Okay, I just have to complain!
by Omnigalactic · in Site Feedback · 05/20/2004 (5:19 pm) · 2 replies
I'm really trying to be fair and diplomatic here, but I have a major complaint about this website. There have been some requests for full-body text searches and searching all communities at once. Here are just a couple of threads (one was posted by me)...
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=18487
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=8724
The response to both of these is that these requests would take up too much server bandwidth. Forgive me, but is GarageGames so broke that it can't afford to buy a few more servers to deal with such an issue? I know you guys are "independent" but finding resources is very difficult for newbies. And if you don't happen to type an exact word used in the TITLE of a forum post, you're out of luck, even if that particular post would have answered your question.
I'm not sure what database system you're using (SQLServer, Oracle, MySQL, etc.) but it doesn't seem like these requests would really take up that much bandwidth. I've designed and written several (SQLServer) databases, most of which include full database-wide search capabilities. On none of them was there ever a significant performance hit (but to be fair, none of them involved tens of thousands of potential users hitting the site all at once). I'd even be willing to help you write search engine stored procedures if you want! (Although you state that such code already exists.) Alternatively, there are several commercial applications available specifically for website forums; most of them have very decent search capabilities.
I'm trying my best to not sound like a jerk here but forum text has a way of making something sound much worse than the writer intends. I would simply like the capacity to, at the very least, search through the full text of forum posts.
Thank you,
Omnigalactic
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=18487
http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=8724
The response to both of these is that these requests would take up too much server bandwidth. Forgive me, but is GarageGames so broke that it can't afford to buy a few more servers to deal with such an issue? I know you guys are "independent" but finding resources is very difficult for newbies. And if you don't happen to type an exact word used in the TITLE of a forum post, you're out of luck, even if that particular post would have answered your question.
I'm not sure what database system you're using (SQLServer, Oracle, MySQL, etc.) but it doesn't seem like these requests would really take up that much bandwidth. I've designed and written several (SQLServer) databases, most of which include full database-wide search capabilities. On none of them was there ever a significant performance hit (but to be fair, none of them involved tens of thousands of potential users hitting the site all at once). I'd even be willing to help you write search engine stored procedures if you want! (Although you state that such code already exists.) Alternatively, there are several commercial applications available specifically for website forums; most of them have very decent search capabilities.
I'm trying my best to not sound like a jerk here but forum text has a way of making something sound much worse than the writer intends. I would simply like the capacity to, at the very least, search through the full text of forum posts.
Thank you,
Omnigalactic
About the author
#2
Rick Overman has said several times that when time becomes available he will look at the full text search functionality again.
05/20/2004 (7:14 pm)
It isn't server bandwidth that it would be taking up. It was CPU usage. The full text searches were enabled at one point, and they promptly crashed the server due to the excessive CPU / Memory use.Rick Overman has said several times that when time becomes available he will look at the full text search functionality again.
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