60 seconds between searches.

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It has been that way for a good while now, helps cut down on the possibility of detractors trying to bring down the database by jamming up the system. ;)
 
MajorDomo said:
It has been that way for a good while now, helps cut down on the possibility of detractors trying to bring down the database by jamming up the system. ;)
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Yeah, I fully understand this, but it gets annoying sometimes when doing multiple searches or when there is a typo in your search. Anyways, it would be cool if you could make it a bit less, but I really don't mind if it makes the forums less vulnerable ;)
 
MajorDomo said:
It has been that way for a good while now, helps cut down on the possibility of detractors trying to bring down the database by jamming up the system. ;)
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:(

I know... It also makes the search feature near useless. I mean when you searching, if you don't find something you need to search again, but have to wait and 60 seconds is a while when your just staring at the screen waiting. If you search after 5x seconds the counter restarts meaning you have to wait 60+5x seconds.... GRR.

When searching, I can choose open searches and filter through hundreds of matches, or perform narrow searches which may result in 0.

I was just searching for a thread earlier and wanted to vent. I gave up after 10 minutes of searching, so I wrote the hiaku, it helped. :D

I don't know... I realize the difference in impact on the DB, but what's the point in the feature if it's not usefull.

Any way we could try it a 45, or 30 seconds to see how that impacts things?
 
I am going to have to agree if it matters any, 60 secs is a long time when you are trying to find a problem that you know has been posted before and guessing at the keyword. Does it actually make you wait an extra 60 secs if you happen to try again 20seconds into the waiting time? I would like it to be 30, but if this can't be changed I understand. There is a ton of useful data here and search is the key to it.
 
What about keeping the 60 sec limit for normal users, but allowing unlimited (or at least more frequent) searches for paid subscriptions? It'd be a nice bit of "added value" for a subscription, and people who've paid to be part of the [H] community don't seem particularly prone to attempts at bringing down the system. Besides, there're few enough of them (I imagine) that dealing with disruptive subscription members on a case-by-case basis shouldn't be overwhelming.
 
But, it's the noobs who need to search instead of asking the same question over and over again. For the money though, I might subscribe for that.

Vette
 
If there is one thing that drives me crazy on [H]ardForum, it's the dreaded 60-seconds-between-seaches requirement.

There are numerous posts directed towards noobs telling them to "use the search", "search is your friend", etc, but the search function is fatally flawed.

I want to pull my hair out every time I try to do a search. No matter how carefully structured my one-search-per-minute (OSPM) is, once I look at the results, I think of a better search string to tailor the results for what I'm looking for. A 60 second delay between searches kills that thought process, and I often end up on another forum instead.

Waiting 60 seconds to do a search is not acceptable on any website, let alone a major, respected site like HardOCP. I'm suprised more people haven't complained.

(Maybe I should do a search and look for posts on the subject. Oh wait...I already did, but I misspelled "search" as "saerch" , and now I must wait 60 seconds!)

Awol
 
I agree, 20-30 seconds would make it a lot more useful... as-is, it's pretty darn hard to do a search for a specific thing without tossing your hair around the room :).
 
wasn't it 20 or 30 seconds back in the day when we helped pay for a system upgrade? (all those drives are surely paperwieghts by now.. but I'm just giving a time ref.)
 
How about "General Mayhem" subscribers get greatly reduced time for searches. That would be great.
 
Imagine 1000 something users performing a search every couple seconds, not only would it bog down the actual server but it'd bog it down so bad the rest of us would be crawling when we click on something.
 
2k2_zx2 said:
How about "General Mayhem" subscribers get greatly reduced time for searches. That would be great.
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That would be a nice perk to offer subscribers, but like Major said in this GenMay thread, it's a universal setting that cannot be changed for individual user groups. It is simply not an option in this version of vBulletin.

I imagine it could be done with some custom programming, but we are not going to be tweaking this version of vBulletin further, as the changes would be lost when we eventually upgrade. That will be down the road a bit, as Kyle's priority now is the revamping of OCP.

In short, it might be a consideration in the future, but don't hold your breath for now.
 
I dont know if anyone else has thought of this, but go to google.com.

Go to advanced, and under "search domain" type hardforum.com :D

Searches are much faster, and google wont make you wait 60 seconds. Although the latest greatest posts wont show up, most of them should be there.

hity645 said:
Imagine 1000 something users performing a search every couple seconds, not only would it bog down the actual server but it'd bog it down so bad the rest of us would be crawling when we click on something.
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That brings back bad hardforum surfing memories from years past :( . Click...20 seconds later... 30 seconds later...
 
The reasoning for the 60 second delay appears to be - "bad types" could create vast numbers of fake/bad/invalid searches, slowing down or crashing the servers. Sounds like a poorly designed or implemented forum to me....

However, setting a maximum number of searches per time period - rather than a minimum time period between searches - would minimize annoyance to regular users and also solve the "tons-o'-searches" attack problem.

For example: No more than three searches can be made in any 60-second period. If you try a 4th, you have to wait 60 seconds. Or, no more than 20 searches in a 5 minute period. If you do more than 20 searches, you have to wait 5 minutes.

This is similar to many pay newsgroup services. You have X gig per day at full speed. There is no download amount limit, but If you go over that threashold, your bandwidth is throttled to a slower speed. This allows casual downloaders to get a few gigs every now and then really quickly, but discourages hogs from sucking up bandwidth 24/7.

Sounds like a perfect solution to me. Lets all take a vote and raise a stink!! :)

Awol
 
Awol, please see my post above. The options suggested are not available in vBulletin, and we will not be tweaking the software further before the next major upgrade.
 
bob said:
I dont know if anyone else has thought of this, but go to google.com.

Go to advanced, and under "search domain" type hardforum.com :D

Searches are much faster, and google wont make you wait 60 seconds. Although the latest greatest posts wont show up, most of them should be there.
Click to expand...

/me points to his post 3 up.

 
Heh, you think that one's bad try this:

Sorry! The administrator has specified that users can only post one message every 33 seconds.

:(
*kicks forums, but not too hard*

Where do I sign up for my posters anon. membership card.

edit: WTF, 33 seconds? :confused:
OK, who was smoking the wacky tobacky? :p
 
IanG said:
It might not catch all the latests posts, but there's always Google's site search for older stuff.
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This would be sort of of like the local phone company saying "Don't use information (411) more than once per day. We DO have an offline index that you can reference instead. It's not as up to date, but you can use it all you want! We call it a phone book." Not an exact comparison, but close.

(Not intended as an insult to lanG. Just pointing out the flaw in HardForum)

Awol
 
I think you have been here long enough and have the posts to understand exactly why the controls that we have in place are there. All of the timeouts are designed to discourage the disruption of the forum by jamming the database with multiple queries over and above the normal usage. That is the simple answer and it's not going to change, sorry.
 
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