seeking a phrase in titles only finds various non-matching titles/topics

<https://forums.freebsd.org/search/210678/?q=gdb&c[title_only]=1&c[users]=grahamperrin&o=date> for example (screenshot below):
  • only one of the found titles includes the phrase gdb
  • for at least two of the non-matching titles, gdb is not a tag.
Should we assume a bug in XenForo?

1623979950831.png
 
It's easier to use google, use a search term like this: site:forums.freebsd.org kde. The site:forums.freebsd.org will limit the search results to the forums only. Most search options on forums don't work that well, especially with "short" search terms (kde is only three letters).
 
I should have realized that. I'm thanking you because, on CentOS forums, where I moderate, a lot of spammers just copy an old post. The forum search function only looks for a word--for example word_number will show all posts with either word OR number. This will make searching for copied posts much easier.
 
a lot of spammers just copy an old post
We get those from time to time too. Or copy something verbatim off of ServerFault or similar sites. Taking a sentence from a post and putting it in quotes also helps track those down. Google has some really interesting options to make your searches really specific.

 
The problem exists because of the arbitrary design decision that valid search terms must have a minimum of 4 characters.

Searching for „ipfw“ gives valid results. Searching for „pf“ reveals an error.

Perhaps this is the reason why IBM sold there laptop business to Lenovo -- IBM is arbitrarily removed from the search results while Lenovo ist not. The same with the disk drives, Hitachi can be found.

As I said, arbitrary not reasonable.
 
I also find this a serious problem. I have questions relating to /var/log/pf.today, so I tried to search for "pf.today" and got the warning that "pf" was too short to search, so I tried it in quotes and the advanced search, but I couldn't get it to accept "pf.today" as a single word.

Google won't let me use their search engine because I refuse to accept their snooping, but Startpage wouldn't accept "pf.today" as a single word either.

This is a real drawback.
 
The first one contains "PF. Today", so separate words, not the quoted expression, and case ignored.

I stand corrected on the second two, but my point is correct: "pf" and "today" are treated as separate words, the quotes not being honoured. In any case, the behaviour of an external search engine is not really the point. We shouldn't have to rely on those if forum software worked properly.
 
That's interesting! It would appear something's changed in the last few days, since that certainly wasn't happening when I made my first post. Then I got dozens of pages of results - anything containing the word "today" seemed to come up.

I don't expect anyone to admit it, but it rather looks to me as if a forum admin has made some tweak in response to the thread being revived after a six-week lull.

As the OP, have your own searches now improved as well?
 
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