I looked and didn't see a place to ask questions about the forum itself so hopefully this gets flagged by an Admin.
Would people like to have the ability to further refine search results?
Currently the only way to filter forum searches is by (set) date ranges. Would it be helpful to be able to choose which forum pages e.g. "Spain" or even be able to select "all three Spain related forum pages"?
Does the current software allow such a build?
Thanks.
Go to upper left side of page that says Rick Steve’s’ Europe, several lines are there, , in the dark blue, click and you will find Search. I am using it now for a trip to Brittany where Rick’s tours do not travel.
Read my whole post. I know that there is a Search function.
I’m asking if people would find useful the ability to FILTER those search results.
Other message boards have more robust filters. I’m not sure if this software would allow such tools. I do suspect it would help cut down on duplicate questions a bit
Perhaps email the webmaster directly? webmaster@ricksteves.com.
The ability to refine the search feature and sort by date, rather than just selecting a really broad date range, has been requested in the past. In fact I posted a comment requesting this back in 2019. I'm not aware of any comments from webmaster regarding new updates to the feature since then. My assumption is that it's not possible with the current forum programming platform and would require more than just a simple update. Hopefully the webmaster will respond one way or the other.
Chris, the most accurate and filtered search results come from outside this forum by using a "site search" on Google.
For example, if you are looking for info on a car rental in Scotland, you would put this URL in the Google search bar - site:community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/scotland "car rental" (note that the search terms are listed at the end of this string. That will limit your search results in Google to the Scotland forum.
If you're looking for info on Spain, then change it to site:community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/spain and add your search terms at the end (like Ronda hotel). You can also use Boolean terms, which helps.
ETA, I can tell you that this is the best way of filtering down your search - there is no way to limit your search by individual forums on this website.
Thanks, I had forgotten about using Google as a workaround. Still it seems unnecessarily clunky for a site that has this much traffic. I’d love to have folks see what the thinking is.
Chris, I'm sure it's money. Message board forums can be expensive and the more "perks" you put in for forum users, the more expensive it gets. I'm sure RS was hit hard financially during Covid so I doubt that there will be any changes to the the forum in the near future.
Hi, Mardee's answers are what I'd have given, though "money" doesn't quite cover it either. ;)
To expand on it a bit, that is something we'd like to do -- improve the internal search capabilities on this website including the forum -- and it's not a quick change to do what you're asking for. It's on our wishlist, but it's not on the schedule and likely won't be for some time. I don't wish to convey that our forum is being neglected by me or our crew of developers. It isn't. However, most of the improvements over the last few years have been behind the scenes as we grapple with new challenges in running a forum of this size. That crew also has some big fish to fry over the next few years.
Until we can get to adding new features like the ones mentioned here, you could use our own internal search filters to limit the output to forum results and make sure your search query includes "spain" when trying to isolate to our Spain section of the forum, though I expect the Google method will give you better results.
Thank you for the reply. It's helpful to know where you folks are at.
The problem is compounded when posters aren't specific in their title, and just use general terms , like " I need help with a problem " and don't even name the country .
Nice that the web master is listening, tho.....
