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Updates to How We Search
Wiki search is more than just a quick way to get to a particular page -- it’s also a tool for exploring, browsing, and discovering content. We know that the search tool is a critical component for any wiki, so we’re working hard to raise the quality of our search experience this year. You can expect more updates in the coming months as we adjust our interface and improve the technology behind our search results.
To kick off this series of updates, we’re starting with two simple changes that may affect how you use the search field on your wiki:
1) Exact match searches will now go to search results pages instead of to article pages.
2) If an exact match article is available for a search, it will always be the top result on a search results page.
Why? Well, there are a few reasons. The first is that taking a user to an article when they’re trying to run a search can be limiting. If someone is searching for term on a wiki, there’s a reasonable chance that there’s more than one page that might attract their interest. Search results pages give readers choices, and encourage them to explore.
The other important benefit of this change is that it will provide us with significantly more data on what people are actually looking for when they search for keywords, and we’ll be able to use this data to continually improve the quality of our search results.
But what about those of us who rely on search to take us directly to articles?
The article suggestions that appear as you’re typing in the search box will still take you directly to an article page if you click them. For those of us who like to navigate by keyboard, this just means an extra key stroke (the down arrow) while you’re typing -- and often, you won’t even need to finish the word before it suggests the right page for you.
We know that changes to how you navigate a wiki can be disorienting at first, so we appreciate you taking the time to understand our reasons for this change, and thanks for giving it a chance. We’ll have additional updates about more improvements to search soon!
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This update changed the "go" button in Monobook, as well.Fixed! -
It's not currently possible to access Special: pages through search. We're researching options. (Tip: add tools you frequently use to your toolbar.)Fixed! - Redirects and shortcuts do not currently bring up the right search suggestions in the dropdown (but they do present the correct page in the search results). We're looking into improvements for search suggestions.
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Searches for redirected page titles don't mention the name of the redirect in the top result.Fixed! - Redirects to sections of pages don't work in search.
- Showing 20 most recent
538 comments
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Okay... I have attacked Wikia below, but I'd just like some namespaces to be "go" namespaces. So Special, Template, User & most definitely MediaWiki. Think about, how many times have you searched for a MediaWiki page that doesn't exist? Why would you be searching for a MediaWiki page that doesn't exist? Because you're about to create it. Hmm... Where is the Go button Wikia?
On the other hand... This new system means I can delete a bunch of redirects off my home wiki! (Woohoo!)
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Noooooo! Shortcuts don't work! How do you fix this anyone?
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I don't knwo if this has been mentioned yet, but what about pages that start with "Special:"? Those don't show up in the search suggestions, so this also makes it harder to get to those pages now.
Will there be a way to get to them more easily?
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They also don't show up in the search results either.
EDIT: Actually, I used the search bar to get between wikis to when necessary...
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I agree! Specials don't work! Neither do User: ! You know... I'm changing to the best search engine there is when viewing wikis — the Browser's address bar! Not happy Wikia! :(
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Hmm... actually I guess I do use the drop down suggestions for my friends' usernames. But only when it's working... and in FireFox a chance would be a fine thing! XD
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Yes, special pages are extremely hard to find now! I have to type in the url! It is so annoying!
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Hey all, I had talked to Dopp about this and it's a known bug being fixed.
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Cool(ish) ;)
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I'm still having problems. Even though I have "Main" checked now in my Search Preferences, it still sometimes does not give search results. So, again, as an example, I type "Enigma" (which is an article on my page) and it will give 0 search results, but if I type it again and again, eventually it will give me the search results. So, in a case such as this I'm assuming this is not on my end.
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For those leaving comments about it not sending you to the page when an exact match was searched for : It's not a big deal. Simply hitting "down" and "enter" works just as good. This benefits more people this way than those of us that use it for navigation and in that sense, hitting one extra key is a compromise I would be willing to make. You can see the auto-complete below the search and those that 'see' a page they are wanting can easily pick it from that drop-down.
I agree with this update, even though it requires me to change my habits. It was a pain to search the wiki for a keyword when that keyword existed as a page name. This fixes that issue and actually uses the search bar as a search bar. Previously, you had to navigate to Special:Search to search for a term that exists as a page.
The one things that is missing still is the<Search term> does not exist. Would you like to create the <Search term> page?
That was left out of Oasis a year ago and has not made it appearance since. Please add this feature back. -
- <Search term> does not exist. Would you like to create the <Search term> page?
My first thought was "No, that will lead to hundreds of anon users creating pages for search terms", but on the other hand, it would directly show what people are searching for, and any mis-created pages could easily be turned into redirects to appropriate pages.
- Simply hitting "down" and "enter" works just as good.
Re-learning habits aside, I type faster than autocomplete autocompletes, so I must "type, wait several seconds, press down and enter", which cuts into my personal productivity.
It also cuts into everyones productivity because everyone now has to click on a search result, even if they were intending on being taken directly to a page.Since some people say: "But I like going directly to articles", and others say "Good, I like being able to view search results", I think we can both agree that we would both like to be able to choose that option in our preferences, instead of forcing the other half to do things the way we like to do them.
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Having an option for both functionalities is simply not feasible. It has to be one or the other. Wikia is siding on the side that benefits more people than it hinders. I also type 70+ WPM so I understand what you mean by typing faster than the results. Honestly, I feel this is an issue of crying over spilled milk. The benefit lies in the fact that those people conducting searches on your wiki get better results. That's the bottom line.
As far as the would you like to create... that's vanilla MediaWiki that does that. It allows users to see a red link for a term they are searching for to either 1) create a redirect or 2) create a content page for that term. See this search result on Wikipedia for an example.You may create the page "Fdafd", but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered.
It is simply an accessibility feature to allow easily creating a page on a search term. -
Why is having an option for both functionalities in Special:Preferences not feasible? It's apparently feasible to choose which namespaces you search by default. Surely whether or not your search goes straight to the page isn't that difficult by comparison.
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Because the functionalities are completely different. As a coder, I know that having the option for both of them in this situation is simply not feasible. It's not something as simple as a toggle to search through namespaces.
Wikia doesn't do these changes on a whim. As I said above, this change benefits more people than it hinders. It makes sense that the search bar should return search results for any keywords placed in it. The former functionality was an accessibility feature to navigate the user to the intended page. This, however, inhibits the search bar to actually search for terms if a page exists with the same name. Even Wikipedia does the same for search results.
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Don't worry, Mathmagician. If this Rappy really is a coder, you can be assured that that is sarcasm; the way the mediawiki search works supports both. In fact, both things are essentially there by default, though in a slightly different format. No idea why Wikia decided to remove one of them, but that's another matter.
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It didn't come across as sarcasm to me. It's difficult to detect sarcasm in text-based communications, and my sarcasm threshhold is rather high when evaluating things said by people I don't know at all. Explicit clarification such as /sarcasm is appreciated.
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Okay Rappy... how about shortcuts(CC:MOS)? Those don't work as well. Though at least it shows the right page at the top of the results! XD
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"Even Wikipedia does the same for search results" - wikipedia works the same as wikia used to work, if you type and press enter you get taken to the article without having to go via a search results page
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- "As a coder, I know that having the option for both of them in this situation is simply not feasible."
As a programmer myself, that comment tells me that you aren't a very good one.
Having options for both is completely feasible, and would entail only a few lines of code - most of which are probably already there, commented out, since wikia once had both a "search" button and a "go" button. A simple change to the "which button was pushed" if statements to check "which preference is set", and there you have it.
A better solution to the problem would be to simply have both buttons again - that way people who want to search can press "Search" and get "Search results" and people who want to Go to an article can press "go" and go to an article. If hitting "Enter" defaults to the search, I can live with that, so long as the Tab index is set correctly so I can just tab once or twice before hitting enter. (Wikia has a problem with setting Tab indexes - they still haven't fixed the new editor)
- "It has to be one or the other." + "this change benefits more people than it hinders."
I'm all for benefiting more people, and believe in "the greatest good for the greatest number", which means pleasing everyone whereever possible, and in this case that translates into giving people a choice.
I do not see any reason at all that there cannot be both a "Search" and "Go" button in order to give everyone a choice.Well, I can think of one reason to force everyone onto an intermediate page, if that intermediate page happened to contain ads.
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Acer, did you click the Wikipedia search link I put in that comment? Wikipedia does not take you to the page.
I wrote the not feasible line after being up for 26 hours and meant it differently than it ended up coming out. I meant having both functionalities as an 'option' per user is less feasible. The issue Wikia is addressing here is to allow the search bar to return search results. The previous functionality was like Google's "I Feel Lucky" button. I agree that having two functions as listed below (with two icons, one for 'Go' and one for 'Search') is easily doable. Adding it as a preference per user is a tad more difficult. In the grand scheme of things, the two are completely different functions altogether and I honestly don't think that Wikia would add that option if this is how they want the search bar to behave.
I just get tired of all these blogs littered with comments filled with hatred and complaints without logic. Below my initial comment were lots of people screaming for Wikia to return it to it's original functionality without even realizing the reason for the change. I was simply trying to shine some light onto that reasoning.
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Rappy, Wikipedia search takes you straight to the page if it exists. Go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. Type in blah blah (album) in the search bar at the top right corner of the page and press enter on your keyboard. It will take you immediately here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blah_Blah_(album), I promise you.
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That's very odd because I tested it there before commenting here. However, now, I am not able to replicate it. o.0
Ahh, it's because I was testing on Special:Search.
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Wikipedia actually allows you to search for the full text if you want to, just put a tilde before your search, like ~blah blah (album). (more information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Searching)
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"Having an option for both functionalities is simply not feasible."
http://community.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Daniel_Baran/Search_Developments:_Big_Picture
- 1) We are adding a personal preference that enables "Go" search for individuals.
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Overall a good change. Admins do need to be made aware of the namespaces that are set by default, though as different wikis may have different default namespaces for search making results somewhat unexpected.
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I see a few flaws with this "updated" search. First, special pages are more difficult to reach now. I know you could alter the URL to reach these pages, but in my opinion it is more convenient to use the search bar for accessing them. Also, interwiki and interlanguage links don't work when they are typed into the "new" search bar. If you try typing in "w:c:community", you will not be directed to Community Central. The same goes for "de:", which should take you to the German version of a wiki (if one exists), and "wikipedia:", which should direct you to Wikipedia.
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I figured someone mentioned this already...
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I like the concept, but not the implementation. There are many times when I would have liked a Search result, but been taken to an article instead, but also many times where I use the Search box to Go to an article by type-and-enter. The autocomplete just takes too long, and occasionally doesn't appear at all. As many other people have suggested, taking the Monobook idea of "Go" and "Search" seems to me to be the best approach. Type-and-enter would trigger the "Go" option, while if you want to search, you type and press "Search". This could easily be implemented into the current search bar, by extending the Search button by 50% and splitting it in half:
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This^
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I remember that button! To me, it seems like a good way to do it for more experienced users, so I think it might be better if that was an opt-in thing or a JS hack.
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The thing is, not everybody uses buttons though. Speaking for myself, I always press enter to search. I don't want to have to lift my fingers off the keyboard until the new page is loading, as that short downtime is a great opportunity to move hand from keyboard to mouse. So, the buttons thing is a great compromise if you're going to actually use them. But I think a choice in Special:Preferences about whether the search goes to search results or the actual page (if it exists) would be best.
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Unfortunately, features for experienced users usually fall farther down Wikia's priority list, but the above is a good idea.
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This is what I meant :x but please make an option so one can chose what will be default search or go.
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The idea of splitting the search bar options into search and go is a great idea. I always use the search box to jump straight to a page and I would benefit a lot from keeping that functionality.
27 days ago by Yyp -
Yes, this would be perfect.
I wouldn't even complain if "search" was the default form action, as in "Press Enter to Search", so long as the tab index was set correctly to allow me to type, hit tab twice, then press enter to press the "Go" button.
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Please, listen to your users and change this back to the way it was before. If it's not broken, please do not try to "fix" it.
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Wikia does not have to be Google.
Please allow users the option of hitting "Go" for instant results and hitting "Search" for miscellaneous results. -
A rough temporary way to solve this with firefox+greasemonkey or other browsers with userscript support:
// ==UserScript== // @name Wikia search fix // @description Wikia search fix // @include http://*.wikia.com/index.php?search=* // @include http://*.wikia.com/wiki/index.php?search=* // @include http://*.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Search?search=* // ==/UserScript== (function () { 'use strict'; var new_loc = unsafeWindow.$('div.searchresults strong a').attr('href'); if (new_loc) { if (new_loc.substr(0, 4) !== 'http') { new_loc = window.location.host + new_loc; new_loc = 'http://' + (new_loc.replace(/\/+/g, '/')); } window.location.href = new_loc; } }());for opera and maybe others just replace "unsafeWindow" with "window", tested on newest firefox and opera.
It identifies the "top" result and redirects to it (only if top result available)
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Cool...
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Fantastic! I have long been irritated when taken to a page, when what I really wanted was a search. And since there is no way to get to the Special:Search page on most wikis people had no way to actually do the search. This is such a great idea that I am going to add it to the discussion of proposed search enhancements for the Wikimedia Commons:
I have added many search options and enhancements to the Cannabis Wiki. See:
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Just out of curiosity, does Wikia do these things specifically to annoy people? Or do you allegedly have some reason that you actually think is intelligent and well-researched?
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Well, sometimes they do the lazier of the various choices. If the change were configurable in Special:WikiFeatures, that probably would have been best.
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This isn't very good. For one reason, if you thought it about it, searching for things you require a lot more time, which isn't really a pro. And also, redirects would be useless. Also, why not allow us turn this feature on and off in a Special:WikiFeatures or something? It's also unnecessary. Furthermore, wouldn't it be hard to benefit anyone, especially new users since they will probably "zoom" out of searching of what they need since they do not know exactly what to do with a search page.
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Plasma, as Dopp said there is autocomplete. TBh, I like it.
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Please make the search behaviour an option in registered accounts. So it behaves like the old search or like the new search depending on the option we chose. Another thing you should consider is adding another button to the search box, one that searches like you want and one that takes to articles like people want. For this second button if there is no article it should fall-back to search. Hope you listen and like versatile options, we will see.
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This is right. Make it optional.
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Make it an option controlled through like Wikilabs are. Who are we to get a better functioning than someone who wants to see what we have worked towards? All editors are equal where I come from, regardless of whether they have an account or not. We all get the same treatment.
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On my wiki, I make it so that if you enter a title with multiple occurances, you go to the Disambiguation page if not then you go to the page you want to.
I agree that this should be optional, because now I'm building a lot of disambiguation pages for nothing!
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Or maybe some key combination to go directly to the page (control-enter or alt-enter)? I know down-enter will work, but really?
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The dropdown doesn't always drop down for me, so I rely on seaching through typing in exact page names. I don't like the fact that now I have to search a name, and instead of being taken directly there, it now takes me to a seach page, so I have to click again on the page to get there. Makes an extra, unecessary step.
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If you're typing exact page names, you should just edit the URL, it's much faster and more reliable.
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This doesn't work for me. The search engine used by Wikia is bad enough as it is, so I was always glad that most people were able to bypass it by going directly to the page they searched for. Special:Search is inconsistent, often returns completely irrelevant pages, and is horrendously bad with typos.
It's clear from reading the comments that a lot of people like this update, and it makes sense -- oftentimes you want to search for a keyword instead of an actual pagename, and the search used to give no way to do that besides searching some gobbledygook first, taking you to Special:Search, and then typing in your query. A better solution would have been to add a "Go" button along with the search button, which we already have in Monobook.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't ads on Special:Search a relatively new addition? I don't remember having them when I was testing SearchDigest. That's a bit worrying...
Fix the search engine before you make everyone use it. It's not good enough right now.
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^this.
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Well, I think you just discovered the reason Wikia forces us to go through search results page: to force the view of more ads.
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I like the changes so far. By the way, if you're improving search, could you please make .searchresult take up the entire width of the .searchresults container in Oasis? Because there's a huge column of nothingness on the right side that should be used for displaying search results, if you ask me. Here's a pic:
The blue area is how wide search results are. The tan-ish area is a column of blank space that should be used for displaying search results. By the way, this is using an incognito window in Chrome while logged out.
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How about fixing the search whenever you click on "Add an image"? It sucks! :( It never gets the right results!
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It's on our list!
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Maybe this is just a glitch as you folks work on this, but when I type in the name of an article now for my Wikia, it goes to the "Search Results" page but doesn't show any matches. So, I have an article named "Enigma" (without the quotes, of course) and if I type "Enigma" in, it shows no search results.
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If Wikia is changing it so search results page are mandatory, they should also assure that the search index is totally up-to-date, since the current system may have a (now unacceptable) delay to include new pages on the index and preventing people to reach the article.
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@Ciencia, I tried searching for older articles on my Wikia and am still receiving the same 0 results. Everything was working fine this morning so I am assuming it's the change they are making to the Search engine that caused it. I just sent out a bug report to them. Hopefully, it can be fixed soon. :)
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Nevermind, I think I solved my own problem. I apparently had only "Talk" checked in my Preferences when I was searching which is why nothing was showing up. Once I checked "Main", everything seems to be okay. Le sigh.
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If Wikia is changing it so search results page are mandatory, they should also assure that the search index is totally up-to-date, since the current system may have a (now unacceptable) delay to include new pages on the index and preventing people to reach the article.'
This! 100 times this!
I've been reporting various issues with the search not updating over many months and I've been told via a support ticket that there are wide changes coming to Search results, so hopefully that means regular updates.
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I suppose that you won't break —this time— the current functionality on Monobook, where there's a button that directs you to the page with the exact title and another for bringing the search results page even if a page with the exact name exists. Just change the target button for Oasis.
Besides that, a user preference option for changing the behavior in Oasis (switching from exact match and search results on Special:Preferences) would be a nice plus, specially for people that like the actual behavior and use oasis.
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Okay, I just found out that it's broken. :(
You guys should be putting your best efforts to fail at the most evident bugs.
