tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (How to search comments)

Kevin Lin comments on "How to search comments" (4721)

2010-04-12T01:08:41-07:00

If one doesn't care for points, one could for example make all of one's answers community wiki.

Andy Putman comments on "How to search comments" (4710)

2010-04-11T19:48:56-07:00

+1 to Tom's request!

Emerton comments on "How to search comments" (4709)

2010-04-11T18:27:53-07:00

A side remark regarding Brian Conrad's decision to post only comments:

As he explained this to me, his motivations are (a) primarily, using the comment box forces him to be curt, because of the word limit, and so he doesn't end up spending large amounts of time on the site (some of his early answers were mini-treatises, and I think he wants to avoid the temptation to write them, because of the time they take); (b) as a secondary consideration, he finds reputation silly, and is happy not to be involved in that aspect of the site.

Tom Leinster comments on "How to search comments" (4708)

2010-04-11T18:00:54-07:00

OK, thanks for the answer, Gerhard. I kind of want to persuade you not to do it. If everyone did it then there'd be a significant amount of crud filling up the MO pages. (I say "crud" because the information's already there -- questions/answers/comments already bear the author's name.) Fortunately it's only you who does it.

grp comments on "How to search comments" (4707)

2010-04-11T17:38:39-07:00

To Tom: That is one of the reasons, yes. If Google is going to invade everyone's internet doings by cataloguing them, then I might as well have it work for me. And at the same time, why shouldn't search on MathOverflow work in a similar way for me? (And for others as well.)

Brownie points to you if you can guess two other reasons why I include my name in most of my postings.

Gerhard "Ask Me About System Design" Paseman, 2010.04.11

Mariano comments on "How to search comments" (4706)

2010-04-11T16:07:26-07:00

Thanks, Unknown G, for the link.

What odd motivation...

Harry Gindi comments on "How to search comments" (4702)

2010-04-11T14:00:09-07:00

It's often very hard to find even your own comments once they've gone off the "recent" list.

Unknown G. comments on "How to search comments" (4701)

2010-04-11T13:00:53-07:00

@Qiaochu: Here it is, in the comments to the answer in http://mathoverflow.net/questions/20925/finite-generation-of-the-mordell-weil-group-over-finitely-generated-fields/20928#20928

Mariano comments on "How to search comments" (4700)

2010-04-11T12:15:31-07:00

@Qiaochu: That's really too bad! It's really bad that some of the best thought-out content be confined to the little print... Maybe instead of filing requests for enhancements on the software we should see what the motivation behind such a resolution is and try to work out a more valuable solution: technological solutions only resolve technological problems.

Qiaochu Yuan comments on "How to search comments" (4699)

2010-04-11T11:56:46-07:00

@Francois: Yes, he did - unfortunately, I can't find it. All the more reason to enable searching! I've posted a meta.SE request at http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5343/allow-searching-of-comments.

Anton Geraschenko comments on "How to search comments" (4696)

2010-04-11T10:01:22-07:00

The search provide by MO doesn't search comments. I think comments should be searchable (either by default or by a ninja search option), but they're not right now (see this meta.SO post) and I can't tell if they're planning on it. Perhaps somebody should post a feature request on meta.SE.

One workaround is to search the comments table in the database dump, but that's a bit of a pain and only works for comments you left before the last dump (which is the case here). Another workaround is to use google. The following search seems to do the trick just fine: site:mathoverflow.net "Paseman, 2010.03.23". If you hadn't added the extra signature, google would still work just fine with a search like site:mathoverflow.net "density of deficient numbers"

Tom Leinster comments on "How to search comments" (4695)

2010-04-11T09:05:24-07:00

Gerhard, is that the reason why you (unlike everyone else) put your name inside every comment, answer etc?

grp comments on "How to search comments" (4694)

2010-04-10T23:35:23-07:00

In my situation, almost every comment or answer I submit contains my name. So I expect a search on my name to turn up a list of such comments. At least, that's what I want.

Gerhard "Ask Me About System Design" Paseman, 2010.04.10

François G. Dorais comments on "How to search comments" (4693)

2010-04-10T23:14:52-07:00

Qiaochu, Did Brian Conrad announce this resolution in a comment or is that an observation of yours?

Qiaochu Yuan comments on "How to search comments" (4692)

2010-04-10T23:02:08-07:00

I don't know that that constitutes proof that comments can't be searched; searches don't seem to incorporate the usernames of either the askers, answerers, or commenters on a particular question. But if the body of comments isn't being searched then this seems like a good idea, especially in light of, for example, Brian Conrad's resolution to only answer questions in comments! There isn't a request of this form currently on meta.SE.

grp comments on "How to search comments" (4690)

2010-04-10T22:40:39-07:00

I want the search on the front page to search the text of comments as well, or have the help for search tell me how to include comments in the search. It seems not to work: searching for abundant gets a question on abundant numbers answered by Michael Lugo, while searching by my name does not bring up this question, in spite of the many comments I left.

Gerhard "Ask Me About System Design" Paseman, 2010.04.10