search function has issues

[kedawa]

i tried finding all threads about the Wii, and i got no results.
i remember having a similar problem with several other short character strings a while back, so i'm guessing the search chokes on any term less than four characters long
with the amount of two- and three-letter terms we use on a regular basis here, it would be handy if they would return results in searches

[Nick]

Before the latest major upgrade, I think I had the index function set up to keep track of three-letter words, but now we're back to adding exceptions to a list. For now, I'll add "Wii" (and "PS3" and "360") to the list of shorter words to keep in the index and if cka thinks it won't cause a noticeable performance hit to track three-letter words by default, we can re-enable it.

[Nick]

Hmm, it is still set to include three-letter words.

We probably need to reindex. Maybe in the middle of the night. Hold on for one more day.

[cka]

fulltext indexes don't index anything shorter than 4 letters

if it did, the database would probably be closer to 4-5GB than the ~700MB it is right now

[Nick]

So I could just add several three-letter terms, reindex, and we'll be fine?

[cka]

you don't actually have any control over the index with the fulltext search option, mysql handles it all (pretty much any search options short of "do not search this forum" and "number of searches to allow per timespan" have little to no effect, even moreso regarding search settings that manage the index)

if I did set it up to index three letter words, it would just put pressure on the server and lead to more wacky downtime and bigger table files and headaches for me from here to tuesday

[Mzo]

This means that people can't search for "Mzo."

I think this is a huge problem.

[cka]

search by author is (or should be) untouched by the fulltext index settings, cause searching by author using standard LIKE syntax in SQL is far less intensive than searching posts with that horrible and convoluted post searching system (FUCK YOU WORD TABLE) vbulletin had since 2.x

[Nick]

Letter to Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo:

---
Please come up with system abbreviations of at least four letters. I propose "PSthree," "Xb360," and "PleasebuythewiipleasepleasePLEASE."

Thank you,
The Next Level Forum
---

[cka]

searching for "nintendo" in gaming discussion yielded five pages of results, and most of those threads were wii related... I guess you could also just search gaming discussion for piss jokes if you want that first batch of wii threads

speaking of searching it shouldn't take 24 seconds to search that forum so I think I gotta run the ol' repair and optimize sometime soon