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Tech: Lyrics & Knowledge Search down?

Steve Gardham	21 Dec 23 - 03:48 PM
Joe Offer	21 Dec 23 - 04:08 PM
Steve Gardham	21 Dec 23 - 05:46 PM
GUEST,Ed.	22 Dec 23 - 08:39 AM
Robert B. Waltz	22 Dec 23 - 11:00 AM

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Subject: Tech: Lyrics & Knowledge down?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Dec 23 - 03:48 PM

Hi Joe,
We seem to be having problems over here getting a response. Getting a 500 all the time. Is there a malfunction currently please?

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Subject: RE: Tech: Lyrics & Knowledge down?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Dec 23 - 04:08 PM

Hi, Steve -
The Lyrics and Knowledge Search has never worked very well. Even when it was working, it depended on an index that Max had to generate by hand - so it missed all the entries from the time after Max generated the last index.

We have a number of search engines that work very well. I listed and explained all our search engines on the first message of the FAQ/Newcomer's Guide, and most of them are in the Old Advanced Forum Search page on the Quicklinks dropdown menu.

Over the last 25 years, I've been renaming threads and messages so they'll work with the search engines we have. Our Filter is the best tool for searching by thread title, and the Subject search works by message title (so I try to make sure song titles are in that space). The User Name search is self-explanatory, but note that you can find any person's messages by clicking on his/her name in any message they've posted. The tool I use most often is the Filter

Searching Mudcat for Information

It's easy to search for songs in the Digital Tradition Folk Song Database - just put some words from the song in the search box you'll find on most Mudcat pages, and click the "go" button. There's an advanced box that will help you narrow your search and pinpoint exactly what you're looking for. Also, click here for more song search help. You'll note that there is a dropdown menu of letters at the bottom of the search box - those letters link to a "titles list" of the songs in the Digital Tradition. Titles can be misleading, so you'll probably have better results if you use the search box to search for a distinctive phrase from the song. Here's that search box:

Notice the search box toward the bottom of the box above - that's Google Custom Search, set to use Google to search the contents of Mudcat. Try it - you'll find it works quite well, especially if you search for a phrase in quotes.

Forum Search (searching by Message Title or User Name)
If the song or information you want does not come up with our usual search engine, you may want to try searching our discussion Forum with our "Filter" (for searching by thread title) or "Forum Search" (for searching by message title or user name.

The Filter

(searching by thread title)
Toward the top of the Mudcat Forum main menu (click here), you'll see a "filter" box - put an appropriate word in the box and set the age to whatever is appropriate to cover the period you want to search. Click the grey "refresh" button, and all threads with that word in the title should appear (a "thread" is a series of forum messages, posted on a specific topic). Here's a filter box you can try:

Note: The forum menu is set to display all threads for which messages have been posted in the last 24 hours. If your thread has disappeared, please don't start a new one. Just use the "filter" or "search the forum" links on the main forum menu, and pull your thread up and post a new message in that thread - that will bring your thread up for another 24 hours. Your new message can be just the word "refresh" if you have nothing else to add.
If you're viewing Mudcat from work or a library or another location that has a "profanity filter" on its computers, you may not be able to view our Forum Menu if we happen to have a so-called "naughty word" in a thread title. We've tried to tag these titles "bawdy." If your profanity filter blocks your access, try putting bawdy in the Filter box and check the "filter out" box. Click here for tools to help you filter out "bawdy" or other threads.

Outdated search tools

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, we had a blue search box to search the Digital Tradition. It had lots of shortcomings, but it may work when our regular search engine is down. It also had a "titles" list that worked horribly. Here is our Old Blue Search Box:

SuperSearch was the prototype of our current method of searching both our Forum and the Digital Tradition, SuperSearch. Here's a copy of that prototype, in case you find it useful. Just enter a phrase and click the "go" button.
Note: the index for the SuperSearch is not always up-to-date, so recent messages may not appear in your search results.

Use Google to search Mudcat

If you use this Google search link and just add what you're looking for, you'll be able to search Mudcat. A search for twa corbies would look like this: (click).

Note:

Our main search engine depends on an index which is supposed to be updated regularly. However, performance of the Mudcat Search Engine has been a bit spotty. If it doesn't work, try the Google search box above.

The Filter is our best tool for finding things by thread name. You can use the Old Advanced Forum Search in our QuickLinks dropdown menu to find posts by message title or by the name of the poster.

revised by Joe Offer, December 2023.

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Subject: RE: Tech: Lyrics & Knowledge Search down?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Dec 23 - 05:46 PM

Thanks, Joe. I'll pass this on to Martin Graebe who was asking.

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Subject: RE: Tech: Lyrics & Knowledge Search down?
From: GUEST,Ed.
Date: 22 Dec 23 - 08:39 AM

And how many times must Joe Offer be asked
Why the Mudcat search doesn't work?
And how many times...

Joe, your patience approaches saintliness. Happy Christmas

Cheers, Ed! Happy Christmas to you! -Joe-

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Subject: RE: Tech: Lyrics & Knowledge Search down?
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 22 Dec 23 - 11:00 AM

GUEST.Ed wrote: And how many times must Joe Offer be asked
Why the Mudcat search doesn't work?

It is unfortunate. It's also worth pointing out that it isn't entirely Joe's or Max's fault. Speaking from experience... Google searches (e.g. the DT Lyrics search) are not what they're cracked up to be for aites like this. They have a strong dependence on things outside the site owner's control, like how often a particular page is linked to, and Google also wants a site map, which doesn't work as well at a site where people create new threads all the time. I can't really speak to the "under the hood" parts of Mudcat, but Google searches of the Ballad Index are not very good for that very reason. Nor is DuckDuckGo/Bing any better -- though it often finds different things than Google.

That said, the fallback -- which sometimes works even when Mudcat is down, because it might fetch a cached page -- is to use the browser search function. In your search bar, type

site:mudcat.org (whatever it is you're looking for)

And your browser will give you a list of search results from Google just from Mudcat.

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