Brion - thanks for fixing the "search" button.
I said:
> 2. Even if you hand-fix the search, the title
search doesn't work
> at all, nor is there any hint that the search wasn't performed.
> It should either do a title search (that's not expensive), or
> at least say "No title search performed, server too overwhelmed".
Brion Vibber <vibber(a)aludra.usc.edu> replied:
Jeebus, how many more disclaimers do I have to put into that thing?
You don't need MORE disclaimers. I think part of the problem is
that the text labelled "Results:" above the disclaimer makes it
appear that the disclaimer is irrelevant.
The current display looks like the system _did_ do a
search, with null results. It's then followed by some sort of
disclaimer, saying that sometimes searching is disabled
(during your peak hours). But since I got search results,
clearly it's not your peak hours and searching is currently
enabled. At least, that's what I thought the Wikipedia meant.
Apparantly that's not what was meant.
At least, I find it very confusing, and I suspect others will too.
When searching is disabled, I believe Wikipedia should
NOT display the following text:
"Showing below 20 results starting with #1.
View (previous 20) (next 20) (20 | 50 | 100 | 250 | 500)."
Instead, it should IMMEDIATELY display the disclaimer, and _explicitly_
state that searching is CURRENTLY disabled. How about this?:
"Sorry, but searching is currently disabled.
Wikipedia's internal search capability is disabled during
peak hours (16:00-04:00 UTC / 9:00-17:00 PDT) to reduce
server strain. As a temporary measure, you can search for
text appearing in Wikipedia pages via Google, but be aware that
the index is incomplete and some pages will be out of date.
If you know the exact name of the article, just enter the title's
name and press the 'Go' button at the top right side of the display."
If title searching is being disabled - and not just article title
searching - I think the disclaimer should say that "text search"
is disabled, not "full-text search" (as I've shown above).
Some people (including me!) would presume "full-text search" to mean
searching inside every single article's body, and wouldn't think
that "title search" is the same as "full-text search".
If my understanding is right, this isn't really a "bug" -
it's a user interface issue. I think the current
text could confuse some people (it's certainly confusing me).
By NOT displaying potentially confusing information,
I think it'd be better.
Anyway, I hope I caused no offense. I really appreciate the
work you do!