This search thing is annoying....

David R Munson

David R Munson

写真のオタク
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Apr 7, 2007
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395
So tonight I got this:

The search term you specified (7) is under the minimum word length (3) and therefore will not be found. Please make this term longer. If this term contains a wildcard, please make this term more specific.
Click to expand...

I go this when searching for "canon 7 frame counter." I've run into this sort of thing far too often. It's just hilariously bad and it makes the site less user-friendly.

Also, and this is completely unrelated, but have the RFF staff considered adding a wiki? Having a well-maintained wiki about all things RF might help reduce those pesky questions that could easily be solved with some searching but that often flood forums anyway.
 
How about typing this into Google's search box:

site:rangefinderforum.com canon 7 frame counter

A wiki might be a good idea, but the above works well enough for me.
 
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JRG said:
How about:

site:rangefinderforum.com canon 7 frame counter

A wiki might be a good idea, but the above works well enough for me.
Click to expand...

That works fine for Google but I believe David was talking about the Search functionality built into this site specifically.

Cheers,
Dave
 
It seems like forums, whether this or any other, all have unhelpful search engines. It's easier to go to Google to find something on RFF, than to use the RFF engine.

Why do you think that is?
 
David R Munson said:
So tonight I got this:



I go this when searching for "canon 7 frame counter." I've run into this sort of thing far too often. It's just hilariously bad and it makes the site less user-friendly.

Also, and this is completely unrelated, but have the RFF staff considered adding a wiki? Having a well-maintained wiki about all things RF might help reduce those pesky questions that could easily be solved with some searching but that often flood forums anyway.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. And while using a Google-based search is a workable kludge, it's more than a bit off-putting to the casual member.
 
Rob-F said:
It's easier to go to Google to find something on RFF, than to use the RFF engine.

Why do you think that is?
Click to expand...

If you're searching for a single keyword, the search function here works fine.

However, if you're doing more of a "do what I mean" search, there's no way a bulletin board search function will do it better than Google, who has spent the better part of a decade optimizing their methods to best find what a user is looking for.

I use the advanced Google search, within a site or domain, quite often and in most cases it works very well.
 
On another site (I can't remember which) there was a secondary search option built into the site which allowed one to make a google search confined to that site, but it was built into the site so that one could make the search without grumbling and opening another window/tab to look for what you wanted in the first place. Perhaps something like that might be implemented here?

EDIT: Also, camerapedia is nice but not quite what I'm talking about. There's a lot more depth of information available here on RFF than is generally available either in one post or thread or for that matter on camerapedia. Camerapedia is too broad. Obviously this site is RF-centric, so why not make an RF-centric wiki? Seems like it could become a very good resource. Also, the potential benefit to the site of a wiki would be that it could be tied in with tagged photos on-site such as users galleries, automatically giving gateway to both examples of work made with whatever camera/lens as well as a point of exposure for user-created work in general. And what's to say the content created here couldn't feed back into camerapedia? Amiable, acknowledged data sharing, etc doesn't seem like a bad approach to me.
 
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I agree that the three character minimum in search terms is absurd. This site being dedicated to rangefinders and all, it's absolutely ridiculous that you can't search for M2, M3, M4, et al without getting that awful error message.
 
2 things...rff has no staff and check out the 'test the new forum' thread and see what happens when change is introduced...
 
Cool, when you google search with:

"canon 7" frame counter

You already get this thread!

And the same Google search, You also get a link to an online repair manual:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3005774/Canon-7-manual-repair

And if you do a search on RFF with

"Canon 7" frame counter

you get:

"http://rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9819&highlight=Canon+7+frame+counter"

What you do not get is a thread on repairing a frame counter on a Canon 7. It depends on the problem, if that is why you conducted the search. I bought a camera for $100 with the only problem being the frame counter, popped the top and found a paw for the gear had jumped over a stop. After putting it in place, it worked again. But other things can go wrong.
 
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