How do you Search?

[jjpzebra]

Please don't shoot me or think too poorly of me, but my qestion is meant sincerely and yet seems so elementary, I don't know why I can't find the answer. Simply, I'd like to know what I'm missing so far as searching for information about players goes on both the HQ site, but especially the HQ forums.

Let me demonstrate with an example. I own Jorge Soler, who is worse than a bad girlfriend (or boyfriend if you prefer) when it comes to hoping for the person to find himself. So, after tonight's pinch-hit o-fer and error to boot, I went to the forums to look to see if any information came out on him recently, or at least I could commiserate with another Soler owner. If you type Soler into the search window at the upper right, you get several threads come up, like Jarrod Dyson (?), the Cubs thread, and at the top, the Masters Draft recap thread (!). Nothing that shows when Soler's name came up, though if you type "Soler" at the Search Thread function in the Masters Draft thread, you get a thumb-nail of Old Tom's comment, where Soler doesn't show up at all.

I could go on, but clearly I'm missing something important. I figured there had to be a Soler thread somewhere, but it certainly doesn't appear when I search for the guy. How would you go about finding the latest comment in a thread about a topic?

Is there a place where you can find things like information on searching? Is there a method I'm missing?

And, if this is not a good thread to start, by all means delete it but please answer me off-line.

JJPZ

[Michael@HQ]

First of all, you have to decide whether to search the forums or the main site. There's a separate search for the main site, although often one can find what's desired by proceeding to Soler's playerlink page instead of doing a search.

Sounds like you want to search the forums. I usually click on Advanced Search, then Search Single Content Type, and type in "Soler" as the keyword. I come up with the same stuff you did. I'd open up the Chicago Cubs thread (might be some useful conversation there), and then hit the back arrow and restrict the search to where "Soler" is in the thread title (Search Titles only). Now it's easy to see that there have been a fair number of roster management threads, although none with posts since April 11, and no 2016 threads in the National League forum. I'd start a new Soler thread at this point.

That's just how I'd proceed. Doesn't mean it's the best answer necessarily.

[Whistler]

Just in terms of general searching for recent news, I always use Google News, where you can cull for recent news. But yes in terms of getting feedback and discussion from HQ, there hasnt been much out there specifically on Soler, except in the Cubs thread, and next to nothing there. I think the main reason why you arent finding anything, is that there isnt anything there. The nature of the threads is that sometimes a player will end up in a side conversation unrelated to the thread title, so you would have to wade through the thread to see what the discussion was.

I still wish that the search function had an added function that allows sorting by most recent date, and have requested that more than once, but apparently it is harder to do with the file setup than it would appear.

[jjpzebra]

Thanks, guys . . . I guess I'm spoiled by Google and simply wish the search function here was a little more efficient.

To supplement Michael's comments, additionally, you can do your advanced restriced search, for example, to "Soler" and limit under further options to the last two weeks, and then save by date in descending order. That gets you a step or two farther, though, continuing the example, doing this for Soler puts you on the St. Louis Cards season page, where you are faced with unedited access to the entire Cards season page, last to first. "Where is the stuff on Soler," you may ask then. Well, you can do one of two or three things: simply read everything in the page backwards until you find it - - may be 10 pages back after mucho discussion of something like Wang's playing time . . .yawn! Two, you can (as I tend to do) hit control-F on Chrome and search via the software to Soler, to find him highlighted on some discussion about Diaz' erroneous fielding of a Soler liner . . . "keep moving folks, nothing to see here . . . " Third, you can hit the "search this thread" button on the Cards' season page, where after typing Soler you find an abbreviation about Diaz, which has nothing about Soler . . .

Thread: St. Louis Cardinals 2016 Season Thread

by Whistler

Replies13Views314

To me, it wasnt so much that he made an...

To me, it wasnt so much that he made an error.....he panicked after he booted it, resulting in a hurried wild throw to 1b (if Moss had been 6'4' instead of 6', he might have at least caught it with a...

Since that's the closest you get using the BHQ tools, then you click the comment and it highlights the Soler error reference. But if there were 12 comments about Soler on a thread, hard to tell the good from the bad.

I guess using Google might be the best bet. It's just that I value the intelligence and passion of the people here on this thread, and not having a good way to focus one's research makes the delivery of that disappointing.

Any other insights?

JJPZ

[Michael@HQ]

JJPZ, there is an option to show posts, not threads, that have "Soler" in them. That might be more useful than trying to find mention of "Soler" in a multi-page Cardinals thread.

[iflabeast]

Whistler, I'm with you on the 'sort by' function on the HQ search. It is beyond frustrating looking at player news from 2013 when you're looking for more current BASEBALLHQ articles (because I don't want to use 'Google News' for information when I subscribe to BaseballHQ for my information).

[Howie M]

yes, this is a fair point to raise, since you wondered about that.....

[usualsuspects]

So, if you wanted to execute a forum search to find the last ten posts containing the phrase "Soler" (or whatever) and listed from most recent to most distant, is that something that is even possible?

[Michael@HQ]

So, if you wanted to execute a forum search to find the last ten posts containing the phrase "Soler" (or whatever) and listed from most recent to most distant, is that something that is even possible?

http://forums.baseballhq.com/search.php?searchid=200529

Click on Advanced Search
Click on Search Single Content Type
Type Soler in the Keyword box
For Show Results As, click on Posts
Sort Results by is already defaulted to by Last Posting Date in Descending Order
Click on Search Now

[Whistler]

http://forums.baseballhq.com/search.php?searchid=200529

Click on Advanced Search
Click on Search Single Content Type
Type Soler in the Keyword box
For Show Results As, click on Posts
Sort Results by is already defaulted to by Last Posting Date in Descending Order
Click on Search Now

That works for a forum search.

What about searching articles in HQ, sorted by most recent date?

[usualsuspects]

http://forums.baseballhq.com/search.php?searchid=200529

Click on Advanced Search
Click on Search Single Content Type
Type Soler in the Keyword box
For Show Results As, click on Posts
Sort Results by is already defaulted to by Last Posting Date in Descending Order
Click on Search Now

Excellent, thanks.

Also looks like there is a little box to save those search settings which I had not previously noticed.

Now, how about finding posts that mention Soler, but do not mention, say, Baez? Using "-Baez" doesn't seem to work.

[Michael@HQ]

I don't know, guys. You've exhausted my knowledge on the search capabilities.