(Daddy)
07-27-03 05:51
No 450147
(Rated as: a MUST first-read for new members!)
By first reading this thread, beginning with one of the endless thousands of bad Search related questions :
"" Thank you very much. As for the search I typed in "Heet" under the body section and turned up 5 post, all of which didn't even HAVE the word "Heet" in it. Honestly, I read through them all. Any searching tips? ""
Unobtainium (Moderator) , 10-11-00 04:05 , Re: Methanol
Post 59149 (Unobtainium: "how to 'power search' with a search engine", Chemicals & Equipment)
(Rated by Rhodium as: excellent)
Well I typed heet in the body/subject section and got five or six pages that looked like this:
I would suggest you try a Search more than one time, with different words then, but with one SAME setting.
I would have thought that should be common knowledge for anyone who has ever used a Search Engine before, by now, I guess I tend to assume everyone has the same common knowledge that I do. Appearently this is not the case, because time and time again I come across a post that says "" I couldn't find anything "", and I respond like I just did with a Gif picture of my Search results.
So, for the benefit of people who don't have any idea how to "" Power Search "" with a Search Engine, I now provide the following advice :
1) ALWAYS search using the -All- forums setting, unless you are searching for a specific post (number) and you happen to know which forum it is in.
2) ALWAYS search using both the -body AND subject- setting, unless you are searching for a specific post and you know exactly what you are looking for.
3) NEVER search for a specific -username- unless you know exactly who posted it.
4) NEVER put -time- constraints on your search, unless you know exactly when the thread you are looking for was posted.
5) NEVER COMBINE a search for a specific -username- , with a specific -subject-, with specific -body- text, in a specific -forum- , in a specific -timeframe- unless you absolutly know with 1 million percent certainty that that is exactly what you are looking for.
In referance to the above 5 Rules, if you do a Search because you thought that you knew exactly what you were looking for, and yet you couldn't find it, don't give up and assume that the Search Engine sucks.
99% Of the time revising your Search to be more broad OR specific will result in success. So even if you thought you knew what words you were looking for, make your Search broader OR more specific, (most of the times: use ONE word ONLY) because you were probably wrong.
The above really should have been common knowledge, so I'm assuming that most people are just too impatient to try more than one search. So if they don't get anything back on the first time they throw in the towel. For the serious searcher, here are some Advanced Searching tips :
1) Try common mispellings. Is it 'vacuum' or 'vaccum'? I don't have a fucking clue, but even if I did, chances are that someone else mispelled it in their post, so a search for one but not the other could miss it.
2) Try replacing chemical formulas for names. Search for both 'sodium hydroxide' and 'NaOH'.
3) Search for common names for chemicals: 'Lye' if you're looking for sodium hydroxide, or 'baking soda' if you're looking for sodium bicarbonate.
Yes, you may have to change the parameters of your search before you actually find something, but even if you are forced to resort to that unspeakable task, you will probably find more information faster than if you have to post a new question and wait hours for a response that could very well be wrong. You will also save me the trouble of having to make a fucking -.Gif- of the search results every single time this happens.
Our Search Engine is extremely reliable and efficient. If the post exists, it will find it as long as you tell it what it needs to know to search properly.
(And yes, I really do search for common mispellings when I'm looking for something, I wasn't just making that up!)
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HALON25 (Hive Bee) 10-11-00 08:51 PostNo 59209 Re: Methanol
In referance to the above 5 Rules, if you do a Search because you thought that you knew exactly what you were looking for, and yet you couldn't find it, don't give up !
Even us older members have fucked this up from time to time. I was recently looking for a post that I KNEW was once in the SE. It was a post by Worlock on dual-solvent recrystallization. I entered the correct -username-, and in the -subject/body- section I put "dual solvent recrystallization"....and got some posts, but not the one I was looking for!
I then replied to a person that was asking where this post actually was, and I ended up agreeing with them(while arguing with someone else) that I couldn't find it either!
20 minutes later, I was shown my error, and apologised for my hasty and unthorough execution...the post was titled "Recrystallization via Dual-Solvents"(b-ass-ackwards from the way I typed it in for my Search!)
Oh well, like I said, it's not all the time that 100% effort is put into the SE by a majority of those who use it (sound advice, Unob...could've saved me the embarrassment if only I would've played around with the wording a bit!)
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Unobtainium (Moderator) , 10-11-00 11:10 , PostNo 59238 , Re: Methanol
For a thread like that (which I look up frequently so I'm very familiar with it), I'd just type in the word "" dual " in the -subject- line and Search the Stimulant forum for posts by -Worlock-.
I figure, how many topics in the Stimulant forum by Worlock could have the word "" dual "" in them?
There are two long recrystallization threads by Worlock that I think of when I'm looking to get my recrystallization learned on. One of them is misspelled with only one "" l "" : recrystalization .
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LT/ : Please feel free to add ANY substantial addition to this framework.
We leave this sticky thread open for even more advanced Search tips, which lots of us surely would be glad to add, thus willing Newbees won't lack all that immens beautifull info which is present in this site AND especially in RHODIUM's site : ../rhodium/ in such a wealthy abundancy. LT/
WISDOMwillWIN
(Daddy)
07-27-03 06:44
No 450159
Post 450158 (LaBTop: "That was an "advanced" type of Search :", Newbee Forum)
Read also the whole thread when you clicked above post link. Then you understand how helpfull these Searches can be in practice! LT/
WISDOMwillWIN
(Daddy)
07-27-03 08:57
No 450168
(Rhodium's voice) Here are some of my posts on search engine usage:
Post 409568 (Rhodium: "How's your spelling?", Tryptamine Chemistry)
Post 413468 (Rhodium: "I think this is the first time TFSE has failed me", Tryptamine Chemistry)
Post 445019 (Rhodium: "How to find already posted articles in TFSE", General Discourse)
Post 445935 (Rhodium: "UTFSE tips", General Discourse)
Post 377270 (Rhodium: "UTFSE theory", Chemicals & Equipment)
Post 305766 (Rhodium: "FAQ, Tips & Tricks", General Discourse)
Post 423985 (Rhodium: "Boolean operators & TFSE", Chemicals & Equipment)
Post 423937 (Rhodium: "RTFM for TFSE ;-)", Newbee Forum)
Post 372086 (Rhodium: "Always try to use wildcards while searching.", Newbee Forum)
Post 470264 (Rhodium: "Advanced TFSE Query", Chemistry Discourse)
WISDOMwillWIN
(Chief Bee)
01-20-04 18:11
No 483671
"I have found that by clicking the "sorting" field in the search page, and altering it to "oldest first" will supply you with a much better informed type of material than a lot of the "white noise" and "misinformation" that is found in later postings."
From: Post 483655 (abolt: "FREE TIP: Sorting Search Results", General Discourse)
The Hive - Clandestine Chemists Without Borders