Where has Advanced Search gone?

[BIWI]

This is a really useful feature - please don't tell me you've taken it away?!

The old Advanced Search was not to everyone's taste but you could always make it do what you wanted. Please use it as a specification.

Very much agree.

I don't understand what why you would take away what was a really useful feature. It's not improved or even broken, it's gone.

Oh bloody hell just tried it to find posts by someone I know has been on here for over 10 years and there's hardly anything come up. And when I find one and click on it to read it and then try and navigate back to the list it brought up, it takes me back to the search function and I have to input the name again. And also there are boxes with lots of random names that are from years ago and I'm not sure why they are there - they're not even similar to the name I inputted. I'm not sure I'm explaining myself well but it's all so confusing and basically disfunctional!

This is my experience too - it doesn't make sense and can't find my own posts or a poster's history.

This is my experience too - it doesn't make sense and can't find my own posts or a poster's history.

I did the same with the same result. The search function on here now is essentially useless. I wonder did they intentionally do away with the ability to search specific posters or posts?

Advanced search is a useful tool in troll hunting and maybe that's exactly why HQ want it gone?

But at the same time Advanced search is a useful tool for people wanting to look up their own posting history or things that are/were of interest to them.

Speaking for myself I never bother with troll hunting (too old, cynical and jaded to be bothered), so the loss of Advanced search is frustrating!

Yes, I think this may be a deal breaker for me as well. I want to find a post where someone made a specific recommendation to me and I can't even find my own posts. Not being able to see my own (and other's) posting history is not going to work for me.

Yes, are you actually going to try and fix this @MNHQ?

Yeah the search function no longer functions at all

1. I can't search by title only

2. I can't find specific posts

3. if I try and search by poster I get a weird list of old timers as suggestions with tick boxes by their names? What's that about?

And while I'm at it, wtf have you done to the way images upload? They get stretched out so they're all thin and long now?!

I've just tried it to find a thread I started around 10 years ago under an old name as if it was 10 years ago I want to post an anniversary thread...

First I got a load of results of threads that have been long deleted as they were on boards that auto-delete after X time.

And when I tried to adjust parameters it just conked out and froze.

I’m struggling to search by date with the slider, its really hard to slide it to a specific date as it jumps around quite a lot when you move it. Trying to search for threads in the last 3 days or the last week etc isn’t possible - the slider kept jumping from 21/04/22 to 14/04/22, I didn’t seem able to slide it precisely. Can there be an option to manually type in the dates wanted.

The search function is basically useless.

Even if/when you fix the slider back to searchable dates, including today and yesterday, it will be still an effectively useless search function. If you click on one of the few (or at other times the many, irrelevant) threads it picks up in response to your search and then go back to it, all your search refining terms are gone and you have to start again. It is, therefore, more than the old random search it replaced, and minus all the uses of AS.

*sorry, more useless than the old random search

The search upgrade is not fit for purpose. This general search is infantilising sophisticated and super users who are used to applying specific filters and search strategies to conduct targeted searches.

The true sign of a useless search function is when people start to use google as a workaround to search outside the site itself, as one poster said she did.

Pls bring back Advanced Search.

I'm really not enjoying this site since the so called upgrade, the loss of Advanced Search renders mumsnet pretty pointless to me now and the fact no one from HQ is even acknowledging our complaints is really frustrating.

They do acknowledge compliments, praise, and flowers, I've noticed!

It was a brave try, but the new search is shit.

Echoing others. It's useless.

Funny that!

This place has definitely got quieter since the change. There is a reason for that.

Search has always been awful. In fact it was the one thing I thought MNHQ couldn't make any worse... turns out I was wrong.

Another one who would like the advanced search back. The new search isn't fit for purpose.

finding a particular post isn't currently possible. That's something we can look at improving.

But it used to be possible on the old site 🤷🏻‍♀️

How do you 'improve' a site & take functionality away?

How do you 'improve' a site & take functionality away?

Yes, they still don't have a grip on comms do they? Pretending that the "new improved" search is what they wanted suggests either they wanted search to be unusable or they haven't grasped the basics of when you fuck up the best policy is to fess up and proactively communicate about the fixes.

Telling customers that the fixes they need to use basic functions are "enhancements" is just treating users like idiots. It says a lot about either the attitudes in HQ or the experience of implementing anything. Or both.

New search function is awful - and the sliders are particularly useless (trying to search on my phone). I faffed around trying to find something and whole thing just froze. The old Advanced Search was super easy to use.

Well, one way to detract from how much trolling there is on here is to purposely make the search function shitter...