Searching another player : bug ?

[+bernie38]

Hello all.

 

I tried today to search another player, but only with the beginning of the name, and i encountered a bug : impossible to find a user with only a few letters (like "starting with"). So,  if i search a player whose name starts with "bernie" (like bernie38, for example), il can see only a few lines : bernie, bernie4818, and 3 or 4 others. But not bernie38. Ok, il'll try another method : i enter bernie3 and... no name found !

 

I think it was working fine a few months ago.

 

If somebody has a tip for by passing this bug, i'd be happy :)

 

Thanks.

[+ecanderson]

The search engine only shows the first 4 matches for any number of characters entered.  In your case, it requires the full bernie38 to get that far down into the 'bernie' alphanumeric matches.

Not a bug, just the result of a 4 result search.  Below, even with all but one character left to input, the top 4 are all earlier in the sort (the last is Bernie3107) than you.  It has to get past the '31' (and any others like it) before it would display the '38'.  It's an alphanumeric sort, so 3107 comes before 38.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 10, 2020 by ecanderson

[+dprovan]

12 hours ago, ecanderson said:

Not a bug, just the result of a 4 result search.

Well....I've always considered that a bug even though it appears to be by design and has been that way forever. They get away with it by calling it a lookup, although even you recognize that it's typically used more as a search, so it should have a way to show all matching answers. This has become more of a problem as more and more accounts have that <root><number> format that puts all the discarded newbie accounts first before anyone with a real handle, as demonstrated in your examples.

[+MartyBartfast]

It's not helped by the inconsistency, e.g. here it doesn't show the first four hits alphanumerically, this was achieved by just entering "bernie" after having done some previous searches, so perhaps it's "remembering" prior hits and bubbling them to the top:

[+ecanderson]

10 hours ago, dprovan said:

Well....I've always considered that a bug even though it appears to be by design and has been that way forever. They get away with it by calling it a lookup, although even you recognize that it's typically used more as a search, so it should have a way to show all matching answers. This has become more of a problem as more and more accounts have that <root><number> format that puts all the discarded newbie accounts first before anyone with a real handle, as demonstrated in your examples.

???  "all matching answers" how soon into the search (number of characters)???

With half a zillion accounts, if it started with the first two characters, "be", just how long would the list be?  Or even three characters "ber" would generate HOW big a list?

I understand why they're doing it as they are.  I don't want to scroll down sixty seven pages looking for an entry.

 

As for MartyBartfast's post, that's just totally weird.  There are hundreds of entries after "bernie" that sort sooner.  It looks like you have had the "3" in there already, else it has missed an enormous number of previous entries.  Worse, they've not even giving you a proper alpha sort.

 

Don't know why you get 5 and I get 4, though.

Edited December 11, 2020 by ecanderson

[+dprovan]

19 hours ago, ecanderson said:

I don't want to scroll down sixty seven pages looking for an entry.

Then don't scroll down if the list is too long for you. It seems odd to suggest they not return, say, one page of entries when I want the list that matches "bernie" just because you might be stupid enough to search "ber" and decided to scroll down the list even though you don't want to.

 

If you feel that it's important enough to have an upper limit just because you feel there's something wrong with producing useless list, can you at least agree that 5 isn't reasonable? I find that 5 is almost never useful. There are, as you say, a zillion accounts, so any given string will tend to match at least umpteen accounts, certainly more than 5.

 

(And there have, in fact, been times when I would have gladly searched 70 pages because it would have been easier than any other method of finding that user, but that's another story.)

[+ecanderson]

I guess I (and gchq) have a different expectation of what that list is designed to do.

For what you're asking, it would be far better to open a separate page, not try to manage that function from a drop-down on the page where it is now.  Yes, I can certainly see that as an option, but ONLY after someone hits the 'enter' key the first time.  As it is now, the display is dynamic based upon the partial text that is entered.  If you really want all matches to 'current' text, that's a big cpu time sink (and wouldn't fit on a normal page anyway) and not the way most search databases work.

 

For the feature as it stands, it is not a search, but a lookup.  What it does is confirm that you aren't asking for something that isn't going to show up, or confirm that your completed text entry really has a match.  That's all.  But for THAT particular page, and that particular function, that's fine by me.

Again, if you want something that does an actual search, it's because you don't know the exact name to type.  In that case, we should be treated to Soundex or similar and a proper search engine against the user database.  That's a laudable enough suggestion, but as I say, something for another page open entirely.

 

Edited December 12, 2020 by ecanderson

[+dprovan]

4 hours ago, ecanderson said:

For what you're asking, it would be far better to open a separate page, not try to manage that function from a drop-down on the page where it is now.

Yes. As I pointed out when we started, although it's implemented as a lookup and called a lookup, the OP and the first response both were talking about using it as a search, so that's what I've been talking about.

 

As a lookup, the list is very rarely useful. It's almost always filled with misses except when you've typed enough to come up with the unique answer.