Wiki added to search

Casey added the Wiki (WikiThing and HelpThing) to site-wide search.

Example: http://www.librarything.com/search.php?search=covers&searchtype=34&searc...

Nice!

Thanks, Tim & Casey!

Most awesome! Thanks guys.

wonderful! thanks!

Very Good
Thank you Casey & Tim

Thank you!

Warning: mysql_connect(): Lost connection to MySQL server at 'reading initial communication packet', system error: 111 in /var/www/html/inc_wikithing.php on line 14 Warning: mysql_select_db(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL-Link resource in /var/www/html/inc_wikithing.php on line 16 Failure to select database (3wkt).

It worked on refresh

Very helpful, thanks!

It might be good to rename the top-level category Wiki/Help. I can't imagine that someone new to the site would think to click on "Wiki" to get to the help results.

Good idea. Pushing in a few.

There's also a lot of helpful information on the Wiki part, but not in the HelpThing part. I know we can put a HelpThing header at the top of any page, but that doesn't seem to make it search with the HelpThing stuff. Should we actively move "Help" pages to the HelpThing directory? Or is there some way to alias them, so that they redirect but also show up if someone searches "help"?

12> I don't understand. If you go to the search, HelpThing isn't highlighted by default. "Wiki" (hopefully soon to be Wiki/Help) is an item you can click on. If you just click on that, it returns all results in both WikiThing and HelpThing. You'd get only HelpThing if you then clicked to filter to just HelpThing pages. I don't think this is something people are likely to do unless they actually want that filter. Or am I missing something?

ETA: For example, if you search the top-level "Wiki" for "Series", you get:
http://www.librarything.com/search.php?search=Series&searchtype=wikithing&am...

The first link is to a HelpThing page for Series. The second to a WikiThing page for Series. Unfortunately, they happen to contain two somewhat non-overlapping definitions and explanations for how Series should work...

I don't think this is something people are likely to do unless they actually want that filter.

I don't know. If I wanted to search Help, and I saw that there was a particular section labeled HelpThing, I'd click on that and search within it. I'd do that especially if I was getting a bunch of not very useful pages in my search results, which is more likely when searching both Wiki and Help together.

Basically, if someone notices that there are two sections, WikiThing and HelpThing, under the Wiki or Wiki/Help heading, and they clicked to search the Help pages, they won't get results for a lot of pages, even pages that have the "HelpThing" column listed at the top, because those pages aren't in the /HelpThing/ directory. What I'm wondering - and this could be separate from search, but affects how search operates - is whether HelpThing-labelled pages not currently on the HelpThing directory should be either moved to HelpThing or else indexed with HelpThing for search purposes.

14> I guess it's just a difference of opinion. I just don't see beginning users who don't know how it all works "drilling down" past "Wiki/Help" without looking at the top level results first. I might agree with you if it stayed labeled as "Wiki" (actually, my objection then would be that people just would never click on it, same as was Zoe's).

But I do agree that pages that are about Help related topics definitely should be in HelpThing rather than wikithing. Like that discrepancy on Series that I pointed out above. There's no good reason that should be in wikithing.

Maybe wikithing shouldn't be searchable. They potentially contain a lot of outdated and misleading information. They could contain help pages that people are still working on and haven't made live by copying to HelpThing yet.

Actually, I think the WikiThing pages should be searchable as there might be a lot of good information there. But it should be made clear somehow that those are people's personal pages and are therefore less reliable than the crowdsourced HelpThing pages. As it is they're lumped in with HelpThing which I find very misleading.

(Am I right that the WikiThing pages are personal pages or are there other kinds of pages in there).

>16 jjwilson61:

WikiThing is split into Namespaces. There is one default namespace which doesn't have a prefix, but is called 'main' or 'mainspace'. 'HelpThing' is a namespace, and HelpThing and all the other namespaces are available for editing by everyone. The 'personal pages' are in the 'User' namespace, but they can still be edited by anyone.

17> Good point. I wonder if maybe it might be good to separate the search into:

Wiki/Help
* HelpThing
* Wiki: Main
* Wiki: User

and give more weight to results at the "Wiki/Help" level in that order.

The 'personal pages' are in the 'User' namespace, but they can still be edited by anyone.

True. But it's considered pretty rude to edit someone else's personal page.

Actually, on further thought, I'd suggest it be changed to "Help & Wiki" rather than "Wiki/Help". "Help" is probably the #1 thing people searching it will want, and in my opinion the "/" is a little cryptic (maybe more so for non-native speakers.)

But I do agree that pages that are about Help related topics definitely should be in HelpThing rather than wikithing.

Ok, so back to my original question, for staff: is it possible to get things that are marked with the {{HelpThing}} code indexed with the HelpThing search, regardless of where they are? Or, should we move any HelpThing pages not currently on the HelpThing directory to that directory?
One example is the Help and FAQ page, which is linked from the bottom of every single LT page.

16-18: Not all of the pages on the wiki are in namespaces. As Noisy mentions there's one area that doesn't have a prefix or namespace: those pages just come directly after /wiki/index.php/ , and they tend to be for pages that are general to the site. Those are more likely to be useful to people than personal wiki pages.

WikiThing predates HelpThing. So there is probably a fair amount of Help-related or simply helpful information on the main area of the Wiki. There used to be a type of WikiPage called "Help and FAQ" and some pages are labeled with that. But I doubt most users have explored the wiki. That's why I think all Help pages should be indexed together, since they are more likely to be useful to the average member searching for help.

edited for typos

By the way, there are actually quite a few "HelpThing" pages not on the HelpThing namespace. It didn't use to matter, because once HelpThing was introduced, simply putting the {{HelpThing}} code at the top would make sure they got included on the list of HelpThing pages. But they don't appear to be indexed with those pages.

Moving is a bit complicated. There are many links to the existing pages. Also, simply copying and pasting to another place would presumably disconnect the page from its history. I remember, for instance, how much combined member effort went into building the Collections help page when that feature first got introduced; I'd hate to lose the record of all those efforts.

Yeah I think before we do wholesale moving I'd like to see whether we can capture them some other way. Checking with Casey.

I think there's a wiki way to move a page that doesn't involve copying and pasting, but I'm not sure if history is preserved with it.

All this said, I think part of creating a robust Help system for LT will involve some serious consolidation of current pages, probably into the HelpThing system. Does this make sense to folks? Anybody want to help out with that?

25 To some extent that's been underway for a while, since HelpThing was introduced. There's a group for CK, the Wiki, and HelpThing, and so if there are specific areas of HelpThing or Wiki that need work or consolidation, I'd suggest posting over there and getting the active wiki-editing folks involved:
http://www.librarything.com/groups/commonknowledge

Yah, I know - just putting together my list of areas that I think we need to tackle, at the moment :-)

As has been suggested before, I think one way to encourage this might be to split out HelpThing and WikiThing from the CK group. I'm not sure if HT and WT should go together, or each get their own groups, though. But I've seen multiple people say they're interested in helping out with HT, but not interested in having all the CK posts show up in their Talk listing. HT/WT and CK discussions go together about as well as peanut butter and ball bearings, so hopefully there's no a crowd of people who would be adamantly against this.

peanut butter and ball bearings. Love it.

I'm fine with separating wiki-stuff out from the CK group if people in the group are; I don't want to bounce in and rock the boat, but if folks want to handle them separately that makes sense to me.

Well, I've done it! People are free to ignore it, but if they thing it's a good idea here we go:

HelpThing and WikiThing

If there is some consensus that this is the way to go, then whoever can edit the CK group description can take out the bits about HT/WT or just redirect them to that group.

K - do you want to post in the general group and point them to the new one? I can set up the new group as a community group, once we get going.

31> I did, right before breaking LT. I swear, first group I create and it takes the whole site down! Bad omen.

Anyway, I'm going to try to post a few more things to get it kick started.

Snort. Nope, not you, that was Tim making a change to try and placate the folks upset about MWYB stats :-)

Ok, Casey's going to set it so that anything with the {{HelpThing}} in it indexes to the HelpThing section. So whew, no need for moving things, we can concentrate on fleshing out/updating/&c.

Help/Thing

Done. Sorry for delay.

Help/Thing

Wiki/Help? ;)

Oh well, I guess "Help & Wiki" was just a pipe dream. :D

I use ampersands for what God intended them—law firms!

34 - That sounds good.

Okay so at this point anything in the HelpThing namespace or with {{HelpThing}} will show up there. Now we just have to add the {{HelpThing}} category to other pages that should be indexed as Help.

Excellent!

THRILLED to see this. I cannot actually describe how much! I have joined the group and will be eager to start helping tackle things once I am back from my vacation (on Tuesday).

Hooray for searchable help!

Right now, search seems to include information from previous edits in the text it shows below each result.

See the first result here for instance:
http://www.librarything.com/search.php?search=change+username&searchtype=wik...

That text shows a bunch of edits members made to the page, asking how to change their user name, but it doesn't reflect the current page.

Can we hide previous edits from the search results preview?

I believe it shows the current version as of last index—which happens every night.

Casey?