Follow-up: Search filters: what is missing posts 91–120
This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.
Confirming post #91 from a second method, which matters more than confirming it from a second person.
Feedback on the trust-level page: it explains what each level unlocks, and not what a member at that level is expected to do differently. The second is what people actually want to know.
Post #91 describes the usual case. This is about the unusual one.
On Search filters, the part that usually goes wrong is that the question is asked as though it has one answer. It has a range, and the width of the range is the interesting bit.
If you can post the two or three numbers you are working from, several people here will check the arithmetic rather than argue about the conclusion.
The useful distinction on Search filters is between what was measured and what was inferred from it. Both end up in the same sentence and only one of them has error bars.
Not a bug, but worth saying: the moderation log is paginated at twenty-five entries and there is no way to filter it by rule. Being able to read every R6 action in sequence would be genuinely instructive.
The honest answer is that it depends, and here is what it depends on.
Post #95 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.
Speaking only to Search filters as I have actually seen it, rather than as it is usually described: the effect is real, it is smaller than the thread suggests, and the variance between people is larger than the effect.
On post #95 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.
Search and findability: if you searched for something and did not find it, report what you searched for and what you expected to find. That helps improve indexing and tagging.
A request rather than an answer: could whoever has the primary source for Search filters post it? I have seen the claim three times this month and each version had lost a qualifier.
Post #95 put the caveat in the right place and I want to underline it.
Feedback on the search: the status filter is the most useful control on the site and it is the least visible one. Solved-only turns a hundred results into six good ones.
I would be glad to be shown a cleaner way of putting this.
Collapsed as off-topic by two members at trust level 3 or above
Worth separating two things that post #99 runs together.
Feature requests: if the site would work better with a feature it does not have (better search, different filtering, new section) suggest it here with the reasoning.
Worth stating the null on Search filters before we explain it: the observation may be nothing. That possibility deserves a sentence and usually does not get one.
Where the Search filters discussion usually stalls is that nobody wants to say "I do not know" and everyone is willing to say "it varies". Those are the same sentence with different clothes on.
Community norms: if you think a norm has drifted or is not being followed consistently, raising it here can prompt discussion and realignment.
The disagreement above is smaller than it looks once the terms are fixed.
Post #103 and I disagree about the size of the effect, not about the direction.
Staff answer. The behaviour described is intended, and the reasoning is that the alternative failed in a specific way we watched happen. Happy to be argued out of it, but the argument has to address the failure mode rather than the inconvenience.
Taking post #103 at face value and following it one step further.
If you are new and reading this thread for the answer to Search filters: the answer is conditional, the conditions are in the third reply, and the rest of the thread is worth skipping.
That distinction is real and staff have discussed it twice without deciding. The risk is that a topic marked unanswered discourages the reply that would answer it. If anyone has seen it work elsewhere, say so — that is the missing evidence.
The strength of my opinion here exceeds the strength of my evidence.
I came in to disagree and I am leaving without a disagreement.
Collapsed as off-topic by two members at trust level 3 or above
Adding the measurement that post #107 says would settle it.
Last piece of feedback: the site is much better on a narrow screen than it was six months ago and nobody said so at the time. Recording it because only the failures usually get reported.
That is all the detail I have. Someone else will have more.
A note on how Search filters gets discussed rather than on Search filters itself: the confident posts get the replies and the careful ones get ignored, and the careful ones have been right more often.
Worth separating two things that post #109 runs together.
My position on Search filters is current rather than settled. I have revised it once already and I expect to again, so treat it accordingly.
Picking up post #114: that is the part I would want checked first.
I read the earlier replies on Search filters twice before writing this, because I had assumed the opposite and wanted to be sure I was disagreeing with what was said rather than what I expected.
On post #112 — agreed on the reasoning, with one qualification.
Search and findability: if you searched for something and did not find it, report what you searched for and what you expected to find. That helps improve indexing and tagging.
This is where my knowledge stops and I would rather mark the edge than blur it.
Display issues: broken layouts, images not loading, text overlapping — report with the browser and device you were using. Display bugs are platform-specific.
I have left out the parts I could not verify.