Short Names

[sarci]

Can we make it a rule that girls that work as SP's or MPA's cannot use names less that 4 letters long?
I did a search for an MPA named Eve so I used the search string Eve* so that it would meet the minimum 4 character length. The search returned every post about Eve mixed in with every post that had the word ever, every, everyone, everywhere, even, eventually, event, Evelyn, and so on. So the results of the search were huge and not very useful.
C'mon girls, make it easier for us to find out about you, I now have a rule that I won't see anyone who's name is too short.
Maybe if we all boycott all the short-named providers they will eventually see the error in their ways and change their names to something longer.

 

[Big PAPA]

Twenty one days in a row. Can someone check the record books to see if LDB has surpassed tinop's streak.

 

[Chad P]

Is this the same EVE with the tight tight curls ...ON HER HEAD!

 

[Lance R]

Reviving this old thread...

Yikes its driving me crazy too, like Ivy at C2M makes search worthless it seems since she only has 3 letters and place is usually referred to with 3 letters!

 

[Bethalee Alice]

With all the massageplanet.netite brainpower, we can't find a solution for this problem. Probably because the answer is too simple.

How about this: We can call it the stuttering rule

Rule 1:
If the name is 2 characters (just in case there are any Prince types out there who want to use symbols) then we simple use the first letter in the name three times. for example Jo becomes Jjjo or TI becomes Ttti etc...
You only have to do this once in your post and the search will pick it up.

Rule 2.
If the name is 3 characters long then just use the first letter twice. ie. eve becomes eeve. Again, you just have to do this once in your post. When you search, you search for eeve or ttti etc...

I don't know if there is an easier way, but this makes sense to me

 

[bloodangel]

Possibly, start including full names of the spas, whenever possible along with the MPA's name.

 

[Casey R]

I recall searching for an MPA called Tia and getting loads of posts seeking information on all sorts of things . They all ended with TIA (thanks in anticipation).

 

[ryuzog]

slowandeasy has in theory practical soltion without changing the board program but would be impossible to get posters to studder in their posts so can be found. But very creative solution.

Better solution is when the board can go to full-text searching instead of current indexing of words. Full-text searching is now supported in latest version of My SQL which is the database engine that runs the VBulletin board used here (and very good except for small word search problem):

I have researched the short word problem by looking at the discussions on the vBulletin board.

It seems Fred can set the minimum value but If you set a smaller value (3), you could search for posts containing "Ivy" but the data base would grow massively in size to contain all 3 letter words users post such as any, and, but and zillions of other common words

The search in vBulletin 3 (now out but in Beta) is being reworked a little to make it more logical but it won't be able to over-ride the minimum characters that are set by the administrator. That would take full-text search which won't be usable until MySQL 4.0 comes out of beta which is slated for the end of the year (2002).

Using full-text search reliably in vBulletin is on the list of things to add but most likely won't be until after vBulletin3.0 (now out in Beta).

As of May 2003 My SQL is up to Version 4 beta - As of Version 3.23.23, MySQL has support for full-text indexing and searching. Full-text indexes in MySQL are an index of type FULLTEXT. FULLTEXT indexes are used with MyISAM tables and can be created from CHAR, VARCHAR, or TEXT columns at CREATE TABLE time or added later with ALTER TABLE or CREATE INDEX. For large datasets, it will be much faster to load your data into a table that has no FULLTEXT index, then create the index with ALTER TABLE (or CREATE INDEX). Loading data into a table that already has a FULLTEXT index will be slower. Full-text searching is performed with the MATCH() function.

posts about db size:
1/03 - I've only 75000 posts in the database but 3.577.005 entries in the searchindex table ( size of 87.8 MB ).
Is this table to big? Can I reduce this size? When gets mysql problems?

Replies: That sounds like a typical size. The only way to reduce this is to increase the minimum word length and decrease the maximum word length of the words that get indexed. Of course this will reduce the effectiveness of your search option.

Check this thread out. It helped me reduce my searchindex from 220 megs to 100 megs. http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/show...?threadid=39587

How about support for full text searching?
Full text searching is already available in MySQL version 3. Version 4 enhances it by adding boolean capability. Version 4 (4.0.8) is now in gamma and will probably be final before vB 3 is released.

I've actually been using version 4 and full text search since 4.0.1. The later versions have proven to more stable for me than version 3 ever was.

Support for this feature is easy to add (I even managed to hack it in with Ed's help). It won't affect performance for those who want to use the standard searchindex method, vB will be ready for the future and everyone will be happy... then in vB 4 we can have foreign constraints and start thinking about stored procedures in preperation for MySQL 5.

Another says: A quick glance at the the first line of section 6.8 in the MySQL manual reads:
As of Version 3.23.23, MySQL has support for full-text indexing and searching.

The only thing missing from version 3 is the boolean search. Relevency seaching is fully supported.

Gossamer Threads have the option of fulltext indexing plus their own internal method with weighting. If they can have it, why can't we?

Reply by "VBulletin team member": Hmmm...all I can do is ask the Developers to comment on this.

Dave says, I know nothing about MySQL and how you integrate Vboard with it with the different indexing options. Perhaps this may be helpful to Fred or other "geeks" who may be data base experts. It is clear the word limit is a major issue with VBulletin boards and is trying to be addressed. I have not read all the manuals for the latest version and by using search's on their support board I can't find any more on point posts.

 

[The Spork-Tacular Xak-kun]

Thanks Dave. Too wordy.

Just put * after the 3 letter word and you are hooked up.

 

[misstorwai]

HFH, MO, SB, S1, C2M. etc., etc. We do like to aim at our own feet, don't we? Cuz yuh cain't hardly miss. If the Search is returning threads, just one mention of the full name in one tiny post would turn up the thread.
Maybe we should make a practice of adding a 'full-name reply' when we come across a too-tiny-to-find name as the only identifier in the thread.
The Harey cunning *stunt looks enticing; I suppose one pads SB with two asterisks?

 

[tinkrbel93]

One doesn't.

Fruity's trick works w/HFH, but SB, SC, S1, IT and their two letter sisteren are unretrievable. Typing the whole name, just once, in one post in a thread appears to be it.