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Mudcat Search Tips

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Joe Offer	01 Jan 25 - 04:19 PM
Joe Offer	01 Jan 25 - 04:22 PM
Stilly River Sage	01 Jan 25 - 06:40 PM
Stilly River Sage	30 Apr 25 - 01:10 PM

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Subject: SEARCH TIPS
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Jan 25 - 04:19 PM

I keep trying to come up with a clear and easy and brief guide to searching Mudcat. We have so many search engines, plus a "supersearch" that doesn't work. Everybody goes to the Supersearch and fails, and then they give up. Don't give up. If you can't find something, you can always ask one of us moderators. That's our job.

But let me try to make a list of the various search tools we have, and explain what their purposes are. To search for almost anything, there are only two places to go:

The Filter - to find threads by thread name. It's that box at the top of the list of threads. Put one or two distinctive words or a partial word, set the age back to "all" or whatever, and "refresh." If you want to find all our threads on Tom Paxton, put Paxton in the Filter box. If you get too many results, use CTRL-F on your keyboard to refine your results.
Old Advanced Forum Search (click) (in the Quicklinks dropdown menu on almost every Mudcat Page)
This is a collection of almost all the search utilities we've had at Mudcat over the years, and (most) of them still work.
- Subject Search is my favorite, and it's right at the top. It searches for things by Message title.
  Since 1997, I have been constantly editing and standardizing message and thread titles to make the Filter and the Subject Search work better. If you're looking for a song, put one word or phrase from the song title in the "Subject" box and search.
- UserName searches messages by the name of the person who posted them. Put Max in the search box and it will bring up all messages posted by people named Max.
  Hint: You can also click on the poster's name in any message, and it will conduct this same search and bring up all messages posted by that person. As with all searches, you can refine the results by using CTRL-F on your keyboard.

That's it, just two places to go to find almost everything. If you get a 500 - Internal server error, you can usually click past it by refreshing your page. But it doesn't work on the Lyrics & Knowledge Search - that search engine is broken.

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Subject: RE: SEARCH TIPS
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Jan 25 - 04:22 PM

From the Mudcat FAQ/Newcomers' Guide - I've been working to refine this guide for twenty years. I think it includes everything we have. Use the message above if you want a Short and Sweet guide.

Mudcat has many search tools - see Old Advanced Forum Search (click) in the QuickLinks dropdown menu.

Almost all of these search tools work just fine.
-Joe-

Remember that the main search engine depends on an index that has to be generated, so the recency of those searches depends on how recently Max updated the index.

There are other search engines on the Old Advanced Forum Search on the quicklinks dropdown menu on most Mudcat pages.

My favorite search engine is the Filter box at the top of the list of threads on the Forum Menu. It searches by thread name, and it's quick and accurate. Use one or two key words in the Filter, and then set the Age back. You can do a secondary search of the results with CTRL-F.

Other search tips in the FAQ.

And if you still can't find it, ask a moderator or start a thread and ask.

-Joe-

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 "reset" 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 "pg13." If your profanity filter blocks your access, try putting pg13 in the Filter box and check the "filter out" box. Click here for tools to help you filter out "PG13" 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.

And if you still have trouble finding something, ask me. That's my job.

Joe Offer, Mudcat Music Editor
joe@mudcat.org

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Subject: RE: MUDCAT SEARCH TIPS
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 01 Jan 25 - 06:40 PM

Good luck with this, Joe. I'll trace this one and make a point of sharing it when the question comes up (which it will - again and again).

Have a good 2025!

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Subject: RE: Mudcat Search Tips
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Apr 25 - 01:10 PM

Refresh

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