Greetings, Cranky Users! I've been pretty distracted lately because I'm in a show; not my usual practice, and that's true in part because I hate this business where it eats all your evenings and weekends. There haven't been any big updates to Daily Kos recently, so I'm just posting now to say hello and give you a forum to bring up what's bothering you about DK4 these days. I have one or two little tidbits to share with you below the squiggle, though.
It's true that Search doesn't always work as it should, particularly with finding older things, and some of us have more trouble than others -- maybe it's a browser thing, or maybe Search is just mean. But here's a bit of good advice from Seneca Doane to help us search for comments.
Suppose I want to find a comment I wrote recently. I don't remember much about it, but I know I wrote it in response to Nurse Kelley. (Sadly, this narrows the field a lot.) If I go to the Comment search screen, there is a place to put myself as the author of the comment, but what about the person I was replying to? That person, my Cranky friends, is called the pauthor (for "parent author"). Note that the pauthor could be the author of a comment OR a diary that has received the response we want to find.
There's not a handy box in which to type the pauthor's name, so we have to type it out. We don't want to put it in the Author box, though -- that has a very specific purpose. We want to put it in the Where box, which can contain more general conditions we want to place on our search. Here are two ways to type it -- notice I can type out author= the same as pauthor=, or I can use the Author box for that part.
You don't need to search for an author in order to search for a pauthor! You can use it alone, or combine it with other criteria. Here, I've found the same comment of mine by leaving out author, but saying I want the subject to contain the word donate AND the pauthor to be KelleyRN2 (that is, I want a comment with "donate" in the subject line, written by anyone in response to something by Nurse Kelley). Note that this would NOT work if I flipped it around and put "donate" after "pauthor=KelleyRN2".
Another bit of info about search: jotter tells us that no more than 1000 results will be returned by a single search. That seems like plenty, but if you have a scheme that involves getting back 20,000 search results and then rummaging through them, I'm afraid you'll have to rethink your scheme. (And allow me to point out that the weather is very nice outside in many areas of the US right now. You might want to take a look.)
And last, did you know that the Search help document from DK3 is still out there? Some of it isn't exactly accurate any more, in describing the interface, but it will give you some guidance about how to formulate search terms. For instance, you can use OR and NOT to combine search terms. Here's the same search, but now I'm asking for comments I made, with "donate" in the subject, but that I did not make in reply to Nurse Kelley.
Oh, and really really last, don't forget that search results are currently not linkable. That is, I took all these screen captures partly because I can't do a search and then grab the url of my results and give it to you as a link. All you will link to is an empty Search screen. If you do this, your arguments will likely not seem persuasive to the recipient, although they may conclude that you are not worth arguing with and go away, in which case, perhaps you can get outdoors for a while after all. Good luck!
As always, please use the comment thread to describe issues you're having with using the site, answer questions for other users if you can, and play nicely with everyone!
WHERE TO TURN: LINKS
☀ For more stuff sort of like this, the Cranky Users group.
☀ For lots of official detail about the site and its workings, the DK4 FAQ (frequently-asked questions). The main Daily Kos FAQ is still here.
☀ To report something not working to the dev team, the bug report form. A bug report will not be directly responded to, but will be kept on file by the development team until the issue is resolved or otherwise closed.
☀ To get immediate response for technical help or urgent site problems, the contact form (be sure to select the tech support radio button). A tech support request will get prompt response, but does not get added to the bug report database. If you use it to report a known bug, you'll be told it's a known bug, and that's it.
☀ For immediate catharsis, complain in a Cranky Users thread. These threads are regularly scanned by kos and developers, but it's not a guaranteed way to bring an issue to the attention of these folks. But sometimes you just need some sympathy from other cranky people! (And sometimes, other cranky people have advice that can help you.)
Our thanks to kos, the development team, and the Dkosopedia contributors for their vigorous efforts to deliver a site that works well and to help us know how to work it!
|