Messages

126

Official Announcements / Re: ZillaRank: An improved search for smf forum

« on: July 27, 2007, 07:30 PM »

And maybe search for "hole word" only as default:===> 'Fun'
With an hint to use asterisks ===> '*fun*'  for fuzzy search.
Or better an check box?

-AbteriX (July 27, 2007, 07:08 PM)

There's a serious problem with matching "whole word" only, normally you do NOT want to search with this option in that:

With "whole word" matching on, if someone searches "tool", it won't find "tools"; similarly, for "play", the search wont be able return "played", "playing", "player", etc. variants. In the end there will be many missing results and the user may end up having to revise search query many times.

Let's say I search for: free download manager, should a post that contains "freeware downloader manager" or "freebie downloading managers" match. With "whole word" matching on, the post will be excluded from results, unfortunately.

Able to use RegEx would be handy of course ==> '\bFun??'  ===> 'Fun' , 'funny',....

-AbteriX (July 27, 2007, 07:08 PM)

Yes, but it will hit v hard on the server and drive mouser mad 

127

DC Website Help and Extras / Re: Where are Nudones blog posts?

« on: July 27, 2007, 06:06 PM »

the only result I got was an older blog post from Nudone (about DialogXRsizer), but when I tried to follow the link, the page could not be found.

-alxwz (July 27, 2007, 05:50 PM)

Which post were u referring to? Do you still have the url to it? Thx!

128

Official Announcements / Re: ZillaRank: An improved search for smf forum

« on: July 27, 2007, 05:32 PM »

I suspect there's need for search within a single topic:

We have humongous topics here, like:

General brainstorming for Note-taking software
with 570 replies!

Latest FARR v2.00.135 ALPHA PREVIEW Release - July 17, 2007
with 783 replies!


You know when you do search, even when there are multiple posts matching your query within a topic, only the latest (yes, just one) matching post will be shown (quoted) on search results page:



(Only the latest matching post is quoted)

And as a matter of fact, there are two matching posts in that topic, and the second one (not shown in search results) might be more interesting:

https://www.donation...cal=1;search=allsnap


Now without search box support for searching within a single topic, you literally have to go through more than a dozen topic pages (if there are more than 200 replies) to find the rest of posts that also matched your query!


p.s. our new DC search (engine) supports single topic search straightforwardly, we are actually deciding on whether to add user interface for it. 

129

Official Announcements / Re: ZillaRank: An improved search for smf forum

« on: July 27, 2007, 05:05 PM »

I think a drop-down solution might be nice, with "prefer hits from this section", "only search this section" and "just search entire board, dammit!" choices...

-f0dder (July 05, 2007, 04:09 AM)

Yes!! Perhaps we need a dropdown box like that on SMF forums:



Our quick search dropdown box will have the following choices:

1. Community  (search entire Forum)
2. This board   (search within this board)
3. This topic    (search within this topic)
4. Help Desk    (search our help desk entries)
5. Members     (find a member)
6. Entire Site   (google site search)

What do you think? Any ideas? 

130

General Software Discussion / Re: KMPlayer and GOMPlayer

« on: July 27, 2007, 04:09 PM »

For me, best player + codec pack I ever used is K-Lite Codec Pack FULL version (which bundles Media Player Classic). Be sure you download the FULL version of the pack, which lets you play almost anything without having to looking around for codecs.

As for Media Player Classic, the player itself is lightweight, full-featured, and free (open source) -- just can't be happier with it.

131

Official Announcements / Re: ZillaRank: An improved search for smf forum

« on: July 27, 2007, 03:31 PM »

DC search got another update yesterday to improve unsatisfactory (IMO ) ranking algorithm.

Special Thanks to jgpaiva for reporting cases where topics were not ranked fairly and for helping us testing candidate scripts.

Among other optimizations, a few new content-based factors have been introduced to penalize/award matching topics individually to give more accurate (relative) relevancy.


For search query "donation", results generated by original SMF 1.1.3 search script:



And results generated by our working DC search:




Well, I'm sure there's is still plenty of room for search improvement -- I'm happy to look into problems to work out updates in the short time possible, if needed, anytime. So do not hesitate to post feedback/bug report here!! TIA 

132

Living Room / Re: reCaptcha: Stopping spam while digitizing books

« on: July 27, 2007, 01:58 PM »

I just gave it a try at: http://recaptcha.net/learnmore.html

In one case (among others) i was given the image that should read: relations ascrib, and when I intentionally entered: relati0n5 a5crib (by substituting o, s with 0, 5), it still passed.

That wasnt gonna give site owners anti-spam assurance was it? -- while the bot does not have exact idea how letters should read, neither does the verification!

Here's an idea: instead of giving out two captcha string challenges with indeterminate open sesames, it displays the first string with definite answer, followed by the second one with some uncertainty at the verification end -- whose purpose is to help to digitize books.

133

Living Room / Re: What do you think of this?

« on: July 27, 2007, 10:54 AM »

Cool! I played and loved a few of these little life suckers there.

For members here who like to share Flash Game of the Day with us, this site is a must.

And v nice mouse-over game descriptions too.

134

Living Room / Re: DonationCoder Mentioned on O'Reilly XML.com

« on: July 23, 2007, 09:00 AM »

Another 10,000 points for Zaine!

Zaine Ridling, who already has multiple membership in the DC Hall of Fame, is the author of this comprehensive Word Processor Roundup. Let's send him some credits to show our appreciation.

135

General Software Discussion / Re: Google Image labeler: google's way of indexing images' content

« on: July 23, 2007, 07:13 AM »

Here's a v interesting google video on Human Computation (don't know if it's the actual forerunner of image labelling):

http://video.google....-8246463980976635143

Luis von Ahn is an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University,  ... all » where he also received his Ph.D. in 2005. Previously, Luis obtained a B.S. in mathematics from Duke University in 2000. He is the recipient of a Microsoft Research Fellowship.

ABSTRACT Tasks like image recognition are trivial for humans, but continue to challenge even the most sophisticated computer programs. This talk introduces a paradigm for utilizing human processing power to solve problems that computers cannot yet solve. Traditional approaches to solving such problems focus on improving software. I advocate a novel approach: constructively channel human brainpower using computer games. For example, the ESP Game, described in this talk, is an enjoyable online game -- many people play over 40 hours a week -- and when people play, they help label images on the Web with descriptive keywords. These keywords can be used to significantly improve the accuracy of image search. People play the game not because they want to help, but because they enjoy it.

I describe other examples of "games with a purpose": Peekaboom, which helps determine the location of objects in images, and Verbosity, which collects common-sense knowledge. I also explain a general approach for constructing games with a purpose.

136

Official Announcements / Re: New Visitors to Our Forum - Please Read This First

« on: July 23, 2007, 03:56 AM »

당신들은 정말 훌륭한 프로그램을 많들었다...하지만 라이센스 키는 어디서 받는가

-sucky (July 23, 2007, 03:52 AM)

Translation: 

You field truth Manh listened to a fine program... but does this sense height receive from where

   

137

Living Room / Re: DC get together in Western Europe?! July 2007?

« on: July 22, 2007, 02:12 AM »

Orange dude... 

138

General Software Discussion / Re: GMail Drive in My Computer

« on: July 21, 2007, 11:53 PM »

GMail Drive is a Shell Namespace Extension that creates a virtual filesystem around your Google Gmail account, allowing you to use Gmail as a storage medium.

I know it's not a big deal and many ppl (imo) are using such tools, but there's still debate on its compliance with Google Gmail Program Use Policy.

One of the stated No-nos:

"Modify, adapt, translate, or reverse engineer any portion of the Gmail Service;
Reformat or frame any portion of the web pages that are part of the Gmail Service."

Some real risks of using it (IMO):

1. Google may block the program altogether someday.

2. Google may disable your account.

3. When Google makes changes to Gmail, the program may break and trap your files inside your gmail account (at least temporarily).

139

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: The Dot Net Preacher Show

« on: July 21, 2007, 09:45 AM »

"Code from scratch"? Huh? Can you speak English please? 

-Renegade (July 21, 2007, 09:30 AM)

No offense but I was asking:

Did you code it from scratch or modified a 3rd party script? If latter, typically the developers would appreciate a short "powered by" string at the bottom. I wasn't sure what system you use to run the site so...

Google "code it from scratch" if you do not think the phrase is grammatically sound or is *Martian* English. 


Anyway great show, keep up a good work! 

140

Announce Your Software/Service/Product / Re: The Dot Net Preacher Show

« on: July 21, 2007, 08:32 AM »

Hey nice site there, did u code it from scratch? 

141

Official Announcements / Re: ZillaRank: An improved search for smf forum

« on: July 21, 2007, 01:50 AM »

Very nice, too!

-cranioscopical (July 20, 2007, 09:20 AM)

TY!

Update: version string search support added.

Now we are able to search specific version of apps on the forum properly (the function used to return excessive noise in many cases).

examples:

2.00.108
smf 1.1

142

Official Announcements / Re: What changes would you like to see on DonationCoder.com in 2007?

« on: July 20, 2007, 06:06 AM »

From the connection I think I can understand what a "gri" is. But my dictionary had no idea - and I have no idea - why it is "gri".

-Curt (July 20, 2007, 06:03 AM)

Well I hate to bring this up but if you are curious, go to our SMF Forum Mods section and experience the full power of gri. 

143

Official Announcements / Re: What changes would you like to see on DonationCoder.com in 2007?

« on: July 20, 2007, 04:49 AM »

I would like View Profile to offer the search:
"View all posts written by this member",
result sorted by (time (: date) and) threads.

-Curt (March 10, 2007, 06:43 AM)

What if you click on "Show Posts" on the left of the profile page of the user?

144

Official Announcements / Re: ZillaRank: An improved search for smf forum

« on: July 20, 2007, 04:39 AM »

You can now sort by relevance or date from the search results page by clicking on columns.

Now we have added yet another sortable column: Replies. (number of total replies in the thread, could be an indicator of the popularity of that thread)

So now it's easy to sort results by relevance, reply count, or date, in either ascending or descending (default) order. To some users these functions can be particularly handy -- only on DC, you don't see these on other SMF forums!

I'd like to thank mouser here for his brilliant ideas. 

145

Official Announcements / Re: ZillaRank: An improved search for smf forum

« on: July 20, 2007, 03:43 AM »

Here's another suggestion: add "by:" filter, similar to google's "site:" filter, so that we can make a search which searches only the posts by someone without having to go to the advanced search

-jgpaiva (July 19, 2007, 05:00 PM)

Good idea, and shouldnt be v hard to implement. Lemme c what I can do. 

146

Official Announcements / Re: ZillaRank: An improved search for smf forum

« on: July 19, 2007, 07:57 PM »

Now i never google search to find stuff on DC, your work really has made wonders 

-jgpaiva (July 19, 2007, 06:19 AM)

Does that mean I have to fix SEO for DC as well? 

Yes let there be no misunderstanding -- it's gonna be my next project!

147

Official Announcements / Re: ZillaRank: An improved search for smf forum

« on: July 19, 2007, 05:30 AM »

ty mouser 

Our forum search got another update just now, changes:

1. Performance tweak to speed up queries that contain short keywords

Queries like fd-isr used to take approximately 10 seconds to return results, now 2-3 seconds.

At the moment it takes 2-3 seconds for DC search to return results (in most cases), and in the worst case (an insanely stupid query which only contains a bunch of 2 or 3-letter words, with intent to kill the server ) it should not have you wait for over 8 seconds.

2. Accepts url search parameter and is now fully compatible with DC search browser plugins

SMF search wasn't designed to receive search terms from URL so there were problems when, e.g., the user searched DC from browser search plugin with query that contained " quote or ' apostrophe ("it's worth it"). Now the problem is no more.

3. Direct search link

Every time you do DC search, at the bottom of each search results page you'll see "Static link for reproducing this search: here", which basically allows copying/pasting the url of the search query directly, without having to elaborate on the how-to -- "search xxx (after the semi-colon) here on DonationCoder, with quotes, blah blah...".

148

Living Room / Re: Internet Crashed!

« on: July 19, 2007, 04:56 AM »

ROFL

149

Official Announcements / Re: DC-IRLDD #2: DonationCoder Real Life Dinner+Drinks, Sat 7/14, Champaign Illinois

« on: July 14, 2007, 03:10 PM »

Who's who?

-Veign (July 14, 2007, 03:02 PM)

LOL!!! Who's looking more like an admin of a website rather than M16? 

150

Official Announcements / Re: ZillaRank: An improved search for smf forum

« on: July 12, 2007, 06:23 PM »

Forum search gets another update, which deals exclusively with relevance ranking (as I'm confident that previous updates already fixed missing results and excessive noise).

Currently the following factors are calculated to work out how relevant is a topic/post to your search query:

Original SMF Factors:

• Number of matching messages within a topic   (the more replies to a topic in which same keywords can be found, the more likely this topic is relevant)
• Age of last matching message   (we love latest news, how recent is this message?)
• Topic length   (number of replies in a topic. How interested are people in this discussion?)
• Matching subject   (bull's eye!)
• First message match   (sets the theme of the topic)
• Sticky topic   (moderator's "sponsored link")   (for now we are ignoring this factor)

Per-message Keyword Analysis:

Rarer keywords get higher points, cliched ones lower. And how concentrated are the keywords in a message? Suppose we just posted a super-lengthy newsletter on the forum, with truckloads of keywords -- there's a great chance that it'll match our query, however it shouldn't be well-ranked coz keywords are diluted.


Penalty for messages written with "Spartan brevity":

They get awarded for high keyword concentration but there won't be much to read. We don't like them.


Active board ranking heuristic:

Most likely you are more interested in relevant topics within the board you are currently browsing, as such we give "local" matching topics an edge over others to catch you eye.

First suggestion:
Ignore the "MOVED: " threads, since those are a repetition of the real thread.

-jgpaiva (July 04, 2007, 02:17 PM)

Hmmm I haven't added any routine to check for MOVED posts at this time because:

1. Not so many "MOVED: " threads out there, it's unlikely to be efficient to add this check for every matching topic
2. They get penalized for "not saying much"


I hope this update will help you get to your targets in the shortest time possible. 

I have no doubt there's still much to be done when it comes to relevance ranking. so...