Search the Community

Greetings DCW! I've noticed in my time here, that there is a severe lack of understanding of when or how to use the search function or any other search. So I'm going to give a run through of the different aspects. FIRST! When to use search? Well, the first thing you should always do when starting a topic is check the thread reference guide that Chekhov MacGuffin created! That is a great resource for finding old threads on a variety of topics in relation to Detective Conan. But let's say that you cannot find something similar to the topic you want to create or you are making a topic not in Detective Conan forums (like Chatroom or elsewhere). It is at this point you should always use search. There might already be a topic for what you are creating, or your questions might have already been answered. Where to find search bar (And other searches): Regular search and advanced search act exactly the same way. Advanced allows you to use tags and other parameters, if you know them. Like Date range, Author, and tags. You can also search based on number of posts and number of views. And be aware that the search bar is always there, no matter what (It is the nice thing about IP Boards). On top of that, it will search the specific forum you are in. (So if you are in "General" under Detective Conan. It will only search that forum, unless you select otherwise). And it even goes further than that, being able to search specific threads. (Which is great if you want to find something you know someone wrote in a long thread.) Type of searches (And how to use them): Now there are THREE ways to search this website. The first is the one everyone always tries (if they choose to use search), and subsequently becomes frustrated with. This is known as keyword searching. What does that mean? Well first it means that you can't use words under 4 letters long. This is due to the fact that many 3 letter words and under are too broad or unspecific enough to make the search effective! What it does is this... It will take the words and search all of the words in the forum posts. Trying to find threads in which the words occur. Example: Say like you were looking for Shinichi vs Heiji. If you search that. It will search for the words Shinichi and Heiji. It will disregard the word "vs" So here is a basic search. (I used advanced to show it) Here is the results. Please note how "vs" was completely disregarded, And here is how it actually searches. Notice how the words are NOT in tandem. It finds, in threads, the words. It does not however search thread titles. So that is how that search works! And how to use it. Because of how it is designed, it will give you the most results, but be the least accurate. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The second is what is known as phrase search. What this is, is a search of a specific phrase. So it completely disregards the under 4 letter rule. To use it is very simple. You enclose the search terms in quotes! And here are the results. Notice that only one result shows. Because it is the only thread with that specific string of words. And that does it for the site specific searching. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, I know I said there were three, but it is really more like three and a half. The last one is GOOGLE! You can use Google to search the contents of ANY site in the same two ways as above. Use it if you don't like the site search or just trust Google more. The way it works is that you type into google site:detectiveconanworld.com/forum/ [search query] (Consequently you can also use this to search the wiki too, just use the right site search.) Both the types described above can be used. But because it is using Google's algorithms, the results are a bit different. So here is just a quick example using the same search terms I've been using. Now there is a benefit to using Google over the site's... Google's search is a bit more flexible, and thus it doesn't have any requirements like "No words under four characters" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So I implore everyone to use all the resources available before creating a new thread, or claiming something wasn't available when it was. And I hope this is useful to everyone.