I don’t remember seeing a definitive answer to this the last time it came up–
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=109034
–and I see that now Minty’s got a link to Boardreader in his sig. So, will it help speed up the boards if we all start using Boardreader to do searches?
If so, should we all put links to it in our sigs, to help spread the word, or would having everyone go back to using sigs just slow things down again?
Using Boardreader to search would remove some strain from the SDMB server, it’s true. I’ll try to find out if there is any reason it shouldn’t be mentioned in the FAQ.
Just to be clear, I have neither asked for nor received any kind of signature approval from the admins or mods. If they say I should drop my hamster-saving Boardreader boosterism, I’ll do it in a heartbeat. In the meantime, I just figure that voluntary diversion of searches away from the SDMB server is just a generally helpful kinda thing.
BTW, I only include the sig in posts where I’m actually linking to old threads or where the subject of SDMB searching is being discussed. Kinda like this one. 
You may find that some search results are a bit farked; some of the links for the ‘missed content’ when the board went down (and was restored to an earlier backup) were available from the cache, but now that the thread/post IDs have been used again, the link will take you to whatever new thread now has the same ID as the old one did.
(for an example of this, search at BoardReader for Mangetout Motes and it will show a listing for a thread of mine titled “Privacy, what’s the big deal?”; clicking the link takes you to a thread titled “being in a coma” (where the OP is missing).
I emailed them because it used to be that the Boardreader software wouldn’t offer you the cached version of a page that it considered still available on the source site; I see that this appears to have changed now, although the cache for the above mentioned thread is an incomplete mess.
The cached versions of that thread work just fine for me. Maybe it’s a browser problem?
By way of explanation, when the SDMB came back up last spring, all the numbers for the missing threads started getting reassigned to new threads. Since the Boardreader link is to the old thread number (recorded when it first crawled the thread before the crash), the link now takes you to the reassigned new thread. HOWEVER, if you click on the cached link, it takes you to their archived version of the pre-reassignment thread. Most of the formatting is stripped, as are the url links, but the contents are right there.
Plus, even if you’re not looking for Missed Content, clicking on the cached version is a lot faster way to find out if that’s what you’re looking for. No waiting for the hamster to crank out the SDMB version, no stress on the server.
See, everybody wins!
Minty; who is the OP in the cached version of that thread (in the view in your browser)? - it should be me, but what I get here (IE5.5) and on my other machine (IE6) is the thread beginning with a post by MrVisible.
If it were an easy fix, I’d say not only update the FAQ but also set it so clicking the SEARCH button brought you to Boardreader’s site, or something along those lines…
Mangetout, Boardreader archives each page of a thread separately (set to default 50 posts per page). For the thread you mentioned, I found only pages 2 and 3. Your OP, obviously, is on page 1, which I was unable to find.
Thanks for that minty; it does look as though page 1 isn’t cached.
I’ve looked at boardreader a couple of times but I don’t fully grok their interface yet. Is there a way to restrict the domains search results come from? I see a directory listing when I go to the advanced search page, but it’s broken down into categories. Anyone know what category the SDMB falls in? I’d rather not search every board that boardreader indexes when I’m looking for something that would only be on the SDMB. When I searched for SDMB, hoping it would have some kind of category listing for hits from the actual SDMB, I found thousands of hits including Fathom, the PizzaParlor(no suprise there as they’re boards I know we share members with) but also from some ezBoards about some stuff I would never have expected references to the SDMB to show up on.
Basically I’d be thrilled to use boardreader for searches, if I could find a way to use boardreader without getting a bunch of hits I know won’t be right or overtaxing THEIR machines by having it run searches on domains I’m not really interested in searching.
Enjoy,
Steven
I seem to recall that those in the know say that including “straightdope” as a search term will yield what you seek.
Yeah, you have to type in “straightdope” first, and then whatever search terms you want.
It kinda presupposes that you know pretty much what the thread’s about, that you’re searching for (“about what the thread is for which you are searching?” :: urk :: ), anyway, otherwise you can get hundreds of hits. It works like Google–the more specific words you can put in that relate to your query, the closer you’ll come to the exact thread.
And it’s not an “instant” search engine–like with Google, sometimes you have to sit there and rummage around for a while. It’s just that it’s faster than sitting there and waiting for the SDMB server.
It finds three-letter words…
**It finds three-letter words!!![
**
. . . and making everyone else wait for the SDMB server.
Mtgman, the SDMB appears to be categorized under Social/General Talk. I can’t find anything that indicates you can search board-by-board, however. But “straightdope” as a search term does an admirable job of limiting your results, and the searches are pretty darned fast in my experience. DDGMMV.
What sort of load do you reckon the SDMB server experiences when being spidered by BoardReader?
Or crawled, or whatever the correct term is…
There was some discussion of that in the first ATMB/Boardreader thread, Mangetout. It’s the one DDG linked to in the OP, I believe. Indication was that the Boardreader software was well-designed in that respect, although I have no idea on specifics. Maybe somebody could get Spurdon to drop by again?