This Forum has a Problem

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Niemand
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This Forum has a Problem

Post by Niemand »

And no, I don't mean me, the moderators or the other members.

Look who supplies the search function (top left by Moroni - desktop version may differ)

google-search.php

So I decided to use the archives to search for certain posts. One of them involved the Irish Catholic priest Seán Mulligan who has spoken out on recent issues:

* I typed in the search term "Seán" (with the accent) - no results first couple of times. I've tried it again just now, and it appears? Wut? Memory hole one minute, there the next.

* I type in the search term 'Sean" (no accent) - I get plenty of results, mostly about Sean Hannity, but the Seán Mulligan entry is not there. At least not when I tried it, maybe it will be now.

* I type in "Mulligan", the correct spelling, and get three results, one of which is the one I'm looking for. Only trouble is when I looked up Mulligan earlier, this relevant page did not show up.

Now "Seán" is a pretty unusual search term. I don't imagine there are that many posts on there with this spelling. So what's going on? Is this Google's weird algorithms, or was it genuinely trying to hide things from me? I imagine the archive is huge, but I actually had to trawl for it manually, going through pages of my old posts. When I replied that thread just now, it seems to pop up on results so maybe it hides dead threads? Or not, since I still get some results for threads that have been inactive for years.

I experienced the same thing with looking for "vigano"/"viganò" etc earlier.

viewtopic.php?t=62943&p=1193954

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BeNotDeceived
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by BeNotDeceived »


Excellent topic. 🎈

Up, up and away. 🎈

The simple search function, is very predictable, but a VSP is set to 4 characters, so you can’t use it to search for what a VSP may be, in this context. By simple, I mean the one built into phpBB, one solution is to craft KWiis, where KW represents a short KeyWord and the appended is make it searchable. SSii could work for Simple Search. Searching KWii won’t find KWiis, which demonstrates that no AI s involved beyond said VSPs, the exclusion of special characters, and search parameters visible in your title bar, when a search link is hovered upon.

Thar be another hint for me VSP riddle, and I’m happy to give a free audio or ebook to anyone that contributes to the solution. Solve it, and I’ll send you a hardcover of me little book about Slog Frog and his spunky little sister, which has a squiggly squirrel and a secret ending narrated by the daughter of a gal that grew up “dirt poor” in China, yet scored three Emmys, with one being for her excellent report about President #38.

There’s some more short search terms to test how google reacts, and help solve this and other riddles that people have posted here. Riddle me this, are all riddles labeled as such?

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Niemand
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by Niemand »

Same problem again. Tried looking for Vivek, the indian celebrity who died after having his jag on TV... no result. I had to dig it out of the list of the posts I'd made instead which took ten times as long.

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XEmilyX
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by XEmilyX »

Well the search function of this forum is complicated and hard if you don't know what things mean.

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Niemand
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by Niemand »

XEmilyX wrote: November 2nd, 2021, 5:44 am Well the search function of this forum is complicated and hard if you don't know what things mean.
It works via Google and they've got their own agendas with what people see. They control 90% of internet searches now. I'm sure they suppress stuff they don't like and there's plenty of that on this forum.

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ParticleMan
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by ParticleMan »

Instead of using the "Gulag" censor engine, try something like `site:ldsfreedomforum.com "Seán"` on uncensored search engines, such as:

https://searx.space/ [select an instance, then your desired engines]
https://search.brave.com/
https://peekier.com/
https://presearch.org/
https://private.sh/
https://millionshort.com/
https://www.mojeek.com/
https://swisscows.com/

But when using a censor engine, including the anonymized version of Gulag https://startpage.com/, or DuckDuckGo (which sold out years ago), know what to expect.

Otherwise, can the forum use an engine besides Gulag?

Allison
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by Allison »

Niemand wrote: November 2nd, 2021, 6:02 am
XEmilyX wrote: November 2nd, 2021, 5:44 am Well the search function of this forum is complicated and hard if you don't know what things mean.
It works via Google and they've got their own agendas with what people see. They control 90% of internet searches now. I'm sure they suppress stuff they don't like and there's plenty of that on this forum.
90% off searches, including other search engines? Or are you saying people use Google 90% of the time?

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BeNotDeceived
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by BeNotDeceived »

XEmilyX wrote: November 2nd, 2021, 5:44 am Well the search function of this forum is complicated and hard if you don't know what things mean.
A plus sign ➕ between words will find posts with both words, but placing stuff between quotation marks doesn’t do anything.

“It Ebbs, but it doesn’t Flow” won’t be found, which I thought weird, but just now I realized that it’s a thread title in Outer Darkness, which search engines aren’t supposed to index.

Also search strings here must be > 3 characters, and won’t hit on super common words.

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Niemand
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by Niemand »

Allison wrote: November 2nd, 2021, 8:29 am
Niemand wrote: November 2nd, 2021, 6:02 am
XEmilyX wrote: November 2nd, 2021, 5:44 am Well the search function of this forum is complicated and hard if you don't know what things mean.
It works via Google and they've got their own agendas with what people see. They control 90% of internet searches now. I'm sure they suppress stuff they don't like and there's plenty of that on this forum.
90% off searches, including other search engines? Or are you saying people use Google 90% of the time?
90% of searches online are on the Google search engine. (One or two others piggyback off it, so the figure's slightly higher.)

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Silver Pie
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by Silver Pie »

One thing to remember is that Google probably doesn't see private forums, so anything in them won't show up on a Google search (and the site's search function is really not very good (the times I've used it, then gave up and used Google)).

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Niemand
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by Niemand »

Silver Pie wrote: November 2nd, 2021, 7:35 pm One thing to remember is that Google probably doesn't see private forums, so anything in them won't show up on a Google search (and the site's search function is really not very good (the times I've used it, then gave up and used Google)).
The internal search function is also Google.
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Being There
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by Being There »

Silver Pie wrote: November 2nd, 2021, 7:35 pm One thing to remember is that Google probably doesn't see private forums, so anything in them won't show up on a Google search (and the site's search function is really not very good (the times I've used it, then gave up and used Google)).
I really don't know about that.
I think Google is monitoring and sees just about everything.
And even if they don't - I think they could if they really need to.
I really think they have that techno capability.

I really haven't looked in to all this,
and there's been books written,
but I've heard that Google knows where YOU are 24/7.

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Luke
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by Luke »

Use the forum search instead.

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Niemand
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by Niemand »

Luke wrote: April 7th, 2022, 11:54 am Use the forum search instead.
I think that's based around Google too (see screenshot above.) It's not ideal. It's taken me a while to find ways of finding things on here. I still wonder what I'm missing.

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Silver Pie
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Posts: 8989
Location: In the state that doesn't exist

Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by Silver Pie »

Niemand wrote: April 7th, 2022, 5:46 am The internal search function is also Google.
True, but I've learned it is pretty crappy - or was whenever I tried to use it. Google-outside-of-LDSFF was much better, so I don't use the internal one anymore.

Being There wrote: April 7th, 2022, 8:48 am I really don't know about that.
I think Google is monitoring and sees just about everything.
And even if they don't - I think they could if they really need to.
I really think they have that techno capability.

I really haven't looked in to all this,
and there's been books written,
but I've heard that Google knows where YOU are 24/7.
I forget where I learned it couldn't see private forums. Either from experience or from something The Creator (of the forum) said years ago.

I'm sure they try to know, but I've had them telling me (at the bottom of search pages, I think is where it is, as well as some sites like Home Depot, Target, etc.) I am in northern Utah, Idaho (I think), a lot of other towns in Wyoming, Nebraska, a few towns in Colorado, and I think even South Dakota and some other state further east than Nebraska (like New Jersey). 😆

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Niemand
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by Niemand »

Just did a test again. Google shows no results for "Eutychus", an obviously distinctive search term. When i search through the other format there are at least ten results. Why?

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Shawn Henry
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by Shawn Henry »

Niemand wrote: August 9th, 2023, 2:52 am Just did a test again. Google shows no results for "Eutychus", an obviously distinctive search term. When i search through the other format there are at least ten results. Why?
I think google only wants you to do searches on polygamy. :D

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BigT
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by BigT »

Searching the forum is very frustrating. I always thought I just didn’t know how to search correctly. When Endless returns maybe he can share how he finds things so quickly.

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Niemand
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Posts: 13999

Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by Niemand »

BigT wrote: August 9th, 2023, 3:59 am Searching the forum is very frustrating. I always thought I just didn’t know how to search correctly. When Endless returns maybe he can share how he finds things so quickly.
I've been doing a series on the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, i.e. non-canonical works. Part of the reason I've added a long list of other links at the end of each of these threads is to try and hack this problem. The link farm at the end is getting too long but I have to work out ways of getting round this issue. It clearly isn't just a matter of keywords. As i pointed out above, "Eutychus" doesn't return results, but is an unique search term, and is over four letter long.

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Chip
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by Chip »

I have noticed, for a long time now, that searching this forum from my smartphone yields almost nothing. Howevet, when I search this forum from my PC, it finds everything I would expect. There's something about how Google limits smartphone responses. Of course, most people are using smartphones.

My hotmail account has the same issues. Very frustrating. Even if I go to the non-mobile website, the problem persists.
Last edited by Chip on August 9th, 2023, 7:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

Lykos
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by Lykos »

Over the last ten years google has.nearly completely destroyed their search engine, intentionally ruining.the product for the top half of the bell curve in order to chase growth in the lower half.

Unfortunately many of the larger companies with search engines have followed their lead too.

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BigT
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Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by BigT »

Does Creator have a response?

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Ymarsakar
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Posts: 4470

Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by Ymarsakar »

try flat earth and moon landing, lol

A temporary work around is to use the google search engine, to look up topics on lds forum, instead of the google plugin. There is a difference.

https://www.google.com/search?q=lds+fre ... s-wiz-serp

Periodically, I would search my unique name id, ymarsakar, via google to see what was going on. Sometime around 2012-2015, my wordpress result disappeared from the front page. My blogspot site remained up, but it was an older one where I didn't talk about conspiracies or child trafficking. And then my wordpress search result really disappeared. Then in March 13th, x solar flare time CME, 2023 it reappeared, along with my other activities on game boards. At the time, I was in paranoia land, so my name disappearing from public recognition was a very good thing to me. Less chance of getting disappeared for real.

Did the god rays jailbreak google search AI? Heh

JohnnyL
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Posts: 9830

Re: This Forum has a Problem

Post by JohnnyL »

Niemand wrote: October 15th, 2021, 2:11 am And no, I don't mean me, the moderators or the other members.

Look who supplies the search function (top left by Moroni - desktop version may differ)

https://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/google-search.php

So I decided to use the archives to search for certain posts. One of them involved the Irish Catholic priest Seán Mulligan who has spoken out on recent issues:

* I typed in the search term "Seán" (with the accent) - no results first couple of times. I've tried it again just now, and it appears? Wut? Memory hole one minute, there the next.

* I type in the search term 'Sean" (no accent) - I get plenty of results, mostly about Sean Hannity, but the Seán Mulligan entry is not there. At least not when I tried it, maybe it will be now.

* I type in "Mulligan", the correct spelling, and get three results, one of which is the one I'm looking for. Only trouble is when I looked up Mulligan earlier, this relevant page did not show up.

Now "Seán" is a pretty unusual search term. I don't imagine there are that many posts on there with this spelling. So what's going on? Is this Google's weird algorithms, or was it genuinely trying to hide things from me? I imagine the archive is huge, but I actually had to trawl for it manually, going through pages of my old posts. When I replied that thread just now, it seems to pop up on results so maybe it hides dead threads? Or not, since I still get some results for threads that have been inactive for years.

I experienced the same thing with looking for "vigano"/"viganò" etc earlier.

https://www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewtop ... &p=1193954
Yup, same thing sometimes about not being able to find what I'm searching for (when it's really what I'm searching for and not a synonym, lol).

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