Poor search on FaithLife

I'll mention this again as it is really a problem, I think. Are there way of searching on Faithlife to find groups quickly?

When I enter information in the search field, no matter how specific, I always get a large number of hits and the one I want is lost in the list, mostly it appears near the bottom. The search seems to be word by word with any hit of any of the words displayed. And it seems to give the oldest ones first. So the big list of churches that were entered at the beginning are always first even though most do not have members. If I make an open group and tell my church to look for such and such a name to join - I think most will give up before they find it. This should be made better. Logos is the expert on searches - so why is this so bad?

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Comments

Michael A. Lasley

I tried enclosing in quotes, but this does not work. In fact, it lost valid matches. For example, "MBC Men" does not find MBC Men's Small Group... but "MBC Fol" does find it. I will not publish a request to join Faithlife to my church unless this is at least a little better or someone can tell me how to tell people a good way to find the groups.

Michael A. Lasley

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/463445#Comment_463445

I type the entire full name of my group in the search field and I get exactly 100 possible hits and the one I want is number 98. And if I put quotes around the whole name, it makes no difference.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/463448#Comment_463448

Michael ... meet David: http://community.logos.com/forums/t/60854.aspx

I myself always wonder what the programmers do in their spare time.

Rich DeRuiter

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/463448#Comment_463448

I type the entire full name of my group in the search field and I get exactly 100 possible hits and the one I want is number 98. And if I put quotes around the whole name, it makes no difference.

I don't have much experience searching for groups in Faithlife, but after playing around with it a bit, it seems that more search terms result in more results. This seems counter-intuitive, as compared to other search engines.

You might try narrowing your search by looking for one unique, or non-standard sort of word. For example, I get fewer results looking for "Alger" than I do looking for "Alger Christian Reformed Church." As you observe, using quotes makes no difference.

I agree that the search algorithms are horribly flawed - as compared to how other search engines work.

BTW, I was surprised to find a group for my church, which I did not create and has no members, and another for a church that no longer exists (Alger Assembly of God). Not related to your question, but interesting.

Richard Kiene

We just rolled out a giant improvement to how searching works in Faithlife.com. Please give it a try and let me know how it works for you!

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/468999#Comment_468999

We just rolled out a giant improvement to how searching works in Faithlife.com. Please give it a try and let me know how it works for you!

Thanks Richard for improving Faithlife! It's good to see the progress.

I gave some quick impressions in replies to your faithlife post. If you tell us more about the improvements, we surely can comment in a more focused manner...

David Brady

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/468999#Comment_468999

I'm not seeing a way to search for members. The only thing I'm seeing in search is Church, General, Presentation or Author.

NB.Mick

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/469140#Comment_469140

I'm not seeing a way to search for members. The only thing I'm seeing in search is Church, General, Presentation or Author.

It's the same search - try e.g. "Perera" and member Rosie will be among the first hits.

Michael A. Lasley

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/469146#Comment_469146

Yes, it is definitely much better. I still get about 100 hits and if any of the words match it accepts, and does not make any difference if I enclose in quotes. However, after I type the first 2 words of the name, it brings the one I want to the top, not the bottom of the 100 as before. This is acceptable to use.

I would still like it to recognize the order of words and to recognize quotes so that the list of hits was shortened. But bringing the one I want to the top helps immensely. Based on the 100 hits, I'm not sure how you got the ones I want to the top. Is the result sorted by members? Or some other sort of the results?

Jane Willeman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/468999#Comment_468999

Since I see you are in development of FaithLife, I just have to ask you my question. Why all of a sudden after an update on my iPad did the community note function cease to work. I can no longer post community notes? In fact I am not getting any notes to read. Was really enjoying the communication we had in the "Connecting the Testaments" The only communication I get now is on the My Faithlife window. ???????????????????????????????

Thomas Beirne

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/483739#Comment_483739

Jane: my sincere apologies on the slow response on community note difficulties! A couple of questions:

Which platforms (iPad FSB app, iPhone FSB app, Bible.faithlife.com, Logos 5, etc) are you currently unable to post community notes on?
How does the software behave when it fails? e.g. does it fail to load the community notes view entirely, display an error message, look like it works but fail to actually save the note, etc?
Which platforms are you not seeing your notes inline in the text?