Please please PLEASE change the search function.

It used to be excellent. You could search by thread title or content or time frame...

Now its just one line without any other criteria.

The biggest difference is now its run using google which means that our searches are recorded and stored by google.

If for no other reason, the old function used to help avoid duplicate threads.

I wouldn't mind if it could be improved a bit.

My last thread about a news item duplicated an earlier thread even though I'd done a search first. The title of the first thread was slightly different to mine, but there was enough similarity to words I used in my search that it should have shown up. If not the title, then words in the text.

I'd also looked down the list of threads in the relevant forum, but didn't go back far enough - the first thread was already three days old. I thought the article I'd found was a bit newer than that

I've really cut down on making threads because I don't want to keep duplicating those made by others. I had a couple of 'incidents' last year and was mortified when I decided to start making threads again and fell victim to the search function at about the second go.

reply to post by gladtobehere


I find that if you search for threads by a members name, you get every thread they replied to, if you don't know the title exactly.

I have actually found it kinda cool to read comments in other places, but when I am on a mission, it's like digging for a needle in a cow dung pile.

It's maybe not the answer you were hoping for but google might be ab;e to help too.
site:abovetopsecret.com "and then the terms you are searching for"
limit all results to this site. Hope it help in some small way as a workaround if not a complete solution.

ETA Sometimes I search google for sources and sometimes ats comes up in the first page due to it being only posted here and maybe one or two other places.


ETA2 Just read the last part of OP's question, I don't trust google much either Please disregard my suggestion

Yeah the new search fonction - pardon my language - sux. You cant use filters or set any options. So it will shows results randomly, without any proper orders. If i was paranoid, i would think it was made on purpose to make searches harder...

I too wish it were fixed. When I go there, all I see is
(loading search engine)
but then no search box appears. I have Sun Java installed, and allow Javascript, I am not using a proxy here. What gives?

The Search Continues...

reply to post by autowrench

Some browser add-ons may block loads of scripts or widgets even if the necessary support (such as Java) is there. As an example, I use Firefox (version 10 beta, atm) as well as NoScript and Adblock Plus, and both need to whitelist ATS as well as some of the other sites ATS ties into, such as Google, Google Analytics, Quantserve and so on.

It's just a guess, but I suspect something like that (or perhaps a security setting in the browser itself) may be what's holding up the search engine load.

Meanwhile, the ATS search feature (in all its incarnations) has long been a source of frustration for members, and we know that. Quite a few staff members would like more options as well.

Because it works more or less like Google search, the current iteration of the search engine can return quite a few hits. Unfortunately, refining searches can be tricky, especially if specific terms or spellings of terms are unknown.

Past versions of the search tool allowed for quite a few different kinds of search functions, including boolean operators, but many members found the options too complicated and searches often seemed to return unexpected or incomplete results.

On the search page itself, there's a little blurb at the bottom:

This is version 1.0 of the ASK ATS engine. Future improvements will include forum-specific searches, the ability to refine your searches based on the date a topic was authored, the date of a topic's last reply, number of flags, number of replies, and even specific members who replied to a topic.

It's been there for a while, and Bill has had to juggle quite a few development issues in recent months, but I suspect we'll see more changes coming to the search feature in 2012.

Originally posted by supine
reply to post by gladtobehere
I have actually found it kinda cool to read comments in other places, but when I am on a mission, it's like digging for a needle in a cow dung pile.

Exactly correct. The new search function has made it near impossible to narrow your search.

They need to go back to the previous function which allowed a person to mange the criteria such as date, title, content/body etc.

reply to post by autowrench


If you use any kind of script blocker, you have to allow google. Its a google based search engine which in all likelihood means that the searched are being stored the same way google stores every search.