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  #1  
Old Jun 29, 2018, 06:39 AM
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Aifread Aifread is offline
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Default Ignored search terms

Sorry if this has been brought up before, but I really don't see the point of ignoring certain words in searches. I don't know of any other site or search engine that overtly does this and I'd rather not have to type double quotes around everything when I wanna find something from a specific numbered Final Fantasy game, for example. I typed the full name of the game there for a reason but the site then patronizes me by saying I should've typed quotation marks. I get that it's meant to catch mistakes but honestly I think it does more harm than good.
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  #2  
Old Jul 1, 2018, 06:14 AM
Rrolack Rrolack is offline
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I agree that the search would be more user-friendly without dropping one and two character phrases.

If dropping these is still seen as important, a few suggested adds to the "exception list" are all numbers (e.g. "2", "3", ..., "99") and roman numerals (e.g. "I", "II", "IV, ...).
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  #3  
Old Jul 2, 2018, 07:37 AM
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You need to use quotes because it searches for terms individually and is a union of all search terms. Searching for:

Version Sound

is searching for anything that contains both the word 'sound' and 'version', in any order.

Searching for:

"Version Sound"

is searching for explicitly the term "Version Sound" in that order, which significantly limits results.

Allowing non-quoted < 3 character searches would create problematic queries in that searching for 'i', 'iv', 'v', 'vi' would return results where the album contained the letter 'i', 'v', the letters 'iv' (ex: Live), 'vi' (ex: Video). That's a problem both for the user (too many results) and the database (returning so many results).

Use quotes or use google to do searching (ex: final fantasy iv site:vgmdb.net)
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  #4  
Old Jul 2, 2018, 08:09 AM
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you can use stuff like " iv " (or " iv", "iv ")
of course if some letters are stuck, it doesn't help
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  #5  
Old Jul 2, 2018, 04:12 PM
Rrolack Rrolack is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dancey View Post
Allowing non-quoted < 3 character searches would create problematic queries in that searching for 'i', 'iv', 'v', 'vi' would return results where the album contained the letter 'i', 'v', the letters 'iv' (ex: Live), 'vi' (ex: Video). That's a problem both for the user (too many results) and the database (returning so many results).
Interesting. I had no idea that the search matches partial words.

Out of curiosity, is *that* behavior considered desirable or typical of search engines? This is to say: if we want a search where "oun" returns every album containing "sound," then it's understandable that a search for 'final fantasy iv' (without quotes) can't be accepted. But is it the former behavior considered beneficial (or beneficial enough) to be worth sacrificing the latter?
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Old Jul 2, 2018, 04:26 PM
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People far smarter than me have written entire theses on the subject of search and indices. The search could be improved but it would take a new plugin or new coding and I don't know that it's realistic. You will already get an error if your search returns too many results (Try searching for "Sound" or "Original")

Code:
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 9475477 bytes) in /home/vgmdb/public_html/db/albums-search.php on line 327
Realistically it's just not worth the development time when all it takes is using quotes, imo. It's unrealistic for people to be searching for such broad terms that it presents itself as a common issue, though as the database grows larger it may require attention if common searches like "Final Fantasy" or artists with huge catalogs start bombing.
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  #7  
Old Jul 2, 2018, 10:45 PM
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It's already a problem with searching for "Ys," as that brings up all albums containing those letters in that order. I may not have a thesis, but matching letters rather than words like that seems generally undesirable to me. I understand that it would be a pain in the ass to change though. Was just wondering if anyone had taken it into consideration as an issue.
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  #8  
Old Jul 6, 2018, 02:49 PM
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A normal full text search most newer databases offer would be an improvement already. Full text searches work by word instead by character, and instead having to explicitly set a word as word with quotes one instead has to allow partial matches with asterisks.
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