Search Broken

[tnathan]

Hi all -- 

 

Not investment related, but is anyone else very frustrated at how weak the searching ability on COBF is? For example, I want to search for anything written on "CRH" and the search bar pulls nothing up. It feels like it should be an easy fix ... what is broken?

 

 

[gfp]

I am just guessing here, but I believe this limitation on search (that it requires more than 3 characters, making it ill-suited to ticker symbols) has more to do with MySQL than it does with some setting Sanjeev can easily change.

 

For CRH it is a difficult one to search.  For JOE, I usually search "Saint Joe" to get to the thread and go from there.  It's always been a pain.  Sometimes using google and site search gets you what you need with less frustration ->

 

Something like - site: thecobf.com "CRH"

Edited April 6, 2025 by gfp

[tnathan]

14 minutes ago, gfp said:

I am just guessing here, but I believe this limitation on search (that it requires more than 3 characters, making it ill-suited to ticker symbols) has more to do with MySQL than it does with some setting Sanjeev can easily change.

 

For CRH it is a difficult one to search.  For JOE, I usually search "Saint Joe" to get to the thread and go from there.  It's always been a pain.  Sometimes using google and site search gets you what you need with less frustration ->

 

Something like - site: thecobf.com "CRH"

Thanks that's helpful context!

[gfp]

2 hours ago, gfp said:

omething like - site: thecobf.com "CRH"

 

And, honestly, I don't even know if that works very well anymore since the investment ideas section may be behind a pay-wall.  It's possible that method only picks up mentions of CRH from general discussion threads like 'what are you buying today' or similar

[Buckeye]

Hey T,

 

I was having this same issue last night looking for a thread on Eaton. When I searched ETN, it retuned no results. I did search the full name and found it in a couple of mentions but never found an ETN thread

[gfp]

5 minutes ago, Buckeye said:

Hey T,

 

I was having this same issue last night looking for a thread on Eaton. When I searched ETN, it retuned no results. I did search the full name and found it in a couple of mentions but never found an ETN thread

 

Yeah, there isn't an ETN thread - you gotta start one to get one!  The problem with a case like CRH or even JOE is that the name of the company is three letters.  There isn't a longer search term to try.  Hell, even St. Joe is two short words that don't work.

 

Maybe you can sort the investment ideas section by alphabetical order and find the thread that way.  Never tried that

[intothebreach]

I think I can be of assistance; I got curious, so I tried a few things

4-letter tickers work, as well as substituting an asterisk (*) for the last letter or letter, as long as you have a minimum of 3 letters not counting the asterisk. For example both ntd* and ntdo* will return "NTDOY - Nintendo". What I have not found is a character that would replace anything after three letters including spaces. For exemple, using are* will return 'area' but not "ARE.TO - Aecon".

Using the "SORT BY" function that appears on the right-hand side of the main pane (just below the blue box titled "Start a new topic" and selecting "Title" will sort the results alphabetically, and from them it is possible to navigate to the right page, which is easier done by clicking on the "Page 1 of ###" that appears next to the "1 2 3 4 5 6 Next" navigation links, and guessing which page should correspond to what you are searching for. For example, Eaton would appear on page 41 if it existed. It is easy to jump forward or backward by up to 5 pages, or to guess a new page number. Not ideal, but it is a fool-proof way to check if an investing thread exists for a company.

An easier alternative is to search using quotes marks with both the ticker and the company name, for example "aapl - apple" (the search is not caps sensitive) and "are.to - aecon" works. Further, you can restrict the search to content titles only, either by using the "More search options", or simply by clicking the link to this effect that appears after your initial search under "Didn't find what you were looking for?".

However this last approach is sensitive to the exact formulation of the title. For example, it does not work with "are - aecon" (missing the ".to" after "are") or for the recently created Cemex thread as a space is missing between the ticker and the dash (CX- Cemex) — it does however return the earlier Cemex thread created in 2011 by user biaggio ; )

A last approach would be to search "- Name" (i.e. "- Apple") and limit the search to Content titles, which should pick out most investment threads by name.

 

Hope that is useful to some of you.

[Parsad]

8 hours ago, gfp said:

I am just guessing here, but I believe this limitation on search (that it requires more than 3 characters, making it ill-suited to ticker symbols) has more to do with MySQL than it does with some setting Sanjeev can easily change.

 

For CRH it is a difficult one to search.  For JOE, I usually search "Saint Joe" to get to the thread and go from there.  It's always been a pain.  Sometimes using google and site search gets you what you need with less frustration ->

 

Something like - site: thecobf.com "CRH"

 

Yes, that is correct.  It's probably the weakest part of using this platform and hopefully they'll improve it over time.  Cheers!

[Castanza]

1 hour ago, Parsad said:

 

Yes, that is correct.  It's probably the weakest part of using this platform and hopefully they'll improve it over time.  Cheers!

Can we just put a “$” in front of all new/existing threads?