Help with searching

[Randy M.]

How to look at specific year discussions under discussion board. New to sit can't seem to figure it out thanks

[Joe R.]

Re: Help

Randy,

You selected C2 as your post icon for this thread. If you click on the C2, it will bring up all threads tagged as C2. The same trick works if a specific year was selected instead.

Joe

[Don H.]

Re: Help

Hello Randy
besides Joe's help, please read through the information below, which I brought over from the FAQs information you can access by clicking on the FAQs tab in the tool bar above. This looks complicated but is not. If you read through it a few times, it will make sense and you will be able to home in on any items of interest to you.
good luck

Searching Forums and Threads

How do I search for something?
To quickly find a thread or post of interest anywhere on the bulletin board, click on the 'Search' link in the navigation bar at the top of most forum pages. Then, type in the keyword or phrase you wish to search for, and select either 'Show Threads' or 'Show Posts' to view the results. By selecting posts, you will be shown only the actual post in which the search word appears.
New in the upgraded TDB is the ability to do Boolean searches.
Boolean Search

• Basic Boolean Search Operators - AND
  • Using AND narows a search by combining terms; it will retrieve documents that use both the search terms you specify, as in this example:
  • Brakes AND 1962
  • Basic Boolean Search Operators - OR
  • Using OR broadens a search to include results that contain either of the words you type in. OR is a good tool to use when there are several common spellings or synonyms of a word, as in this example:
  • 1966 OR 1967 OR 1968
  • Basic Boolean Search Operators - NOT
  • Using NOT will narrow a search by excluding certain search terms. NOT retrieves documents that contain one, but not the other, of the search terms you enter, as in this example:
  • Brakes NOT Shoes
  For more control over the search, select 'Advanced Search' from the drop-down box. The advanced search page allows you to restrict your search to individual forums, find posts or threads by user, or return results based on tags (?). There are also options to find posts from a certain date, or threads with a certain number of replies.
  How do I search a specific forum or thread?
  If you are browsing a forum, you can quickly search for a thread or post within it by clicking on the 'Search this forum' link near the top of the page (it's above the list of threads). You can also search for individual posts within a thread by clicking on the 'Search this Thread' link at the top of any thread view page.
  Search functions and how to use them.
  * asterick — is a “wildcard” and will find anything before or after lt.
  • Caution using an * before, or after a keyword can slow down the search as it will find every instance that contains the key word following or leading the *. Search for *vette will find all instances of Corvette as well as just vette.
  “” quotes — are used to phrase search and will find only the exact information that is enclosed by “”.
  • “big brake” will find all instances of “big brake” without finding all instances of “brake”.
  () parenthesis — groups words or phrases between the parenthesis (“first search term”) AND search_term
  
  ? question mark — is a “wildcard” and used for filling such as carbon fib?? – search results will find carbon fiber or carbon fibre
  Boolean Search — can be used to narrow or widen searching logic.
  
  AND — narrows search and retrieves information containing all of the words separated by AND
  OR — widens search and retrieves information containing any of the words separated by OR
  NOT — narrows search, excludes information not containing the term following NOT
  Search tips per Richard Mozzetta (13499) search experiments
  Example searches:
  "*L78*" or "*396*", lt1* or lt-1 or lt1% or lt-1
  Note: Blue Boldfaced identify different keywords used in the search strings
  1. First search experiment — Quoted strings and parentheses. Be careful here when using complex searches. Results can be misleading.
  Search, selecting Titles Only.......
  "wheel bearing" AND (*C1* OR C-1* OR "C 1 " OR 195* OR 196*) NOT (1963 OR 1964 OR 1965 OR 1966 OR 1967 OR 1968 OR 1969)
  Result:
  Type: Forums, Posts; Keyword(s): "wheel bearing", (*C1* or "C-1*" or "C 1 " or 195* or 196*), not (1963 or 1964 or 1965 or 1966 or 1967 or 1968 or 1969)
  Results — too many Titles(3360+) and they all did NOT have the phrase "wheel bearing" in them. Most had neither of the words! It Resulted with "wheel bearing" in the Result list, but it obviously didn't get the correct results. I suspect some vBulletin search software limitations or improper syntax in my keywords or ?
  2. Next search string experiment — parentheses enclosing "wheel bearing".....
  ("wheel bearing") AND (*C1* OR C-1* OR "C 1 " OR 195* OR 196*) NOT (1963 OR 1964 OR 1965 OR 1966 OR 1967 OR 1968 OR 1969)
  Result:
  Type: Forums, Posts; Keyword(s): ("wheel, bearing"), (*C1* or "C-1*" or "C 1 " or 195* or 196*), not (1963 or 1964 or 1965 or 1966 or 1967 or 1968 or 1969)
  Results — listed 2 titles, both had proper results with the phrase "wheel bearing" in them.
  
  3. Next I then tried this — AND function and parentheses
  ("wheel AND bearing") AND (*C1* OR C-1* OR "C 1 " OR 195* OR 196*) NOT (1963 OR 1964 OR 1965 OR 1966 OR 1967 OR 1968 OR 1969)
  Result:
  Type: Forums, Posts; Keyword(s): ("wheel, bearing"), (*C1* or "C-1*" or "C 1 " or 195* or 196*), not (1963 or 1964 or 1965 or 1966 or 1967 or 1968 or 1969)
  Results — listed 2 titles, both had proper results with the phrase "wheel bearing" in them.
  4. Next — AND function and parentheses, no quotes
  (wheel AND bearing) AND (*C1* OR C-1* OR "C 1 " OR 195* OR 196*) NOT (1963 OR 1964 OR 1965 OR 1966 OR 1967 OR 1968 OR 1969)
  Result:
  Type: Forums, Posts; Keyword(s): (wheel, bearing), (*C1* or "C-1*" or "C 1 " or 195* or 196*), not (1963 or 1964 or 1965 or 1966 or 1967 or 1968 or 1969)
  Results — listed 9 Titles, they had interesting results. Some with the phrase "wheel bearing" in them, some with just "bearing".
  ====
  It appears that parentheses will be your friend when searching here on the TDB. Use wisely!
  Rich

[Jack H.]

Re: Help

Just realize that not everyone uses those category icons, and also that many questions apply to multiple years and even multiple Cx designations.

[Rick A.]

Re: Help

And, many threads are older and before the "category icons" were brought into use

[Richard M.]

Re: Help

Randy,

What exactly are you trying to search for? I'll try to help you with the recipe. I did many experiments but it certainly can be confusing.

Rich