Searching help.ubuntu.com does not work anymore..

[Dean Sas]

On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 13:44, Marko Oreskovic <markoresko at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dustin Kirkland wrote:
>> On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 10:45 AM, markoresko <minikola at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I was trying to find something on help ubunut.com today..
>>> And search for community documentation didn`t work.
>>>
>>> It only works if you enable Google.com scripts. And I will not. Ever.
>>
>> I helped Matt implement this, so I suppose I should respond to this flame...
>
> I wouldn`t call it a flame but if you say so, then..

If you'd pardon me for saying so, you do seem to be a little shrill.
It's only a way of searching a website remember.

>>> So please, enable Search on help.ubuntu.com like it was before.
>>> I will not use google search inside help.ubunut.com.
>>> It it:
>>> 1. Ugly
>> Really?
> Yes.
> Google page inside Ubuntu site is Soo ugly to see..

As you say, that's a matter of opinion.

>> we can work with Canonical to perhaps pay off Google to remove those.
> No we shouldn`t. And I think that it would be too expensive to do that
> even with any small amount for it.
> It would be better to pay some programmer to make some script that would
> translate external google search (if it must be used) into some internal
> view that is problem-free.

When I last looked into google custom search engines, to get the API
access you must pay for "no ads" anyway.

>> They did it for search.ubuntu.com (which uses Google).  But otherwise,
>> I don't see anything "Ugly" about it.
> Ok that is matter of opinion what is ugly for you and what is not.
> But consider that if I go to the ubuntu site
> and everything is Brown and every page is carefully made to be mostly
> nicely incorporated in site style.
> And suddenly I get amateur-like google output..

I think that's because there seems to be a bug when searching from a
page on help.ubuntu.com/community If you start a search from
help.ubuntu.com it is brown and incorporated.

> Also search results should not be those that google desides what they
> should be. Maybe someone will pay for its page to show up first
> inside OUR search results?

I think there'd be a pretty loud outcry if they did and if that
happens we can switch then to another search.

>>> 2. Google-dependent
>> Is that so bad?
> Yes. It shows that site that is implementing google-dependent scripts
> is mostly one of the small and inferior group of people with money
> problems.
> I Don`t see Any Ubuntu user as inferior to any other OS user.
> Why should we?

Whenever I've needed to search MSDN (a microsoft site) I often gave up
using their search and found information quicker by using a google
site: query. Having poor quality search results give a bad impression,
I think the google search gives better results and is faster than
using the old 'page text' moin search option.

> Consider possibility that in the future google chrome will be integrated
> in google search results or that results are not the same for all users.
> Will you be able to notice that?

Results from the main google site often won't be the same for each
user, it depends on which specific set of google servers are answering
your query. Big deal. As long as the results are good for everyone it
doesn't matter that they aren't exactly the same.

> Or that google scripts are somehow intentionally broken in some nasty
> way. You can`t change google scripts to something you like, can`t you?

Unless they specifically target Ubuntu, someone, somewhere will pick
that up, and we can switch then.

>> I'll also note that you wrote this email from a Google gmail.com address.
>
> And that is exactly proving my point.
> If I want to use google mail for some of my publicly-related tasks,
> then that shows that I have just about that amount of willingness
> to consider Google mail as the privately enough for *that* usage.
>
> So It also have nothing to do with that I am using google search Every
> day and I use it intensively. And I am used to it when I want it.
>
> But what I am Not used to is that I am _forced_ to use it in places
> where I don`t expect it to show up, like our Community search results!

You're willing to use google for your email and for search in general
but you're not willing to use it to search our documentation? Can you
see why there seems to be a struggle for people to empathise with your
argument?

>>> 3. Forcing users to allow Google java script to work on their machines.
>>
>> I would agree that it would be nice to have a workable fall-back plan
>> for users who don't have javascript enabled.  This is the distinct
>> minority in today's world, however.

It's still something that should be implemented. Marko has a valid point here.

>> Matt, could we enable the legacy search page at another url, and
>> perhaps link to it somewhere?

I'm not sure if this is feasible but a possible solution is to display
the normal moin search and have some javascript run when the page
loads that switches it out for the google one (we'd probably just have
to change the form action, the name of an input field and then load
the google js). This would mean that javascript enabled people get the
nice new google search, non-javascript enabled people get the old moin
search.

Marko, as a workaround, you can visit
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Home/?action=fullsearch&value=test&fullsearch=Text
switch out the 'value=test' bit to be whatever you'd like to search
for.

Thanks,
Dean