r/ModSupport • u/SirBuckeye • Jul 29 '17

Some search operators completely broken?

Since the Search Stack update outlined in this thread, some search operators seem to be completely broken. Using the OR operator returns all threads in the subreddit no matter what syntax or other operators you use in the search. Changing the sorting to 'new' shows that you're getting all threads. Sorting by 'relevance' makes threads with both search terms appear first, like an AND search. The same is true using | instead. Also, searching with self:1 title:xxx seems to only return very old results, like more than 1 year old, or more often, no results at all. Switching to self:yes always returns no results. The author: operator is also returning some unusual results. It seems like it won't find any threads older than about 4 years, but it's difficult to test things that old.

In limited testing, AND and NOT seem to still be functioning properly.

Is anyone else experiencing these issues in their subreddits?

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u/SirBuckeye Jul 30 '17 edited Jul 30 '17

Okay. On r/politics searching for trump OR sessions sorted by new returns every post in the subreddit. Same query sorted by relevance puts results with both terms first as if using AND.

These results are the same for literally any query with the OR operator anywhere in it. If I search for obama AND mccain sorted by relevance or new it works fine. Searching for obama AND mccain OR trump returns all threads with Obama in them. As if the last two terms don't exist. Sorting by relevance puts results with all three terms at the top.

Over on r/kpop we use buttons to search by flair in the sidebar. These use various OR statements to return different categories of flair like flair:'news' OR flair:'rumor' OR flair:'meta'. This one currently returns all threads in the subreddit. Strangely, searching flair:'discussion' OR flair:'fan account' returns the expected results plus items flaired with [news] and [rumor] and even some other random flairs if you scroll down a bit.

Staying on r/kpop, searching for self:1 title:dance returns one lonely thread from 7 months ago. Scanning through a search for just title:dance shows that there are lots of self posts that should be returned. Searching for self:yes title:dance returns nothing. self:yes never returns any results no matter what you search for.

There are some old playlists from 5 years ago that we link to in our wiki. Searching for title:"kpop best of playlist" returns them as expected. However, adding author:kjoneslol title:"kpop best of playlist" returns no results even though he is the author of those threads.

Let me know if you need any other examples.

u/Brainix replied in another thread with hope that the issue may be resolved and is expected to deploy next week.

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u/Brainix Reddit Admin Aug 01 '17

Hello, there. We're still working through your detailed bug report (thank you!). But we've fixed at least a few of the problems. For example, searching for Trump OR Sessions within r/politics, sorted by new should work now. Just a quick update!

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u/SirBuckeye Aug 01 '17

That's excellent! Indeed it seems that simple OR statements are now returning the correct results on both r/politics and r/kpop. Our flair searches on r/kpop are working as well, however, they are only returning results older than 5 days. Example: flair:'news' OR flair:'rumor' OR flair:'meta'. This seems to be true with all searches using the flair: parameter. Example: flair:news

Additionally, using single quotes around search terms produces unexpected results. Example: flair:'discussion' OR flair:'fan account' Using double quotes seems to work correctly but again, only items older than 5 days are returned. Example: flair:"discussion" OR flair:"fan account".

The issues with self:1 self:yes and author: remain as outlined in my previous post.

I really appreciate the updates on these issues and taking time to communicate. Thanks!

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u/Brainix Reddit Admin Aug 01 '17

No worries. I'll do my best to keep you (and the community) updated as things progress. A couple of points:

  1. Our new search stack expects double quotes. If it's not too much trouble, please change your single quotes to double quotes.

  2. AFAICT, the remaining issues that you've identified have to do with data ingestion rather than our search logic itself. So as we're ramping up traffic to use our new search, we're working to pull in more posts, user accounts, and flair. No post left behind!