Silk Road forums
Support => Feature requests => Topic started by: KeithLemon on August 20, 2013, 01:20 am
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I have some suggestions regarding the search functionality on the SR. At the moment it's not very useable, especially when there are a lot of results pulled back for a broad term e.g. "seeds".
1. Add a category filter drop-down in addition to the free text search box to help refine results.
2. Introduce ordering of search results by:
- Title
- Price (low / high & high /low)
- Vendor
3. New column for feedback which will illustrate something similar to the main item listings.
4. Improve search engine algorithm based on examples below:
- searching on "seeds" brings back this result for "Forged Social Security Card" due to the vendor listing all their items in the description. This is a irrelevant result and is potentially open to spam exploitation.
- searching on "berry skunk" doesn't return my Skunk Berry listings. The fuzzy search logic should be improved here to treat each search term keyword as a separate entity rather than looking for a full term match in sequence.
I hope you find my feedback valuable SR team.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSHH!!
;D
Thanks a lot
Mr K Lemon
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Yes. I would like to add one more thing:
- The ability to search for a product by the shipping location. The "domestic" -option is not enough for me, as there are some specific locations I don't want to order from, but otherwise international is fine.
Love to all!
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Search by country, please!
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1. Add a category filter drop-down in addition to the free text search box to help refine results.
While I see your point, it would probably be better to be able to pick multiple categories at once - especially if a couple of Vendors have listed their Products in the wrong category. The point of the search is to be able to do comparison, and that should be a core function built in from the start.
2. Introduce ordering of search results by:
- Title
- Price (low / high & high /low)
- Vendor
I see what's intended with this, however it would not work with the current System as a lot of Vendors have been forced to create their own Custom Systems which all differ from one another since Silk Road doesn't provide any code-based standardized System for them. Unless all Vendors have access to the same System and have priced their Products according to their wishes ( which is impossible in the Current System ) it is impossible to get accurate results from a search. One could of course attempt to refine the results regardless of this fact but I don't see how that would do any good.
3. New column for feedback which will illustrate something similar to the main item listings.
This is a bit problematic as almost all listings will feedback of 5/5, and even if it's just for feedback in general most of it will be of almost no use. I would personally suggest something to the effect that either Buyers or the Vendor could recommend and/or rate different Feedback so the "best" type is shown at the Top - ie. actual reviews of the product and/or the Service(s) provides.
4. Improve search engine algorithm based on examples below:
- searching on "seeds" brings back this result for "Forged Social Security Card" due to the vendor listing all their items in the description. This is a irrelevant result and is potentially open to spam exploitation.
- searching on "berry skunk" doesn't return my Skunk Berry listings. The fuzzy search logic should be improved here to treat each search term keyword as a separate entity rather than looking for a full term match in sequence.
This is currently beyond broken, unless one wants to find a very specific User or Product this is currently pretty much a useless feature. I can just agree with what you've said but considering how broken it currently is I don't see how it's fixable at all without a new system.
Yes. I would like to add one more thing:
- The ability to search for a product by the shipping location. The "domestic" -option is not enough for me, as there are some specific locations I don't want to order from, but otherwise international is fine.
Love to all!
This could easily be fixed if Filters were to be applied in searches, however the question is how far should one be allowed to describe the location? For example the US could be split into it's Federal States to be able to find closer Shipping Points, but how many Vendors would utilize something like this? My point is there's so many Vendors unwilling to provide even the most Basic of Information some filters would simply not work due to a Lack of Information. One has to be very careful when designing a search function so it's not a simple matter of those who aren't willing to answer will be filtered out, this would not be good at all if you ask me. Unless I'm reading too much into what you're saying and you simply would want to allow all countries except a few which you would want to exclude? :P
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All my answers/point are provided in the context of my thread Upgraded Listing Options: http://dkn255hz262ypmii.onion/index.php?topic=182090 which I think would solve most of the points presented in this thread.