tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Name User Search)

Emerton comments on "Name User Search" (9338)

Emerton — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 08:18:31 -0700

Dear Cam,

That has always been an incredibly irritating featuer of the user search interface!

Cam McLeman comments on "Name User Search" (9337)

Cam McLeman — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 06:23:17 -0700

I thought something similar, but if you type "BU" into the search bar, it's not that you get no results, it's that you get exactly one page of results (that does not include Bugs Bunny). I guess the algorithm is to put forth a minimal effort to find matches until the search parameter is more precise?

Regardless, the whole system is a little buggy. For example, if I search for "as" (a random 2-letter pair I thought for sure would have some results) reports back to me 2 pages of results, but clicking on the second page gives me the second page of *all* users, not a 2nd page of "as" results.

Ryan Budney comments on "Name User Search" (9330)

Ryan Budney — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:53:28 -0700

I think the algorithm is that if there's too many matches -- I'm a "bu" match, for example -- they aren't displayed. Matches only get displayed once the time it takes to put them on the screen is sufficiently small.

Bugs Bunny comments on "Name User Search" (9302)

Bugs Bunny — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 07:10:52 -0700

Thanks, I see it is a feauture: the user I was looking for is unregistered...

It is still strange that after BU one cannot see me but after BUG I am unique...

Ryan Budney comments on "Name User Search" (9301)

Ryan Budney — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 06:45:00 -0700

If the user has not registered, like Allen Hatcher for instance, the MO user search requires an exact name match, partials are insufficient. For registered users like Cam McLeman, partial matches like doing a search on "Cam" will work.

A sometimes more convienient way to do a user search would be to do a search on Google. For example, this Google search string finds Hatcher's user page quickly:

Hatcher site:http://mathoverflow.net/

Cam McLeman comments on "Name User Search" (9298)

Cam McLeman — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 04:17:58 -0700

Hm, works for me. Just type in Bugs and you're the unique result.

Bugs Bunny comments on "Name User Search" (9297)

Bugs Bunny — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 03:41:03 -0700

I don't think it is working properly. I could not find a user and then tried myself. I could not find mysefl either...

By search I mean clicking USERS and the going into TYPE TO FIND USERS...