Ordering of artists & works in search results

Dear Editors and contributors,

Following a request by walt to show the most relevant search results more prominently, Mathieu has tweaked the order in which artists and works are displayed: They are now ordered by the number of links to other database objects.

• Example: Searching for "Leonard" will give Leonard Cohen first. The lesser known artist Leonard is second because it is an exact match.

• Example: Searching for "Both" will display Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now first.

Looking forward to your feedback!

To: dany jojo snap07801 VirileVagabond ZZT djFLWB blues99man Wikke freakscener Bendysan JeffC Rodders200 DROSSELBOY 23skidoo Scousedave Mark_Heyrman Bassman83 Dola Oldiesmann dudek sebcat David King artsinspired mduval32323 JeffC Canary abbamatic Isa Nap Daniel hounddogman Limbabwe nikitoz555 SlimD camembert electrique DashBoardDJ856 CarlDennis microtherion Oliver One casb Will Moore Clee J Sylvain Guillou baggish

Last edit: 2023-08-30 09:20:54 UTC by Bastien

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Clee J

Junior Editor

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Great, I appreciate it.

Read... Seems like an improvement. How were they ordered before?

In my view, the biggest problem is that the "More Results" button doesn't list the next 20 returns.

Also tested, assuming I was looking for "One" by U2 or Nilsson. Seems like the exact matches should list first (in order of links), then the rest in order of links.

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Sorry, but the new order of results is user unfriendly and confusing plus looks very disorganized. VV's simple example 'one' (in songs) proves this - Theme from One Minute to Zero appears on top and songs by the one-word title, like all other 32 matches, are randomly spread all over the result page.

Exact matches should always appear first and subsequent matches ideally in alphabetical order - if searching for 'one night', results should show 'one night' on top, then "One Night Affair", followed by "One Night Alone" etc. Later (as more words) "One Night at a Time" et al., followed by matches not starting with "One Night" (like "One Summer Night", "If Only for One Night").

To stay with "One Night" in 'songs' (but also generally), it should be considered to skip the many matches only including one word of search phrases in the title and others, f. i., in artist names. Example:

One for My Baby (And One More for the Road) written by Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen

That would likely save quite some machine capacities and speed up searches.

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camembert electrique I'm afraid that this is likely a done deal. I didn't see any proposal for discussion and comment, so this likely was just a private proposal, the changes made, and then straight to an announcement. A bit torn on how I feel about that though. On the one hand we didn't waste a lot of time on making observations like ours that would only be ignored. On the other I'm denied my "told so you" moment. Oh well....

Anyway keeping with the original "Leonard" example, if I (or most anyone else) am looing for Leonard [Last Name] that's the name I will search. If I am just searching "Leonard", I'm looking for a single name artist (e.g. Madonna), one that's hard enough to find on site as is and that often doesn't have many internal attachments.

VV, my above post focussed on song searches (and turned out long enough).

But I agree, it's mysterious why artists won't show in a comprehensive alphabetical order.

Leonard A..., Leonard Bernstein etc. followed by Art Leonard, B... Leonard etc. and then artists using an alias including Leonard (like the current 2nd in the list, Leonard = Carlos Schenker).

I don't know how the previous order was, but it wasn't stringent, either.

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From my point of view it's good ordination.

Quote from camembert electrique

Sorry, but the new order of results is user unfriendly and confusing plus looks very disorganized. VV's simple example 'one' (in songs) proves this - Theme from One Minute to Zero appears on top and songs by the one-word title, like all other 32 matches, are randomly spread all over the result page.

It maybe looks disorganized, but it isn't. Songs called "One" or "The One" are followed by a few examples, so they are highlighted. The other longer titles are shown in order of numerical importance. I call that clever.

Quote from camembert electrique

But I agree, it's mysterious why artists won't show in a comprehensive alphabetical order.

Why would they be? this is not a dictionary, Erik. If you want a rather obscure artist, you would type his last name or his full name, No?

Try NICK, you will have Nick Cave, Nick Lowe and Nick Drake in the Top 5, which is excellent! In the past, I know for certain 2 out of these 3 would not show up on the first page.

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Quote from walt

It maybe looks disorganized, but it isn't.

I wouldn't have called it "disorganized" either, but it isn't optimally organized. At a minimum, the first batch of works listed should be those that match exactly the search (ordered by the number of attachments or covers), followed by what other works are returned (ordered by the number of attachments or covers).

Perhaps a middle group of works that match the search exactly, but ignoring (e.g.) an "A" or "The" for works that start with "A" and "The".

If feasible, we would even prefer works with a common alternate title/derivative name if that alternative/derivative exactly matches the search term.

Last edit: 2021-03-24 14:50:13 UTC by Tar Heel

Quote from walt

Quote from camembert electrique

But I agree, it's mysterious why artists won't show in a comprehensive alphabetical order.

Why would they be? this is not a dictionary, Erik. If you want a rather obscure artist, you would type his last name or his full name, No?

Agreed, so why try to avoid typing "Nick Cave" (see below)?

Anyway, that's not my issue. It' not uncommon that I stumble across a cover officially credited to "Veronica", "Suzanne", "Shannon". If I know the estimated release date, I can check under the work, but often it's not on site but how about the artist? I want and frankly need the top search results to start with artists who use "Suzanne" as their primary name or as an alias to start narrowing down my choices, get some possible full names for searching elsewhere, etc.

Try NICK, you will have Nick Cave, Nick Lowe and Nick Drake in the Top 5, which is excellent! In the past, I know for certain 2 out of these 3 would not show up on the first page.

We should not break or make the search function ineffective for other needs (as explained above) just because some editors can't be bothered to type "Nick Cave" et. seq. When I (and I assume others) am/are looking for a "Nick", we already know it's likely not Nick Cave nor Nick Lowe.

Quote from walt

Quote from camembert electrique

But I agree, it's mysterious why artists won't show in a comprehensive alphabetical order.

Why would they be? this is not a dictionary, Erik. If you want a rather obscure artist, you would type his last name or his full name, No? ... NICK...

A search may not be the same as a dictionairy, but serves a very similar purpose. So why not show results in an the same easily comprehensive way?

NICK is actually a good example for a non-alphabetical listing being unnecessarily arduous.

I intentionally wrote looks disorganized. But maybe 'appears disorderly' would have been an even better term...

Anyway, as VV rightly pointed out: "I'm afraid that this is likely a done deal. I didn't see any proposal for discussion and comment...". So the only choice left is having to get used to it.