is the fifth. With just "queryset", it is
even position 9.

Tsch�,
Torsten.

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Torsten Bronger Jabber ID: torsten...@jabber.rwth-aachen.de
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Jacob Kaplan-Moss

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Dec 14, 2011, 1:14:10 PM12/14/11
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On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 10:21 AM, Torsten Bronger
<bro...@physik.rwth-aachen.de> wrote:
> creecode writes:
>
>> I can't say for sure but for some time it seems to me that
>> searching has become more difficult.  I can't put my finger on any
>> specifics.  I have found that some phrases that are in my browser
>> form field cache I've used in that past no longer return results.
>> And I'm almost certain some of them were previously successful.

Ugh, I'm sorry. If you take some notes on what those searches are --
which ones aren't returning results you'd expect -- and let me know I
can tweak it.

> I *think* (though I'm really not sure) that the search used to work
> through Google.  Be that as it may, it used to be significantly
> better.  Were there legal problems with the old search?

No, not legal problems; technical -- I had all sorts of problems with
Google's search. You can't tweak it at all -- if you don't like what
you get, tough. It also would go down from time to time, and there was
never any help, ETAs, or info about when it'd be back up. Since it
works off a spider it'd pick up stuff that isn't content -- searching
for "documentation", for example, was useless since that word appears
in the nav. I could go on, but basically Google's search was a PITA.

So I may have taken a step backwards switching away from Google, but
now the control is in our hands -- we can tweak, tune, and otherwise
make it work better. If you want to help, see
https://github.com/django/djangoproject.com and look in
django_website/docs; it's built using Haystack.

> If I searched for "queryset api", the first result was, well, the
> QuerySet API.  Now, it is the fifth.  With just "queryset", it is
> even position 9.

Thank - I'll look into that particular search and see if I can boost
the right document to the top. If you find more like that drop a list
into this thread and I'll take a look.

Jacob

creecode

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Dec 14, 2011, 4:21:27 PM12/14/11
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Hello Jacob,


On Wednesday, December 14, 2011 10:14:10 AM UTC-8, Jacob Kaplan-Moss wrote:

Ugh, I'm sorry. If you take some notes on what those searches are --
which ones aren't returning results you'd expect -- and let me know I
can tweak it.

No problem man, it's just good to know that something has changed and now I can be more attentive next time I notice a problem! :-)

Thanks,

creecode

kenneth gonsalves

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Dec 14, 2011, 9:36:58 PM12/14/11
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On Wed, 2011-12-14 at 08:01 -0800, creecode wrote:
> I can't say for sure but for some time it seems to me that searching
> has become more difficult. I can't put my finger on any specifics. I
> have found that some phrases that are in my browser form field cache
> I've used in that past no longer return results. And I'm almost
> certain some of them were previously successful.

it is using the default sphinx search which is limited to one word
searches.
--
regards
Kenneth Gonsalves

Jacob Kaplan-Moss

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Dec 15, 2011, 9:30:27 AM12/15/11
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On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 8:36 PM, kenneth gonsalves
<law...@thenilgiris.com> wrote:
> it is using the default sphinx search which is limited to one word
> searches.

That's true of the documentation you build locally, but the search on
docs.djangoproject.com uses Haystack with the Xapian search engine.
It's a proper search engine -- just not tuned perfectly.

Jacob

kenneth gonsalves

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Dec 17, 2011, 1:30:07 AM12/17/11
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thanks for the info - the search *has* improved, for example a search
for get_FOO_display used to fail, it now succeeds. But I still need
ddg's site search for multiword searches.
--
regards
Kenneth Gonsalves

Jacob Kaplan-Moss

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Dec 17, 2011, 1:51:39 PM12/17/11
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On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 12:30 AM, kenneth gonsalves
<law...@thenilgiris.com> wrote:
> thanks for the info - the search *has* improved, for example a search
> for get_FOO_display used to fail, it now succeeds. But I still need
> ddg's site search for multiword searches.

Can you be a bit more specific? If there's a bug I'd like to fix it,
but I'm not having any issues with "multiword searches"; for example:

* https://docs.djangoproject.com/search/?q=form+wizard&release=5
* https://docs.djangoproject.com/search/?q=auth+middleware&release=5
* https://docs.djangoproject.com/search/?q=database+routers&release=5

Jacob

kenneth gonsalves

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Dec 19, 2011, 1:01:41 AM12/19/11
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On Sat, 2011-12-17 at 12:51 -0600, Jacob Kaplan-Moss wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 17, 2011 at 12:30 AM, kenneth gonsalves
> <law...@thenilgiris.com> wrote:
> > thanks for the info - the search *has* improved, for example a
> search
> > for get_FOO_display used to fail, it now succeeds. But I still need
> > ddg's site search for multiword searches.
>
> Can you be a bit more specific? If there's a bug I'd like to fix it,
> but I'm not having any issues with "multiword searches"; for example:
>
>
https://docs.djangoproject.com/search/?q=typed+choice+field&release=5
https://docs.djangoproject.com/search/?q=choices+display&release=5

what happens here is that the search returns all the results for each
individual word - not the combination of words. Compare with ddg:

http://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Adocs.djangoproject.com+typed+choice
+field
http://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Adocs.djangoproject.com+choices+display

--
regards
Kenneth Gonsalves

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