# Suggestion for search improvement **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [March 20, 2006, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-for-search-improvement/349080 "2006-03-20T02:49:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-for-search-improvement/349080/1 "2006-03-20T02:49:05Z")
I’d imagine it’s very common for someone to log on and do a search for their name, displaying all the threads that they’ve posted in, seeing which ones have new posts. I do that all the time. It just told me that the search took 10 seconds, which seems like way more time than it should, suggesting the system is overloaded or the search feature is particularly slow in this software. In any case, it found every post I ever made over years, when in reality I’m only really interested in the ones that I’ve been involved in in the last month or so. Yeah - I could set the search options to search only the last month, and I should - but it got me thinking. If a significant number of people do the same thing I do, that’s a lot of extra, cpu-gobbling searches being done for years worth of posts when the last month would suffice. Perhaps a custom feature that automatically locates threads where the user has posted in the last, say, month or whatever, without going through the main search page, would save a lot of cpu power. There may already be a feature like this, but I haven’t seen it. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-for-search-improvement/349080/2 "2006-03-20T02:52:31Z")
I’ve suggested in the past that the default for searches be set for the past few months. But nobody noticed what I said, or nobody thought it cared, or summat. ---
**Author:** ![MessyPaint](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@MessyPaint](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MessyPaint)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-for-search-improvement/349080/3 "2006-03-20T02:59:43Z")
Do you use the subscribe thread feature? Couldn’t that help you keep track of your threads?? ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-for-search-improvement/349080/4 "2006-03-20T03:02:55Z")
> [@MessyPaint](#): > > Do you use the subscribe thread feature? Couldn’t that help you keep track of your threads?? While you’re correct that this is a useful way to keep track, we have to work with the reality that (presumably) most people don’t use the feature. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-for-search-improvement/349080/5 "2006-03-20T06:17:27Z")
Or perhaps they could rig it to automatically subscribe to threads that you post to - then we could use the subscribed thread functionality for that purpose. ---
**Author:** ![MessyPaint](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@MessyPaint](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MessyPaint)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-for-search-improvement/349080/6 "2006-03-20T06:30:55Z")
Visit \>Edit Options \>Default Thread Subscription Mode and change it to any of the options besides Do Not Subscribe and automatic subscriptions will begin. You have some options there on whether or not you’d like to track with email, but any time you post to a thread you will subscribe to it and a Checkmark will appear on your thread viewer. This will save you some search time. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-for-search-improvement/349080/7 "2006-03-20T09:49:37Z")
Handy. If this were to become more well known, or perhaps some software adjustment to make it more visible, I think it could speed up the boards. Or, hell, change the default search time to less than ‘forever’ ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-for-search-improvement/349080/8 "2006-03-20T11:39:58Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > I’ve suggested in the past that the default for searches be set for the past few months. But nobody noticed what I said, or nobody thought it cared, or summat. It’s been discussed. For what it’s worth, I’m in favor of it. However, I’m not the one who makes these sorts of adjustments. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-for-search-improvement/349080/9 "2006-03-20T11:57:14Z")
I always use advanced search which defaults to the last week. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-for-search-improvement/349080/10 "2006-03-20T12:21:26Z")
I’m guessing that any sane search function will stop searching as soon as it has reached the limit displayed per page. Unless you post especially infrequently, this should be well within the last month. Additionally, I’m guessing that vB already stores a list of every usernames posts so a search on username shouldn’t tax the server overly. I’m pretty sure I’m right on this because per-user searches will occasionally have the dates of most recent posts misordered, suggesting that it’s doing periodic re-indexing rather than a fresh search per query. ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-for-search-improvement/349080/11 "2006-03-20T13:31:59Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > I’ve suggested in the past that the default for searches be set for the past few months. But nobody noticed what I said, or nobody thought it cared, or summat. It used to be that way, but the defaults keep getting set back to vB boilerplate. I’ve been holding off on making changes thinking we might get another update. Foolish to put stuff in only to have it vanish. TubaDiva ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-for-search-improvement/349080/12 "2006-03-21T00:06:28Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > I’m guessing that any sane search function will stop searching as soon as it has reached the limit displayed per page. Unless you post especially infrequently, this should be well within the last month. Additionally I’m pretty sure this isn’t true. It will say “displaying 1-25 out of 542 matches”, or whatever, suggesting it’s finding all of them to arrive at that number. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/suggestion-for-search-improvement/349080/13 "2006-03-21T20:19:46Z")
> [@TubaDiva](#): > > It used to be that way, but the defaults keep getting set back to vB boilerplate. > > I’ve been holding off on making changes thinking we might get another update. Foolish to put stuff in only to have it vanish. > > TubaDiva If it’s not unduly hard, why not do the little tweaks? Even if they only wind up sticking around for a month or two, it’s still a month or two of better performance. If the CR’s shop is anything like mine, settings are free, new software is anywhere from almost cheap to “urk” and hardware is always “HOW much?!”