Again I have to point out a colorization which, a well intentioned as it is, it factually untrue. Search today works better than it did 2 years ago. I know first hand the struggle we have had with search for about the last 3 years for a variety of reasons. 2 years ago the average search would take 16 minutes to complete. It was hopeless and as people tried to make it better by adding more criteria to the search query to reduce the possible number of needles in the haystack it only made it worse by making search times longer, not shorter. The reason there is no advanced search function is just that very reason.

The problem is twofold. First as I said earlier the forums are a discussion forum which implies that there are few concise neatly packaged answers to questions. The answers come from a dialog of many participants . If there is a neat answer it's not attached to the original question because the forums are searched for by post not thread. People get better results from Google because Google indexes pages of posts and so long as the question and the answer both lay on the same forum page Google will index it. If the answer is on page 2 then it doesn't perform any better.

The second issue is as RED MX% pointed out, this is a discussion forum and therefore the content of the 8+ million posts is all over the map. There is a lot of haystack and very few needles. This complicates getting good search results because you get so many false-positive results (results which share the keywords you are looking for but not the context). There are simply too many posts to get short concise and accurate results like you might from say a technical support knowledgebase. When you combine millions of bits of content which is sparsely associated and informally worded and jumble them all together then you make for a very complex problem finding just those few bits you are looking for based on a couple of keywords.

There are two solutions I see. One is to extract the core content, the FAQs, and put them in their own haystack. That is the best idea but it requires that someone manually screen, copy, paste, edit and reassemble thousands of topics from among the hundreds of thousands and then continue to to this day in and out as the information is updated and is added. In a sense you would need to create an S2000 knowledgebase which is an incredibly expensive undertaking. We are no where near big enough or flush with the resources required to hire what would essentially be a librarian/curator/archivest. The cost of this make it fairly unapproachable.

The second is something new I'm looking into which I won't mention in detail right now but that I think could offer better results than we get currently.

The bottom line to search is that it will never, ever, be an "automatic answer machine". You will never be able to ask a simple question and receive back a simple, precise and accurate answer. The best it can do is narrow the field down to a set of topics and posts which "might" hold clues. As the searcher you will always need to dig into the results, read them, pickup clues as to where your answer lies and boil it down to what you are looking for. Searching may involve several searches taking minutes but I can tell you that even today you can, for free, spend less than an hour of digging and come up with the answer you are looking for. I expect that the average person who complains that search sucks spends less that 30 seconds looking before giving up.

You can only use search if you know what you are looking for. If you don't then you can ask in the forums and either be directed to the information you seek or discuss the problem with people who might be able to answer your question. That's exactly how s2ki works and I don't see a problem with that model.

 

Bingo, i think you said it best!

I like your references to "chaff" also. Since most times the chaff dont know they're chaff, they wont get angry with your post

 

You are only as old as you feel. In this context I'd say S2KI Age but more generally those who consider themselves older, wise and more elite than others. Many old farts are still in their 20s.

 

In that case "Ah, sh*t" but maybe that's the weather and a little bit of bursitis.

As for the rest, I'm probably older than the average s2ki'er (chronologically), wise enough to know better than to talk about how wise I am, and sensible enough to know elitism for the illusion that it is.

 

I don't know if s2ki has gone down hill. As far as I'm concerned, this site was always pretty weak. I attended one function and didn't gel with the people.

I liked my S2000, but sold it earlier this month. It was time to move on.

With used S2000s becoming very affordable, the ownership dissolves into a mixed bag of enthusiasts and punky kids. It's hard to tell who's who on a website.

Even when the S2000 was $25k+ for even a used one, the S2000 fan was not an easy person to label. That's a good thing in some respects, but I'm not a diversity nut. Diversity is not always good.

Anyway, this will likely be my last post on this site. I'm sure I won't be missed.

S2000 = great car and great value.
S2000 owner = all over the place. 20% cool, 20% geek, 20% punk, 20% ricer, 20% ass clown. That makes your odds of having fun at an S2000 function / odds at reading a worthwhile post about 20% (if you're cool). If you're a geek, punk, ricer, or ass clown, then there is an 80% chance you'll enjoy this site and other S2k functions.

 

Listen folks...cthree and others started this site seven+ years ago to pull together the S2000 community (small as it was at that point), both for enthusiam around the car and to share tech tidbits, etc. The site has blossomed way beyond the original concept and tried to fulfill the needs and wants of every owner (which is impossible...but they tried anyway). Over the years some great contributors have come and gone...Shawn Church (UL) and Xviper to name a few, but the site continues to move on...it's up to you to decide good or not...also up to you to take and share what's important to you.
I lurked here for years before joining...while some posts and comments are kind of silly now and then, by far the total is more than the sum of the pieces. I think we all need to thank cthree and the others that started the site, continue to keep it going, for all the time and effort they've put in. Finally, if you think you can make a better site you're free to do so...

yeah, that's what I thought...

 

Enjoy your next destination, thanks for stopping by. From your comments I can't think you'll be missed as you don't seem to like anyone and that usually goes both ways.

 

Well, I'm 10 years older than you, and I guess I'm just too old to care comment on my own wisdom and sensibility.

Just riddle me this:
What is wisdom?

 

[QUOTE=Honda 224 GTS,Oct 25 2006, 09:44 PM]S2000 owner = all over the place.

 

Here's one definition:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom

But to me it's the awareness that I'm not as wise as I sometimes think I am.