Bitcoin Forum

All of my searches getting results from pre 2015, Am I the only one?
Is the search functionworking?  

Search function is not working properly. You can try using Google search and put site:bitcointalk.org after whatever you try to search.

For example: www.google.com/search?q=chainlink+site%3Abitcointalk.org
1230 results

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/08/04/GA2gN.png

You can use Tools and adjust time range as well.

The searching function works well minutes ago when I tested it. I could find results in 2023 as well and I the Searching feature in Bitcointalk, not from Google or any third party search engine.

[Guide] Searching effectively (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5276341.0)

Did you know and use "Message age" filter to narrow down the window of your searching results?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=search
By the above parameters for message age, I could find posts in 2023 with my searching query.

If you could see my face you'd probably ask if I was rolling my eyes and laughing at you, but I'm not.  It's just so awful that one has to do what you described in order to search the forum--and I know damn well what you say is true; the search function is and has been broken for a long time now. 

It's not just that most results are old or in random order or are only tangentially related to what you searched for, but it takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to search, to add names to your PM blocked list, to find members, and probably other things I'm not thinking of.  While it's true that I like the old-school vibe to the forum, it's the appearance I'm talking about and not the functionality. 

This has to be a case of Theymos not wanting anyone to help out, right?  This is a forum that's jam-packed with very talented coders who'd probably love to improve stuff like this....and yet basic things are just broken for years and neglected for so long that everyone just accepts it as normal.  The first step is admitting you have a problem, Theymos.  I say that out of love, brah.

This does not happen only in the forum. I have repeatedly encountered sites that have an internal search engine that searches worse than google. And I guess not all of them are broken. In the end I go directly to google every time. It is worth considering whether it is worth having an internal search engine, although I guess that in this forum it makes much more sense to have one of its own.

Try Ninjastic.Space (https://ninjastic.space/search) to search posts on Bitcointalk. The only drawback is that it misses later post edits.

I'm not a member of any other discussion forums anymore, but I believe you (and I do believe you're talking about other types of websites as well). 

I guess there's a lot under the hood as far as search engines go, and I only understand enough about them to type in some words and hit enter.  Am I wrong in assuming that it's either difficult or a pain in the ass to create a functional internal search engine?  My further assumption that Theymos isn't a slacker and would have one running that didn't have members going to google instead is a valid one I think.  But then again, we've been waiting on that new forum software for years now. 

In fact, the community has been actively joking about it for years, so I don't know which end is up if y'all know what I mean.

My 2 sats:
It's very difficult to beat Google on search capacity.
But there's more to it: theymos is just one guy, and from what I've read, one of the reasons not to make many changes is security. Any change on the forum can potentially be abused, and if a user service (like Ninjastic.Space) can offer a similar service, at least that doesn't create an angle to abuse the forum.

Nah, you're not wrong at all! Creating a functional internal search engine can indeed be a real pain in the ass, especially when you're dealing with a large amount of text data to search, just like in the case of this forum.

I bet TryNinja can give you a much better explanation and shed light on the issues he encountered, which eventually led them to implement an Elasticsearch search engine. While ninjastic.space does a great job at searching posts, the catch is that it only works with archived (original) posts, not the real-time forum database.

Not much of a draw back considering there is a link to the post on the forum which captures later edits.

It could be seen as a plus where you get the original content and can see the latest version too.

- Jay -

I mean: it can't search for the current version if it's edited.

thx that explains it.

Is there no one taking care of the forum, the technical parts? Backup & functionality?
Just a few days ago foro-ptc died due to not paying hosting and the back up is so secure no one can use/find it. That would be the bare minimum.  


I think we should thrive be better rather than leaning back and pointing fingers at others doing the same.

That would be the admin himself - Theymos.

But don't expect any serious changes to be made in the current forum software. Unless if it's something like a critical security flaw.

This is what he said some time back. I believe he is reluctant to make some changes or feature because it would mean also altering the new forum software that is being tested.

The results for forum search is always messed up and haven't used it from a long time and for most of the newbies would find it confusing to get the desired outputs even if they use the filters to get optimised results.If you are using chrome then you can simply put bitcointalk code at the last to get the related threads according to your search.

But for me ninjastic.space (https://ninjastic.space/) works completely fine as I avoid using chrome for many reasons and can get results from that site easily but if you say about forum search then it has always been same.

No serious changes needed, just set the search field outside of the forum content folder and then set the search up for the database tables he'd like us to use.

I could not understand what you meant by this part. What does Chrome have to do with searching the forum and the ninjastic.space search engine? Both should work the same no matter which browser you use.

You'll be surprised how many search engine use the chrome engine:

• Google Chrome and
• all other Chromium-based browsers, notably
• Microsoft Edge,
• Brave,
• Vivaldi,
• Samsung Internet and
• Opera

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_browser_engines

It works acceptable if you want to search for KeyWords or in a specific account, and the quality becomes bad as the number of words increases, so the result is very bad.
You can customize the search from here ----> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=search;advanced and choose the option to show it as messages, and display recent results first.

It is true that third-party options such as https://ninjastic.space/ are better for long words and sentences, as the search quality here is much better, and finally Google, in which you can search for a general idea if you do not remember the contents of the topic.

The forum or even Google search engine isn’t something I like to use many times but, it’s got it all packed somehow with Google search engine embedded on forum software and a forum only search function that goes the length to narrow things down based on preferences as to posted by user and match word to word/or just matching words in search.

It’s also of note as I did just now that on default, the search spans through a lengthy period of which, part of that is due to the informations contained on Google as the forum is only about a decade and few years of age. The search on the other hand is by default set between 0-9999 days of age (over 27years) and that’s well above how long the forum has been around and that does a lot to the age long information you might be getting based on how popular they are in between other criterion for selection.

I think playing around with these functions could help in narrowing things down but still, it’s search results display or presentation could be improved.

Yes, unfortunately, the search feature does not work well in the forum. It often takes a long time when I search for anything in the forum because of the random arrangement of the results or the appearance of a very large number of old results that take a very long time to filter the search.

Sometimes I search for a topic I wrote and remember the contents well, but despite that it takes me a lot of time to find it, not only the search feature in the forum needs to be updated, there are many other features.
I join those calling for the launch of the second edition of the forum.

That's why it is much better to use google and add bitcointalk.ort at the end of what I am going to search. I think the reason why it is not updated by theymos is you need tem members to do it plus the amount of data that will be used since there are lots of threads. As of now, when I use the search feature I make sure to include what I was looking for so that I won't take too long to find it. I tried searching for a name of a site that have ann thread here where the name have game word and the results included a post that mentioned game.

Well I disagree. Using Google is definitely not that good.
There is no need to redo the entire forum. It works reasonably well.

I do not think that this is the reason, there are many members with great programming capabilities and we have a list of the most important experts in this field and I think that all of them are ready to devote part of their time to the forum and provide these services for free.

Therefore, I do not expect that the reason for not updating is the lack of the team, I think from my point of view it is an emotional attachment to the first forum that appeared with the creation of Bitcoin.

I am not using default search in forum for years.
Much better option for me to find anything in forum is by using Ninjastic.space website because I can narrow the search, find address much easier, connection with accounts, etc.
Using g00gle directly is also possible but Ninjastic has become my number one forum tool thanks to TryNinja for creating it 8)

Maybe an issue of trust. Not so easy.