Search Function At Lds.Org Is Tweaked For The Worse...

[cinepro]

I've been a pretty frequent user of the "search" function at LDS.org for many years, and I've recently noticed a pretty drastic change.

In the past, searching for any word or subject would return a mix of results showing Ensign articles, conference talks, and other resourced from the Church website (Bible Dictionary, "Study By Topic",etc.)

But now, whatever you search for, the first results are almost exclusively talks by apostles in General Conference.

While this can at times be helpful and appropriate, it can also make the search results almost entirely useless.

For example, in another thread the issue of the authorship for the first five books of the OT came up. I know that over the years, the Church has consistently taught that Moses wrote these books, and so I went to find some references.

But while in the past a search for "Moses Genesis" would have returned the articles and references wherein "Moses" and "Genesis" were both mentioned (and therefore most likely discussing Moses' relationship to the book of Genesis), now I get pages of talks where the speaker refers to a scripture from Genesis or the Book of Moses. Which is totally useless.

I tried about a dozen other searches and found similar results. Is this just me, or did something change?

Upon further experimentation, it looks like you have to get to the 6th or 7th page of search results before you start to find real articles on any particular topic.

Edited April 13, 2012 by cinepro

[Gillebre]

Just change the filter on the left of the screen as needed.

Edited April 13, 2012 by Gillebre

[Duncan]

I emailed the Church about when they are putting the GC talks on videos and it said everytime that the email wasn't sent so I kept re-sending it. Well heaven's to betsy murgatroyd!, now I am getting responses from the Church like every day!

[KevinG]

I have it on good authority the IT department in Salt Lake City is a false priesthood.

[Kenngo1969]

I have it on good authority the IT department in Salt Lake City is a false priesthood.

[THREADJACK ON]Reminds me of the first, and only, time Bro. Hugh Nibley was asked to say the invocation at commencement, when he uttered the phrase, "We're gathered here in the black robes of a false priesthood ..."[/THREADJACK OFF]

[cinepro]

Just change the filter on the left of the screen as needed.

That's part of the problem. Even if you filter for Church Magazines, you still get irrelevant conference talks as the first results (since the talks are published in the Ensign).

What they need to do is give the user an option to filter out conference talks.

[zielkee]

That's part of the problem. Even if you filter for Church Magazines, you still get irrelevant conference talks as the first results (since the talks are published in the Ensign).

What they need to do is give the user an option to filter out conference talks.

Have you noticed that google seems to have changed their search results? I hate it! It's like an utter whitewash....

[cinepro]

Have you noticed that google seems to have changed their search results? I hate it! It's like an utter whitewash....

Hadn't noticed any drastic changes in how Google presents search results. What are you seeing?

[zielkee]

So I was trying search terms related to predictions about lds church membership numbers in the future. I recall reading something like US News and World Report or Washington Post saying specifically that the church will be a leading global cultural influence in the next 20 years. I know it's out there. I am not too shabby at boolean logic and identifying search terms. All I can turn up is current news items; no historical hits at all. I have never seen this in the past. It's like the search results criteria used to match up search terms; now, google is trying to produce search results based on what I have been reading on various websites. I hate it! I first suspected this when I was specifically looking for information about homosexual child predators of the sort we studied in our education classes. (I was trying to make a point in a discussion.) I could find nothing about it on google. It is totally whitewashed.

[cinepro]

So I was trying search terms related to predictions about lds church membership numbers in the future. I recall reading something like US News and World Report or Washington Post saying specifically that the church will be a leading global cultural influence in the next 20 years. I know it's out there. I am not too shabby at boolean logic and identifying search terms. All I can turn up is current news items; no historical hits at all. I have never seen this in the past. It's like the search results criteria used to match up search terms; now, google is trying to produce search results based on what I have been reading on various websites. I hate it! I first suspected this when I was specifically looking for information about homosexual child predators of the sort we studied in our education classes. (I was trying to make a point in a discussion.) I could find nothing about it on google. It is totally whitewashed.

So you're saying that Google is intentionally hiding information about the LDS Church being a global cultural influence, and also information about homosexual child predators?

While I didn't find a specific article about the church being "a leading global cultural influence in the next 20 years", there seemed to be plenty of info on both topics. Certainly, the first results were very relevant, and the results in the first two pages were varied and informative.

Whatever changes Google might have made, I can't see how they're at all similar to what the Church website seems to have done.

[Log]

So you're saying that Google is intentionally hiding information ... about homosexual child predators?

There are people who intentionally game the search engines to introduce bias into the search results, and bury "unfavorable" stuff. Wikipedia does it as well.

[cinepro]

Update to add that it looks like I may have missed the column on the right-hand side of the screen which shows "Recommended Results" which are actually relevant to the search terms:

[CV75]

Upon further experimentation, it looks like you have to get to the 6th or 7th page of search results before you start to find real articles on any particular topic.

This is why I hope they keep the "classic" site up.

[CV75]

google is trying to produce search results based on what I have been reading on various websites. I hate it!

Google has used this approach for a few yaers--I remember reading artciles about it.

[CV75]

So you're saying that Google is intentionally hiding information about the LDS Church

I think it is more that Google intentionally uses visit history as a large part of its algorythm to bring up information for a particular user's computer. This would "hide" (rather, filter out) some recommendations unless the user changes the kinds of or specific sites he visits.

Edited April 14, 2012 by CV75

[CV75]

Update to add that it looks like I may have missed the column on the right-hand side of the screen which shows "Recommended Results" which are actually relevant to the search terms:

There is also an "All Content" drop-down on the lower left of the Advanced Search that can narrow down the sources

[cinepro]

There is also an "All Content" drop-down on the lower left of the Advanced Search that can narrow down the sources

It would still be helpful if there were a way to filter out results from Prophets and Apostles and limit it to articles published by scholars.

Edited April 14, 2012 by cinepro

[zielkee]

Whatever changes Google might have made, I can't see how they're at all similar to what the Church website seems to have done.

The similarity is the change itself and the dislike change engenders in some participants. Life happens I'm sure both institutions have rationals for doing things differently. Sometimes, the rationals might even be similar. And sometimes not.

[Bikeemikey]

It makes sense for the church site to automatically bias apostle/conference talks.

However, that is why additional filtering would be so helpful.

(null)

[LDS_RM]

It would still be helpful if there were a way to filter out results from Prophets and Apostles and limit it to articles published by scholars.

is there even "scholarly" content on LDS.org? I too, find the search feature cumbersome on lds.org

[LDS_RM]

would Google provide better results, I.e. "topic" site:lds.org

[zerinus]

I've been a pretty frequent user of the "search" function at LDS.org for many years, and I've recently noticed a pretty drastic change.

In the past, searching for any word or subject would return a mix of results showing Ensign articles, conference talks, and other resourced from the Church website (Bible Dictionary, "Study By Topic",etc.)

But now, whatever you search for, the first results are almost exclusively talks by apostles in General Conference.

While this can at times be helpful and appropriate, it can also make the search results almost entirely useless.

For example, in another thread the issue of the authorship for the first five books of the OT came up. I know that over the years, the Church has consistently taught that Moses wrote these books, and so I went to find some references.

But while in the past a search for "Moses Genesis" would have returned the articles and references wherein "Moses" and "Genesis" were both mentioned (and therefore most likely discussing Moses' relationship to the book of Genesis), now I get pages of talks where the speaker refers to a scripture from Genesis or the Book of Moses. Which is totally useless.

I tried about a dozen other searches and found similar results. Is this just me, or did something change?

Upon further experimentation, it looks like you have to get to the 6th or 7th page of search results before you start to find real articles on any particular topic.

If you go to the Advanced Search section, you can (supposedly) narrow things down a bit more. The most important key to doing a good search (in any search engine) is finding the best search terms to use. The LDS search engine, however, has bigger problems than you have noticed. It is broke, and doesn't do what it claims to do. I went to the Advanced Search, and used the search terms "Moses books" in the search field that says, "All of these words," which means that it should find all content that contains both words, "moses" and "books". The article that came up at the very top of the search result was "Willing and Worthy to Serve" by Thomas S Monson from the last April Conference which contains the word "Moses," but not the word "books". That means that the search is not doing what it says it is supposed to be doing. It has been tweaked to put the latest conference talk by the Prophet at the top of the search results no matter what you are searching for! That is dishonest, as well as signifying a broken search engine. My motto is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". The old LDS website was excellent. There was no need to replace it with the new one. I have expressed my disappointment with the new scripture site, and especially the scripture search engine, on this board several times. This is just another nail in the coffin of the new site, especially their search engines. Sorry to be so blunt, but the new site (and especially their search engines) are good for flushing down the toilet. The Church is supposed to be getting better all the time, not worse. Their website and search engines seems to be getting worse by the day.

Edited April 15, 2012 by zerinus

[David T]

I like it for finding things in the Joseph Smith Papers, like searching for "thing of nature" correctly directs me to the manuscript revelations at the JSPP.

Although admittedly, I needed to place it in "quotes". Otherwise, just searching for thing of nature brought up a bunch of April 2012 conference talks. This appears to be a brand new problem. Not cool.