Searching forum

Subject: Searching forum
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 11:00 AM

I am having trouble searching the forum (not the digitrad.) I tried the term "seeger" and recieved no results, though I know this must be incorrect. The term "grateful" turns up nothing. The terms "beatles" and "lennon" are tuning up a vast number of results.

What am I doing wrong here?

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 11:03 AM

Forum searches, in my experience, rare bring up a topic you know to exist. It just doesn't work very well. Use google to search the site, that usually does the trick.

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 11:19 AM

Isn't that odd? Why does it work for the terms "beatles" and "lennon" and not work for "seeger" and "grateful"? It either works or it doesn't. Here we have something that works AND doesn't work! But it is a machine, so what is wrong or right with it?

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 11:27 AM

That is strange. Usually when you resubmit the request it comes up with results.

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: maeve
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 11:31 AM

The regular search has never worked very well. Suggest you use the filter (below the fiddllng catfish)- specify terms and time period. One can also use google to search Mudcat.

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 02:32 PM

I searched for Seeger and got a shed full of hits. Did you change the search parameters to 'all'?

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 03:17 PM

Spleen Cringe,

You were using the Filter. The question was regarding the search box in the top left hand corner. Do pay attention...

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 03:47 PM

Ed is right. A search for any term will bring up DT results, but not always forum results. Mudcat really should not have a search that does not work. I did use google and that works fine. It even tells you extra info like how many results it found.

To use google type site:mudcat.org "your search terms"

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 06:31 PM

maeve - Your idea works too. So why have the other option that does not work right? I find this sight to be clunky, not any worse than Facebook, though. This software must be from the 90's. I have not encountered anything like this since Infopop.

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 06:37 PM

Yep, I have long found it better to do a Google search inserting Mudcat as the first search term.

On a related matter, there are often multiple threads on a particular song or tune. Is there any way of finding out which is the preferred or main thread? I'd like to enquire about The Green Fields of Canada/America and would prefer to put my question on only one thread rather than several.

Can we do without the usual snarky "Do the research" replies?

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: michaelr
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 07:08 PM

The software that powers Mudcat is traditional. It's actually from the 1890s ;-)

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 07:19 PM

The Forum Search is a strange beast. It depends on an index, so the search is effective only for posts before the date the last index was generated. Oftentimes, posts newer than several weeks old won't be displayed.

It's also set to ignore search terms that appear too commonly. In this folk music forum, the word "seeger" appears lots and lots of times, so the Forum Search won't find it. It will find Pete Seeger, however - but the results list is so long that nobody is likely to read it. Same with "grateful" vs. Grateful Dead. In a forum with 3.7 million messages to search, some search terms are just too common to be useful.

In our QuickLinks dropdown menu on almost every Mudcat page, you'll find a selection for Old Advanced Forum Search. That page is kind of a Swiss Army Knife of search tools, many of which are also found elsewhere.

I find the Filter (at the top of the list of threads on the Forum Menu page) to be the fastest and most reliable way to find threads on any given subject. I put a pertinent word in the Filter box and set the age back (usually to "all.") Over the years, I have routinely renamed threads and messages to that they'll have expected keywords that will turn up in the Filter. So, if your thread title is nonspecific or spelled wrong, it's likely to be changed to something that's more clear. No personal offense intended.

That Old Advanced Forum Search also allows you to search the forum by the name of the poster, or by the title of the individual message within a thread (did you know that you can change a message title before you post it). In messages that have lyrics for songs, I put the word ADD and the song title to help people who are searching for lyrics. If the lyrics are incomplete or are a duplication of what's already in the Digital Tradition, I don't always change the title. I've been indexing and crosslinking messages and threads since 1998, so there's a lot of good stuff to find here if you know how to find it.

You'll find more search tips in the FAQ, along with a few other search engines that you won't find anywhere else. Some people complain about the FAQ because they say it's too long. If you start at the top of the FAQ and use the index, I don't really think it's all that hard to use. Most of the information you need is in the first ten messages of the FAQ, and there are links to all that stuff in the FAQ Index. There's discussion of other matters down below, but the permanent stuff is in the first ten messages - and those ten messages are updated as needed.

Our main search engine is intended to be "quick and stupid." You can put your search term in there and click "search," and most of the time you'll get pretty good results. To get more accurate or more specific results, you'll have to read the directions. What can I say?

-Joe Offer, Mudcat Music Editor-


One little tip that might be helpful: almost every Web browser has a built-in search engine that allows you to use CTRL-F to find a word or phrase on the page that's displayed. I'll often put one or two words in one of our search engines and bring up a big page of results, and then use CTRL-F to search for a second term to narrow the results. My search engine of choice is a two-stage search using the Filter and then CTRL-F

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: maeve
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 08:02 PM

I usually find a combination of the Filter, the Old Advanced Forum Search, and an occasional look with Google gets me more than enough information to post replies for many thread inquiries.

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 06 Jul 15 - 10:51 PM

& I use Google site search eg. Pete Seeger site:mudcat.org

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 04:17 AM

FWIW, search engines on many other (even more modern) sites are pretty hopeless, e.g. Apple, British Gas, City of Edinburgh Council, to name but a few! "No results" for things they must surely know about. As said above, Google or Bing work better.

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 05:53 PM

One good thing - if you post a thread to mudcat, it shows up in google immediately.

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 06:28 PM

I have just been typing into Google 'Mudcat' and any combination of my search terms. Since every page in Mudcat has the word 'mudcat' somewhere in it, I can find posts I know I have made by typing Mudcat "Bill D" + whatever I want (like "Charlie Brown" which I have mentioned more than once.)

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 07:07 PM

Hey - I hadn't thought of that. Yes. That is even simpler. Off topic - but do you ever print up threads that you would like to review thoroughly? I want to print, but is that a working feature here?

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 11:43 PM

Dear Guest....

YES ... print DOES work.

Sincerely,

assuming you DO have access to a printer, and paper, and understand your browser controls.

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Jul 15 - 02:10 AM

Printing threads?

There's a Printer Friendly link at the top of every thread and the bottom of every message. Give them a try. And most browsers allow you to save paper by choosing to "save to PDF" instead of actually printing.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Searching forum
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 09 Jul 15 - 04:22 AM

For printing any songs, I usually just select, copy and paste into Word, then I can edit font type and size or correct any mondegreens (;-)) before printing. The same would apply to printing part of a thread rather than the whole thing.