To think that the mumsnet "advanced" search is shit?

[Illgetmycoat]

You select a subject and then a completely random list of posts come up. Some dating back to 1542. What the heck?

Why don't you narrow down the time frame?

Why don't they put the most recent posts first?

I've never had a problem with it, you need to narrow down your search criteria.

It would be nice if the results could be sorted in different ways, including date.

You shouldn't have to! It would only take a click of the button from the web people to sort it out. Chronological order please, mumsnet techies! Apple would have sunk to nothing with this lassez faire approach.

YANBU. I hate it.

I want to read all my own posts.

In date order.

I want to copy and paste to make a timeline diary for my pregnancy, but more importantly, post birth... I've posted most days about my baby's life, and I want to get all those posts together for nostalgic reasons, but also for medical reasons!

It's fucking impossible.

It won't let you see more than 500 posts anyway.

Yeah, it's the sheer number of ante-natal threads which gets me down, you have to spend half an hour scrolling past endless lists of due dates (have nothing against these threads by the way, except when they clog up my search!).

It's alphabetical order by topic, followed by alphabetical order within topic.

Mumsnet is shit in general lately.

That would be great if we could all get together and organise ourselves alphabetically(!)

I want to know what the latest opinion on mumsnet is, not the alphabetical order of opinions.

A little question.

Are you paying for mumsnet?

"I want to know what the latest opinion on mumsnet is, not the alphabetical order of opinions."

There's a handy 'from' 'to' section, where you can specify a date range.

So, if you want to know what the general opinion is of, say, fake tan this month, put 'From' 01/07/13 and 'To' 03/07/13.

Not hard.

If you'd really like it to be exactly as you want, why don't you pop off, create and pay for a forum, then convince thousands of people to use it?

make your own fecking forum. Or just learn to use the search properly. Or sod off to site stuff and have a whine there.
Take your pick.

With respect. If I ever felt the need to do an advanced search OTHER than to find a specific thread I'd followed... I'd probably accept my DH's argument that I spend too much time on here.

It's good enough I think.

If you want to know the 'latest opinion' on Mumsnet, you're a shite journalist or are lacking in your own thought, with respect (yes I mean to be blunt, but I don't wish to be rude).

Are you the person that hates everyone at cash machines because well, they're just SELFISH?

Hmm.

Mumsnet is free. It will not do all the hard work for you, hey... try a library, you'll lose even more time in there.

YABU. Google might be your friend.

I use advanced search a lot. If I want to know something, I like to see lots of views quickly. Rather than start a thread, I search for past threads which discuss the topic.

I know about the date range option . I build websites FFS.

The point I am making is that even within the date range, the posts are not chronologically ordered, which makes it hard to find stuff.

I know mumsnet is free. So were Bebo and Myspace. Constructive criticism is GOOD for sites like this.

I love mumsnet, but it doesn't mean it's perfect.

Yanbu.

A poster started a thread in chat saying she bougt a dress, but had to take it back as it was so expensive. Said dress is now in the sale!! I looked for a week trying to find the thread and tell her!!

Constructive criticism isn't starting a thread in AIBU saying 'the mumsnet advanced search is shit'.

Constructive criticism is starting a thread in Site Stuff asking for a modification of the Advanced Search function, or better still, emailing MNHQ at [email protected].

There was nothing constructive about your criticism. It was just criticism.

I only use advanced search to stalk a posters history if their thread seems a bit weird. It always works for me.

I could have put the thread there Lougle and it would have had a lonely life. I wanted to see if other mumsnetters agreed. That's what AIBU is for.

The title is just a starter to debate. If you actually read my posts, you'll see my point about chronology IS constructive.

A chronological order would be really helpful. I think I read that it's on the list.

However you should have put this in Site Stuff if you want MNHQ to take it seriously.

I would also like an exact quotation search. Currently it has something built in which means, for example, searching for "surf" will also bring up "surfed" "surfs" and "surfing". Sometimes that's helpful, other times it really isn't - I can't remember an example now but I've searched for something once where the slightly different version of a word was a film title or something and it brought up loads of irrelevant results without a way to filter them.

I've always had replies to my threads in Site Stuff. And you can gain the opinion of other posters in there too. (Just try asking for a "like" button in there and watch everyone explode in rage )

Just a small point - mumsnet is free in that we don't pay cash for it - but there are a lot of ads/promotions - you are paying by being advertised to, it is not a charity!

YABU its great unless its broken.

Have to say the I had not noticed the order of the results. Sort by date could be useful at times but I expect it depends what you are looking for.

"you are paying by being advertised to, it is not a charity!"

No you're not Advertisers are paying to advertise. You just accept that you see adverts if you want free access. Just like we pay for BBC services through the licence, but if you want access to ITV et al., you accept that you will see adverts.

If you're unhappy with the search function, use google advanced search to search mumsnet.